My most recent trip to the theatre brought on new insights into the world of managing black hair. I saw Chris Rock´s new documentary comedic film called Good Hair, see the trailer here. It seems the idea for creating the movie, was conceived when his daughter asked him something to the effect of "how can I get good hair?" or " how come I don´t have good hair?". This question sent Chris Rock on an investigative journey into the Black Hair industry.
I must say that the movie enlightened me to many facts relating to the management of Black Hair, in the quest to transform black hair to "good hair". It was revealed that the industry is a highly profitable one, due to the fact that black women, pride themselves in the look and feel of their hair, this pride is being passed on to the younger generations, as young as 3 year old!! It was reported that Black women spend a fortune per year in processing and buying products to maintain their hair. It was surprising to see however that the majority of businessses that currently exist in the black hair care industry are owned by non-black people! Aisians in fact seem to be business leaders in this market.
I did a little research online to try to find a list of companies in the balck hair industry which are actually owned by black people, and my search took a slight detour when the search results took me to several links to another documenatry with stark similarities to the Chris Rock Good Hair, which was actually produced and created by Aron Renen, a white man, in 2004. See the You Tube version of the movie here, and a newpaper review article on the movie here. It seems Chris Rock could have saved himself the adventures and the cost of creating the movie if he had done a Google search when his daughter asked him about "good hair", but anyway, I am sure it was fun for him too.
While I continue on my quest to get a complete list of black owned companies in the black hair industry, I recommend the movie. My intention is to sperad the word throughout the black community so that an informed choice can be made as to who to support, while either obtaining "good hair" or simply grooming and maintaining natural black hair. Both documentaries are quite informative on the topic. The Chris Rock version featured weave-wearing, natural and processed black hair celebrities, male and female, and gave them the opportunity to voice their choice on the matter.
An important take home point from the Chris Rock version though is that NO ONE, is allowed to touch a black woman´s hair unless she gives specific instructions to do so. A word of advice to the Sistas, you might want to shield your men from seeing this movie, it may cost you in the long run. :)
I wonder who will make a story about white women who wear weaves, or try to process their hair to make it look "black"?
