Chris Rock Delves Into Uncharted Territory

Friday Jan 23, 2009 – by Zettler Clay

Who wants to endeavor on the lonely road to make a movie about black women and hair? Apparently, Chris Rock does. Last Tuesday, on Inauguration Day, Rock was at the Sundance Film Festival representing for his film, Good Hair, a documentary examining the messages that the powers-that-be and society puts forth about hair products and African-American women. This film was inspired by Rock’s frustrations in dealing with his daughter’s hair and a Bronner Bros’ convention in the mid-1990′s. This movie is over a decade in the making. Rock told the Wall Street Journal that it took so long to complete the film because – surprise, surprise – there was not a ready market for it.

“With no disrespect to my agents or managers, every time I brought up the idea of a hair documentary, someone changed the conversation,” says Mr. Rock, who came up with the idea for “Hair” more than a decade ago. “They’d say, ‘That’s nice, but what about this cop movie instead?’ “

It had to be done, and like his well-timed barbs onstage, Rock came through. With women now in the White House rocking scarfs and hair rollers and this film, it should be interesting to see how this switches black women’s perception of beauty and hair products.

Mike says:

January 27, 2009 at 8:24 pm

@Chelsea

Lets see….Buffie or Alek….Beverly or Grace Jones….Beverly or Alek….or….Buffie or Grace Jones…….

Yeah..Yup I think I will take the BEAUTIFUL Buffie and Beverly over the alien twins from planet Fugly.

I will also require 5 boxes of condome two bottles of Haitian rhum and a camcorder.

↑ Reply

Reecie says:

January 28, 2009 at 11:35 am

nothing about Buffie the body is what I’d call “beautiful”. I think there are several gorgeous darker skinned women though, but Buffie should not be even mentioned in the same sentence as those other fashion icons.

I am looking forward to seeing this film, however.

someonesomewhere says:

January 28, 2009 at 3:52 pm

Beauty is all in the eye of the beholder…

I personally don’t Buffie to be anything special, facially. Grace Jones on the other hand is stunning. Her aggressive, left-field, androgny make throw many off but facially, she’s a work of art.

Instead of referring to black women by their perceived shade of their skin or whatever, why not acknowledge them by what they are: a merely beautiful woman. Last time I checked, blacks (people of sub-saharn African descent) are a dark skinned race, so it’s pointless to divide and categorize the various levels of darkness. Putting people in boxes will never work.

Why must beauty be so political, when it doesn’t have to be? As I asked before, what does this all say and who does it say it about?

Clnmike says:

January 28, 2009 at 5:19 pm

As far as Grace Jones, if I wanted a woman who looked like a dude I would go gay. Buffie is stunning forget what you heard.

Hollywood Blackout says:

January 29, 2009 at 9:35 pm

You all are missing the bigger picture here:

Black women have been discussing hair issues for decades. We read about it, blog about it, discuss it ad nauseum.

BLACK MEN however, are rarely part of the conversation. And since the men of the culture dictate the beauty standards, black women are constantly talking but there are no real answers. Until we disucss black men’s aversion to natural hair, black women will continue to relax and weave, period.

Until we discuss why black men cannot find beauty in their own phenotype, darker black women will continue to feel rejected and frustrated.

So if Rock’s documentary focused more on the rejection of black beauty by BLACK MEN which in turn makes black women try any and every alternative to gain their acceptance, this will be another documentary that wastes time debating things we already know.

Gerty W says:

January 30, 2009 at 2:33 pm

Someone,

What is says about me is that I call it like I see it. I’m sure I can actually name more than 3 or 4 beautiful dark skinned women in the media. But who do they show on BET, CW and even McDonald’s commercials the majority of the time? My point exactly..

The whole point I was trying to make is that we need to see more women that represent ALL shades and hair types of Black women because we are all beautiful. I compeletly agree with Hollywood. We need to discuss Some black men’s aversion to dark skin, natural hair etc.

January 30, 2009 at 2:54 pm

I know this is like my third comment:) I was really thinking about it and we as women need to discuss this amongst ourselves before we think about Black men rejecting us because of our hair/complexions.

True, that a lot of Black men have color/hair complexes but actually I think more women are obsessed with this complex. When Lil Kim states she doesn’t like the actress that portrayed her in Notorious because she was “too black” we obviously have some issues we need to bring to the table.

That might seem like an extreme example but a lot of women think that way and are still carrying around emotional scars from the past at either being teased in school or feeling socially rejected by their own family members.

January 30, 2009 at 9:27 pm

I agree, Gerty W, more women than men, in an African American context, do seem to get more hung up on skin shade and hair texture.

Yet, when I see blacks in the media (since I actually work in the media), I see a variety of looks. The people who complain about the women they see not being “dark enough” always seem to ignore the fact the plentiful “non-light skinned” sisters in a variety of ads. If you knew the industry, you’d know that many a racially ambigious or extremely light-colored black actor/actress have been rejected for roles because they weren’t “black enough”. That’s why the black folks in the media tend to look “traditionally black”.

Because of the runaway success of Alicia Keys and Beyonce Knowles, the labels have been promoting more artists who look like them in an attempt to recapture their success, hence why you see more “lighter” girls nowadays than you did in the ’90s.