Good Hair
Good Hair
PG-13 | 09 October 2009 (USA)
Good Hair Trailers

An exposé of comic proportions that only Chris Rock could pull off, GOOD HAIR visits beauty salons and hairstyling battles, scientific laboratories and Indian temples to explore the way hairstyles impact the activities, pocketbooks, sexual relationships, and self-esteem of the black community.

Reviews
Ensofter Overrated and overhyped
Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
Kristine So I saw the trailer for Good Hair a while back and really did want to see it. The trailer was funny and this looked like a good documentary, I love documentaries that take a good look at our society and how we behave towards something. But since Good Hair had a limited release, I never got to see the movie in the theater. But my boyfriend and I rented Good Hair a couple days ago and watched it of course, it honestly disappointed me. While I thought the documentary was such a good idea, I hated that it was done by Chris Rock. I don't mind Chris Rock, but he has got to stop with the white jokes, seriously. It seemed like this movie was almost set to just hate white people the way he was talking, not all white people have perfect hair as he was describing. He has this scene at the end where he's talking to black men in a barber shop and saying how they cannot touch their girlfriend's weave, then they would rather "make love" to a white woman because you can touch whatever and it lost me there, it was so uncomfortable.Chris Rock and Jeff Stilson have made a short story/documentary into a full-length film in this witty documentary with serious undertones. Rock says he was inspired to make the film when his young daughter asked him, "Daddy, how come I don't have good hair?" and he and Stilson examine black America's obsession with their hair as they visit the Bronner Brothers International Hair Show, an annual trade show for the African-American hair care industry which includes fierce competitions among stylists from around the country and demonstrations of new hair products and techniques. Along the way, Rock also talks to a number of African-American luminaries about their hair issues (including Maya Angelou, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Nia Long, Raven Symone, Ice-T, and Paul Mooney), researches the dangers of many common hair-straightening treatments, reveals the surprising expense of regular hair "relaxing" and weaves, and ponders what the pursuit of straight hair says about African-American cultural identity.I really wanted to love this movie, I thought the idea was a really good one as we are a society obsessed with looks and always trying to be perfect. I just wish that they wouldn't joke so much about race, if it's one or two jokes, I can take it, but when it's almost the entire feature, it looses me. Also I think the way it was put together wasn't exactly correct either, we're going back and forth between stories that I lost interest in. I cannot recommend this documentary honestly, I know that I should lighten up, this is Chris Rock, but I consider myself very liberal. This was just too much and was handled very inappropriately.1/10
Greg Yolen Apart from being raucously funny from first line to last, Rock's film is a document of worth – at least for an ignorant cracker like me. The well chosen and well-edited talking heads that make up the film debate forthrightly the merits of painful chemical hair relaxants (a vaunted tradition,) and human hair weaves (a staggeringly expensive habit,) and why such excesses are so deeply ingrained in African American culture. Is it just common sense to cover up nappy roots? Maybe such extreme measures are an outgrowth of a minority self-image crisis in a primarily Caucasian country? Or, maybe, in spite of the questionable causes of seeking out "good hair," it simply isn't worth f***ing with a woman who wants to look her best. (This is the side that Mister Ice-T takes, in his infinite, smutty wisdom…) In discussion, Rock handles his subject alternately with reverence and irreverence, and his film comes away with few concrete conclusions; though it works like Michael Moore's muckracking at its funniest, this isn't any sort of agitprop. The tone is playful and provocative, and though the topic runs a little low on steam around the hour mark, that only means that Rock has to fill the last portion of his film with the finals competition of the Bronner Brothers International Hair Show, a display every bit as absurd as the climax of ZOOLANDER, but all the more hilarious for its, you know, actual, objective reality.READ THE REST OF MY REVIEW (AND MORE) AT STEVENSPIELBLOG.COM ...-Greg
foxface I enjoyed the movie Good Hair, because I felt it raised all of the issues regarding the African-American community and the thought process behind "good hair". This movie wasn't a preachy movie and introduced many concepts in a very subtle way ( the psyche of good hair, media images of black hair and acceptance/rejection of black hair in its natural state (the scene with high school girls, who tell the one girl with natural hair, she wouldn't be hired for a job and that she didn't look "together" was jarring.I felt the film did a good job of covering who controls the economics behind black hair (hardly any blacks, mainly whites and Asians) and the staggering amount of revenue ($9 billion annually) in the industry, generated by people who own less than a percent of the industry. The film looked at everyday people who get weaves, and pay serious money (the lay-away plan was sad, funny, and ingenious at the same time) and the reason they feel weaves are necessary. Calling relaxers "creamy crack"was funny and alarming at the same time. The health risks, the thought of lye and the discussion of scalp burns was right on target. The message regarding the impact of celebrity in our culture is so deep, that every day women will spend beyond their means to look like a Beyonce or Rhianna, though they don't have either of these women's financial means. The idea that straight "white" looking hair is equated with beauty and self worth was a undercurrent theme in this movie.The male point of view is represented by the rich and famous (Andre Harrell, Paul Mooney) and the barbershop. No matter what a black man's economic status is, they all were catching the same type of hell regarding not being able to touch a woman's weaved head. Rev. Al Sharpton was the exception to this dilemma, but didn't mention the limitations of having relaxed hair. Yet he did point out hair shouldn't sabotage a black woman's economic situation, but often does. Money spent on a weave could be spend on education or a 401K plan instead. Black men also feel the economic pinch the weave provides, because they often have to provide money for weave upkeep and to keep their relationship.The limitations of having a weave (no swimming, no touching the hair, can also be examined in the movie "Something New" which is also an examination of the weave culture in addition to interracial relationships between black women and white men. The question was posed do some black men deal with white women exclusively, because they can go swimming, and have their hair touched, opened up another can of worms. This movie can't explore all of the psyche behind the phrase "good hair" but does a good job of opening up the conversation.One thing the movie does is make the audience look at the children who looked too young to be putting chemicals in their tender scalps,and who seemed to be indoctrinated with the message that their hair needed to be straight in order for them to be considered pretty. That was just sad, because the people sending them those messages were their own mothers,grandmothers, and society at large. As a black woman with relaxed hair, I really have to think about the ideology, society, and the culture that has influenced the choice I've made regarding the hair choice I am making. These women are making a choice, but if they knew of the insidious nature that feeds the beast, would they or I consider a different reality, which is our natural hair?
KineticSeoul "Good Hair" is a documentary comedy that is produced and hosted by Chris Rock. Okay so the whole documentary is basically about black girls and women wanting straight and wavy hair since just about every black people have really curly hair. I think I found this documentary more interesting compared to people that don't have curly hair, because I have a slight curly hair myself and it really bugs the heck out of me, I can only imagine what black people that want straight hair must go through. But straight hair is not the only premise of this movie, it also shows the value of straight hair and how it can be a lucrative business. It also shows many hairstylist that cut black people's hair go into competitions and stuff, which doesn't really add to the documentary but doesn't take anything away either. What I found most interesting was how some black girls and women don't use relaxers to straighten out there hair but go through a expensive process called weaving which cost some people a fortune, and it's where they sew a wig onto there hair thus attaching it to your head. I also never knew how valuable straight silky hair is. Anyways Christ Rock did a great job hosting this documentary and everyone he interviewed was actually amusing to listen to and although some may complain, because it don't give certain information. Like why? But it's usually common sense or not really worth answering or necessary and so the complaints seem to be a bit too uptight in my opinion.7.5/10