![]() ![]() While it seems as though his mouth is itching to make retorts and he is restraining himself from making incredulous bug-eyes, he is mostly content to allow the celebrities do the opining. Rock’s jaunty demeanor seems incongruous when thought of in this light. Watching the flow of global capital is dizzying, but more deeply impressive is how many players and institutions like temples and small businessmen are involved in this chain of exploitation. Indian women wash, comb and package the hair, which is then sold to middlemen (most of whom are Korean or Chinese immigrants) who in turn sell it to eager Black women. Rock travels to India to visit the Venkateswara Temple, where Hindu disciples offer up their hair as an act of religious devotion. Just as we receive the genealogy of the relaxer, we also learn where the 100 percent human hair comes from for the thousand-dollar weaves. Good Hair gives us a great deal of useful information. When relaxing your hair, the indicator of when to wash it out is when the burning becomes unbearable. The main ingredient of hair relaxer is sodium hydroxide, which, as Rock has a scientist demonstrate, can eat through aluminum cans, the alveoli of your lungs and, naturally, your hair. The younger of the two, Zahra, asks a question fraught with historical significance that propels what is to come: “Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?”Ĭhildren are good indicators of our own values, which in the case of Black hair are, as actress Nia Long says, “the lighter-the brighter, the better.” In pursuit of a bouncy, full-length coif, Black women have mostly come to rely on chemical relaxers-the creamy crack-and weaves. Good Hair begins innocently enough, with a home video of Rock with his daughters, Lola and Zahra. The man who shows up in Good Hair is somewhere in between the Chris Rock who made cracker jokes and the Chris Rock who hosted the Oscars. In Good Hair, Rock plays the newer incarnation of himself that’s accompanied his forays into the mainstream: he is comparatively sedate and polite and limits himself to the casual aside. His fearlessness allowed him to make ridiculous statements-no matter how off-color. In Bigger and Blacker, he blamed Hillary Clinton for the Lewinsky scandal (Monica only subbed when Hillary had grown lazy) and claimed that women are the biggest liars because of how they present themselves (heels, makeup and weaves). He was in your face and so was his material. As a standup comic in the ‘90s, Chris Rock filled the auditorium he bellowed and screeched, thundering from one side of the stage to the other. ![]()
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