SYNOPSIS
Chris Rock explores the wonders of African-American hairstyles. Source: IMDb.com.

REVIEW
I didn’t find this documentary as funny as it was informative, though I did chuckle a few times.

I found it sad that “good hair” is defined by the African American’s struggle to achieve a more “European” hair appearance. There was one guy that had a saying about nappy/versus relaxed hair that I saw some truth in, but still it is sad that there is some basis of fact in that saying.

Some of the funnier parts were during the interview with Maya Angelou, where Chris Rock asks her how old she was when she got her first relaxer. At her response of seventy, he replies “You went your whole life…” and she comes back with “Not my whole life, I’m still alive!”

The demonstration on an aluminum can of the chemicals used in relaxer was unbelievable and the discovery that tonsured hair in India – one of the poorest countries in the world – sacrificed for religious purposes – is collected by hair purveyors and sold at maximum prices was completely disgusting. Don’t even get me started on the fact that there is but one Black-owned hair product company, though discovering that most had sold out to bigger companies was not to surprising.

The whole backdrop of the Atlanta Hair Show wasn’t half as entertaining – perhaps even ghetto – as the contestants that were profiled as they prepared to compete.

Very interesting.