Comedian turns documentary researcher
Chris Rock image from Wikimedia.I wasn’t terribly surprised when I found out that Chris Rock made a documentary. However, I was surprised to find out it was not a comedy, and I was even more surprised to find out it was about hair — specifically womens’ hair.
“Good Hair” by Chris Rock reveals a lot of fascinating financial, anthropological, societal and even religious facts surrounding the hair industry. For starters, the hair business, from weaves to styling to products to selling human hair, is a $9 billion industry.
Chris Rock’s daughter inspired ‘Good Hair’
Long ago, Chris Rock noticed that African-American women were preoccupied with hair — their own hair as well as other women’. It’s true that most women — regardless of race — would sooner get a cash til payday loan than skip their regular hair regimen. It wasn’t until his own daughter started exhibiting this attitude that it really got to him.
“I was with my daughter one day, and we’re in the car and she’s with one of her friends in the back seat, a little white friend,” Chris Rock says on Oprah.com. “She was just kind of raving about her friend’s hair a little too much for my comfort.”
‘Good Hair’ uncovers strange facts
Chris Rock’s research on the hair industry sent him all over the globe, including to India, where human hair is the second biggest export after software.
While in India, Chris witnessed a tonsuring ceremony at the Venkateswara Temple. Every year, more than 10 million people cut their hair off as an offering to the Hindu gods, reports Oprah.com.
The temple then sells the hair, and it’s second only to the Vatican regarding money taken in at a religious institution. India exports the hair, and in countries like the U.S., women pay thousands of dollars for one weave, which they then must pay to have tightened and cleaned at a salon. Chris Rock reports that some women spend up to 20 percent of their income on their hair.
Chris Rock’s ‘Good Hair’ crusade
Now that Chris Rock has made “Good Hair” and learned many lessons along the way, his new crusade is to get parents to stop getting their children’s hair chemically straightened, which is called relaxing it. Oprah.com reports:
The active ingredient in relaxer is a substance called sodium hydroxide. The chemical is so strong it can burn a woman’s hair off—which is why Chris is urging parents to stop the relaxing addiction now.
