Good Hair (2009)

Okay, this movie was interesting. I didn't love it, but it did address some pretty big issues: like privilege, racism, capitalism, and gender identity. As you may know, Chris Rock is a pretty hilarious fellow. I laugh at most of his jokes. He made this movie [that barely played anywhere, by the way] about what "good hair" is. Mostly, this means "white-looking" hair. Racism is everywhere, unfortunately. Chris explores what it means for black women to relax their hair with mysterious relaxer, and how this relates to race and gender identity. This is really interesting. About 50% of the movie interviews celebrities and non-celebrities about why they do their hair the way they do.

Then, I got a little bored. The other half is dedicated to hairdressing competitions that take place in Atlanta. This part is not really interesting for me.

Then, I got perturbed. The latter part of the interviews centered around The Weave and just how much money some women and men spend on having fake hair [usually imported from India]. So now we are dealing with race, gender, and America's and 2/3's world countries' socio-ecomonics. Anyway, the problem for me was the movie's framing of the weave issue. It was all "Ugh, women are so capitalistic. They shop so much! They spend 1000s of dollars on their weaves. They date men so that they will pay for their hair." Problems!

All in all, this movie was pretty important and worth it. Ahem, did I mention that it features a modern-day Salt 'N' Pepa??!?!?!?!?
3/5 pizzas