Good Point - Bad Hair
The politics of Black hair have long been complicated. Since slavery, where hair falls on a certain rigid spectrum of coarseness has been contentious and divisive. That complex canvas is the basis of Justin Simien’s Bad Hair and all of its outlandish humor and witticisms. Blending genres this way is not easy. Gruesome horror punctuated by endless winks and hijinks is not exactly a natural fit, but it works. Simien skewers 80s style and sensibilities while poking fun at ideas that have flummoxed Black women for generations. The one glaring flaw, however, is it is sometimes hard to tell who the joke is on.
When we meet Anna (played by Elle Lorraine), we see her navigating the corridors of an urban media outlet. As she walks through her office, we see white coworkers who work for another channel fawning over long, flowing, blond hair. When we see her Black co-workers, they too seem most enamored with hair unlike her own. Eventually, we learn the channel Anna works for, Culture, is in the midst of a rebranding. Her new boss, Zora (played by the notably lighter skinned Vanessa Williams), wants to take the network in a decidedly different direction. To fit in, Anna must get a weave and achieve the straight hair aesthetic that’s expected of her.
Anna visits a hairstylist named Virgie (played by Laverne Cox) and gets the weave of her dreams. At first, it seems to have the desired effect—men pay more attention to her, co-workers take her more seriously and she starts to get exactly the kind of opportunities she’s always wanted. That good fortune is short-lived, however, as soon the new hair starts to take on a life of its own. Guided by ancient spiritual folklore, things get out of control when the hair starts to kill. Anna must figure out how to fight back against the hair before it’s too late and it kills her too.
Okay, the above summation borders on the insane and the on-screen product is just as ludicrous. It is only Simien’s skill as a filmmaker that makes this work. The tension of the first act is a slow boil that builds a sense of dread that makes the ridiculous conclusion somehow feel earned. The wheels come off and the hair comes out in some of the most off-the-wall sequences you will see in any movie ever.
But those insane sequences and the overarching narrative they serve somehow feel off. Who is allowed to make this movie? This is the kind of satirical rib-poking that is generally reserved only for members of a particular group to make about themselves. The fact that Simien is a Black man and not a Black woman makes this somehow feel like it is happening at the expense of its primary audience and not in service of it. This feels like the “Dear Black Women” to his 2014 hit Dear White People. It is not clear he has license to swerve into the lanes he does. For all of its manic hilarity, the film is actually a fairly nuanced take on the ways in which Black women’s choices are constrained by their daily circumstances. But it definitely has a point of view about how Black women should approach those choices and it is not clear Simien has a right to comment.
Overall, it’s an effective satirical take that might offer viewers a peak into a world they don’t live in. Just make sure you remember society is the joke; not Black women.
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