Thursday, July 22, 2010

Documentaries

I've watched a few documentaries in my time. And I really do mean a few. They are, if I can recall correctly:

Food Inc. (which is about food)

Supersize Me (which is about fast food)

Capitalism: A Love Story (which is about capitalism)

Good Hair (which is about hair)

This (short) post is deceptively titled "Documentaries." Deceptively in that I'm really only going to focus on Good Hair, which I only really saw about half an hour of.

If you don't know, it's basically Chris Rock going around and researching, for lack of a better word, black hair. This was probably one of the most enlightening documentaries of the bunch for me, because it was legitimately something I had never given any thought to.

Mr. Rock explores the techniques used to "tame" black hair, many of which involve crazy noxious chemicals that will give you terrible burns. Another stratagem used necessitates taking hair from other people and weaving it onto one's head. This hair typically comes from India.

I'm bringing all of this up because the woman I work for currently is black.

This documentary has done something which none of the others have, and that is given me this heavy sense of awareness. Whenever I look at her hair I notice that her straightening (or whatever it's called) is loosening up a little, and that she should probably go get it redone. More importantly, I look at her hair and I judge.

My friend Gordon is used to getting that look from me. To be fair, with him I'm usually kidding, but this is serious business. Every time I look at black women now I'm constantly scrutinizing their heads, silently passing judgement on what they choose to do with their own hair.

It's an issue I'm dealing with. I just thought I'd share it.

2 comments:

  1. At the subway station today my nose started bleeding. It just bled, and bled, and wouldn't stop.

    A midget *ahem* little person told me to put cold water on my nose. An Iranian guy told me to tilt my head back.

    Eventually it stopped, and I got on the subway.

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  2. I watched that with Denise. She said she hadn't heard of most of those techniques. She just uses a flattening iron or a hair drier and a brush. But she is mixed race, so it's not "nappy" or whatever term they use... makes things easier.
    The doc creeped me out tho

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