The 9th week of Spooktober is coming in hot and really late. Blame election anxiety, friends. I watched this movie last weekend, and I’m finally getting around to writing my review of it. I’m horrible, and I don’t even care. But what movie are we talking about, you ask? We’re talking about Bad Hair, the latest from director Justin Simien, who also directed Dear White People. Among other things. But you probably know him from Dear White People.
Anyway, Bad Hair is a surreal horror film set in 1989. Our main character is Anna Bludso (played by Elle Lorraine). Anna has dreamed of being a DJ since she was a little girl playing with songs on the radio. Now that we’re at the height of music television in the ‘80s, Anna is climbing her way up the ladder at a Black music channel called Culture. There’s only one thing standing in her way from making it to the top: her hair.
So when Culture gets new management, and Anna’s new boss Zora (Vanessa Williams) encourages Anna to get a fancy new weave, Anna is eager to please.
So Anna gets the weave. And she gets the promotion, and the guy she likes at work starts paying her more attention. And everything seems to be going well for her. But this is a horror movie, as you know, so as you might have guessed, not everything is on the up and up with this weave.
This is where we have to take a step back away from plot and look at what this movie is saying about racism and white colonialism. Obviously, the argument has been made that weave is potentially problematic in that it forces white standards of beauty onto women of color.
However, in Bad Hair, it goes deeper than that. There’s a bigger message at play about Black culture and religion and traditions. And how so many contemporary Black people have learned to see these things as silly or fake because they’re not the beliefs of the White Christians who enslaved their ancestors.
If Anna had been attuned to said beliefs, she might have seen the witchy warning signs and not have accepted the weave that is (yes) possessed by evil witches. But she’s been so brainwashed by mainstream white culture. When she read a story about a Black girl wearing fake hair that turned against her, she assumed that it had to be a fairy tale. It couldn’t possibly be real.
I won’t get into where the story goes from here, but needless to say, it gets gory and the weave does bad things. The movie is called Bad Hair, so, like, duh, the weave is bad.
But with all of this being said, and with me trying to articulate in my best white girl way what I think this movie is trying to do, there are mixed feelings about the message of this movie. Glamour Magazine wrote that the film is really digging into untapped material by exploring Black hair and beauty politics. They argue that many Black women will watch this movie and understand the real horrors displayed here. For instance, the most graphic scene of the entire film is when Anna is getting her weave sewn in. It looks so painful, and yes, that pain is overly exaggerated to some extent. But also there are probably a lot of Black women who will watch that scene and identify with that feeling.
Not everyone is so sold on what this movie is saying about Black women and beauty standards, however. Other critics have argued that a movie (not written by a Black woman) that essentially tries to moralize different hairstyles is just adding to the problematic politics surrounding Black women’s hair. Should we tell Black women that wearing their hair natural is right and making their hair straight is wrong? Why are we policing women’s—especially Black women’s—bodies? Can we stop already?
I really wanted to @ Sharronda over at Pay or Wait for this argument, because she briefly discussed it on a live video on her channel. But she hasn’t yet posted her review, so you’ll just have to trust me that she’s the one who brought up this issue. I’m not smart enough to think of it all on my own.
So I know I do this a lot, but I don’t feel like I can take a side on this argument. I think Sharronda makes some really great points. And as a white woman, I’m not really in a place where I can say one argument is right and one is wrong. I will, however, say that this was probably the most enjoyable movie I’ve watched for Spooktober this year. I loved the stylized ‘80s feel of everything. I enjoyed how campy it was. It was billed as a horror/comedy, and I don’t think it was comedic enough to deserve the comedy label. It was campy as hell, yes, but that doesn’t mean it was funny.
That being said, I think this one is worth a watch, then you can make your own decisions about whether the message of the film works for you or doesn’t. Bad Hair is now available to stream on Hulu. Comment and let me know your thoughts!
The final installation of Spooktober for 2020 will be here TOMORROW!