Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once famously said during one of his sermon in Alabama that, “A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true (Selma).”One attempt to live up to this ideal is the documentary created by Chris Rock called Good Hair, but the film is an attempt that falls very short of that ideal. Good Hair itself is poorly made, the facts are questionable or nonexistent, and the tone is almost insultingly relaxed for an issue that is very serious. Because of all of this, Good Hair should be left off the English 122 syllabus next semester.
On the surface, Good Hair seems like a slam-dunk film. According to the Good Hair page on the International Movie Database the film won an African-American Film Critics Association
…show more content…
The film may spend too much time on this super bowl though. J.R Jones, a journalist for the Chicago Reader, said in his review that, “The film is rather pointlessly framed by a glitzy hairstyling competition.” What Jones seems to be suggesting, as are many other viewers, is that too large a portion of this film is spent on a competition that ultimately only ties very loosely back to the concept of the rest of the film, possibly in a weak attempt to keep viewers more engaged so they do not loose interest when the film gets too technical. The result of this decision is a film that never really finds its message effectively. The attempt to keep viewers watching actually has the adverse effect. Every time the film starts to find its way towards serious and informative information, the viewers are dragged back off topic to the hair show in an attempt to keep viewers engaged that instead makes the viewers want to stop watching because they are not getting what they were promised. The doubt of Rock and the director Jeff Stilson in their abilities to keep viewers engaged ultimately creates a very flawed, poorly made, and distracted …show more content…
When the film was released in 2009 the humorous nature of the film may have barely skates by on its own, but tensions have risen considerably since 2009. A few examples of this could be the black lives matter movement, the subsequent response to silence that with the all lives matter movement, and a newly elected president who is said to be endorsed by the KKK. This film’s joking nature about woman spending too much money on hair and black men having to support the habit seems to ignore the more serious discussion that could be had about what is really happening in the United States. For example, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, African Americans make up 37.9% of incarcerated people in the States, but according to census data at the same time black people only account for about 13% of the population (Inmate, Quick). While there are more whites, both in population and incarcerated, the white incarceration rate seems to match up pretty evenly with their overall populations, but is disproportionate when applied to African Americans. What is concerning is that this can tie back to the concept of black hair in a lot of ways. De facto segregation, as defined in the The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, refers to segregation not by the law, but by general practices in everyday life (De). Abhorrent practices such as a real estate agent refusing to sell a house to a black
This film deals with racial profiling in so many ways, for example as soon as Rodrick Rhoads became coach, the other teams were making fun of cordia and calling them the N word due the fact that they were winning games because they had a former nba basketball coach. After cordia high school had won the championship game the other teams and
According to Henslin, racism is “prejudice and discrimination on the basis of race.” Racism is woven throughout the documentary of Lafeyette and Pharoah’s lives at the Horner Homes. All of the African Americans living in inner-city Chicago are looked down upon by the whites every day. The whites pay no attention to the existence of the lives of these people. The gangs run the streets of the inner-city
The movie's success depends on using dated stereotypes: "angry black woman," "thuggish black man," and "innocent" white women. White men,
In another event, some racist white boys attack and hit Odessa’s daughter and son for having darker skin and being ‘idiot coons.’ This is one of many examples of racism being a factor. The ultimate clash of the subordinate (whites) and insubordinate (African-Americans) groups comes at end of the film with the mob seen at the carpool lot. This shows racism, discrimination and stereotyping all in one. It is amazing to me to see both how far and how little we have come as a society.
The film encompasses a variety of different themes as well. The issues are all connected to the different prejudices that are found in today’s society. Racism is the most dominant theme that is found in the film. Stereotyping is another theme that is viewed throughout this film. An example of this being when Daniel the Hispanic locksmith was changing the locks for the Caucasian District Attorney and his wife. Jean (the wife) assumes that Daniel is a no good gang banger based on the fact that he has tattoos, a shaved head, and is Hispanic. The film
But the most shocking aspect of this whole situation came in the form of the African American performer Bert Williams who was degraded to play roles while in blackface that made a mockery of black people and essential of himself which probably was hard for him to act out. Fortunately the practice of performing blackface ended in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Act. But there are other stereotypes that have prevailed during the 20th century and I have two which are- the angry black women and black men always being thugs. For the first stereotype a particular movie comes into mind that portrays the angry black women perfectly and that is Madea’s Big Happy Family where there was a scene of a black women character that was yelling at her baby’s father about child support and was rolling her neck, chewing gum and speaking loudly. Looking back on the scene I realize now how stereotypical that scene was and that it further perpetuated a particular idea about how African American women behave or
How closely does the film “Do the Right Thing” resemble the current state of race relations in America?
Some of the ways that the stereotypes about African Americans, lesbians, women are reinforced in the film are very similar to todays society because in the film of “Foxy Brown”, as shown that African Americans are not the most wealthiest, and can be apart of a gang of some sort. For instants, even the films that are made in todays society, still show African Americans being in a gang, and being apart of the gang violence that is happening. For example, Foxy’s brother was doing some business with a gang but got into a little trouble, causing Foxy’s boyfriend to be killed by gang members because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Also, they made it seem like lesbians and women are very sexual and are comfortable with their bodies, and
My opinion of the race relations depicted on campus in the film is mixed. Compared to my experiences of being at college, the race issues at Winchester University appear drastic. However, the issues of race relations on campuses show in the media seem to be similar to the issues at Winchester, if not worse. The issue of separate housing for blacks seems strange to me. Relating to my personal experiences at TCNJ, I have never heard of/seen separate housing based on race because it promotes racial segregation. I have read that there are many black students that want separate housing at college but I think that will only revert people's behavior and views back to segregational times of oppression.
As a young girl my great-grandmother used to tell my male-cousin and I to make people treat us as an equal, because we are Kings and Queens. As a child I didn’t understand, now as a young woman I understand. I am very proud of my skin color as well as the fact of being considered Haitian American / Black American female. The whole ideal about this movie is letting the African American culture know that in order to be accepted we have to accept ourselves first.
According to The New Jim Crow (Alexander, 2010), today 's society in the United States
As some may say, “If you’re light, you’re alright. If you’re brown, stick around. And if you’re Black, get to the back.” Colorism has become a popular practice in the African American culture. The praise for being fairskinned is often seen as being a lighthearted compliment that degrades the other half of the spectrum. In the article, “Black Identity” by Kathy Russell, Russell researches and proves how the negative effects of colorism is ever present in the African American culture and is ingrained into their youth. Colorism is not a new debatable topic but the effects of such continues to evolve. Colorism in the African American Community, specifically, needs to be addressed and dealt with so that they may unite as a community with the purpose of understanding how the present is in correlation with the past, decrease the popularity of colorbased selfhate within the African American community so they may eradicate the racial issues present in the judicial system, and teach African American youth to fight against colorism and its negative effects so that they can create positive, proud future for the African American community.
As Ifemelu mentions several times in her blog posts, there are a number of struggles having to do with race to which those who benefit from racial privilege will have difficulty relating. In her blog, Ifemelu comments upon the rarity of “The White Friend Who Gets It” (448) and further highlights her point in her blog post, “A Michelle Obama Shout-Out Plus Hair as Race Metaphor,” where she mentions that her white friend had not been aware that Michelle Obama’s hair “doesn’t [naturally] grow [in the way it does]” (367). (This also ties into the overarching metaphor of “hair” and its symbolization of culture and appearance (see question #6).) These two blog posts, along with a host of other examples throughout the book, reveal the disparate experiences—and understanding thereof—of whites and minorities in the US, and how that disparity causes many white people to suffer an inability to “get it”—to understand the struggles unique to black and other minority citizens of the US and to realize the privilege they, as white citizens, enjoy.
This alone was reason enough for envy and hatred” (Packer 179). The “envy and hatred” blacks bear towards white people is due to the prevailing elegance the whites seem to radiate. For a fourth grader, the smallest thing such as someone’s hair is deemed sufficient to cultivate belligerent feelings toward that person. Such encouragement fuels prejudices and eventually result in racism. Often the society and the environment in which children are raised pass down these prejudices. The Anti-Defamation League wrote in an article, “Blacks and others are seen by racists as merely subhuman, more like beasts than men.”
What I also found to be quite interesting and perhaps a weakness of the film, was the sense of performative racism that four of the main white characters utilize and how the makers of the film appeal to such a phenomenon through symbolisms as well. In the movie, there seems to be two main kinds of racism the characters exhibit, one of them being blatant racism and another being subtle racism through microaggressions. For example, Katherine experiences blatantly racist and misogynistic behavior from her coworkers, especially from Paul Stafford, the lead engineer (making groupthink much easier) and Ruth, the only other woman working in the office. On the other hand, Al Harrison and John Glenn appeal to the subtler sides of racism and performative white pity, Glenn going out of his way to shake the hands of the computers as the film attempted to paint a positive, “not-all-whites” picture of inclusion, acceptance and tolerance, a kind of racism that almost all of the white people in the film come to, by its end. Examples of this can be seen in scenes like the one in which Al Harrison smashes down the “coloreds” and “whites” restroom signs as if implying that doing so will abolish all racial inequalities with a couple of blows of blunt force. One could infer it seems, that paired with the groundbreaking stories of these three women, white people being decent human