Tag Archives: Chris Rock

According to Chris Rock’s opening monologue, sexism in Hollywood doesn’t exist

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In a disappointing opening monologue at the Academy Awards, Chris Rock claimed there was no need for male and female categories and mocked #AskHerMore.

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For the first time in possibly 20 years, I’m watching the Oscars at home and not at a party. Last year, I was at a viewing event, Tweeting about #AskHerMore and people around me either didn’t get it or made fun of me. It was such a frustrating and uninspiring experience for me that I decided not to venture out tonight. This year, while lying in pajamas on my couch, I was thrilled to see Ryan Seacrest actually ask women about their roles and give actresses an opportunity to discuss their craft. His questions about clothing were limited and always came at the end of the interview so it was impossible to go on and on about jewelry and shoes. Progress, I thought.

Then Chris Rock came on. He addressed racism in Hollywood, which is hugely important for the whole world to see him do. He opened with a great point: racism has been going on since the Oscars began, so why is everyone upset now? When people asked me about racism at the Oscars this year, I replied I’m happy that, at least, people are finally discussing this bigotry in mainstream media. Racism in Hollywood has become part of a national conversation. The first step in changing something is recognizing that it exists. That’s why I’m pissed about Rock’s monologue. Fury about sexism at the Oscars has not garnered much media attention. #OscarsSoWhite is taken seriously. It is a political act. #AskHerMore, on the other hand, is mocked. Rock referred to the latter in his monologue:

Another big thing tonight is you’re not allowed to ask women what they’re wearing anymore. It’s a whole thing: “Ask her more.” You have to ask her more.” Well, you know, you ask the men more. Hey, everything’s not sexism. Everything’s not racism. They ask the men more because the men are all wearing the same outfits, OK? Every guy in here is wearing the exact same thing. If George Clooney showed up with a lime green tux on and a swan coming out his …, someone would go, “What you wearing George?”

A Reel Girl fan comments:

Chris Rock basically said “She was asking for it because of what she was wearing.” Good job.

Categories for female and male actors create an illusion of equality. Never mind that the roles for women are far more limited as far how old the actresses are allowed to be, how complex the characters they play are, and what kind of heroes are depicted in the narratives. Behind the scenes awards including producing, directing, screenplay writing, adaptations (I could go on, see chart below) the male nominees, and of course winners, far outnumber women. Instead of recognizing this inequality, again Rock acts as if sexism doesn’t exist.

Hey, if you want black nominees every year, you need to just have black categories. That’s what you need. You need to have black categories. You already do it with men and women. Think about it. There’s no real reason for there to be a man and a woman category in acting. There’s no reason. It’s not track and field. You don’t have to separate them. Robert De Niro has never said, I better slow this acting down so Meryl Streep can catch up.

I didn’t expect Rock to deal with sexism, but I was surprised he made fun if it. His reaction put me in a weird space. He calling attention to racism, basically saying it’s not “bring me lemonade” racism; it’s subtle, but its pernicious. For example, he said Leonardo DiCaprio gets a great role every hear. Jamie Foxx is a stellar actor, but great roles for him are rare. Does Rock not get the same situation exists for women?

All right, back to the show. More later.

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Black hair and feminism: Beyonce, Willow Smith, Chris Rock, and Rhonda Lee

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After I posted about Rhonda Lee, a meteorologist who was fired after defending her “ethnic” hair on Facebook to a racist and sexist commenter, I was thinking about black hair.

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Right after I started Reel Girl, I saw an excellent documentary by Chris Rock on this subject called “Good Hair.”

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The film begins with stills of Rock’s two young daughters. (I love that this film was inspired by these girls.) While we look at their pictures on screen, we hear Rock:

Those are my daughters, Lola and Zara. The most beautiful girls in the world. And even though I tell them that they’re beautiful every single day, sometimes it’s just not good enough. Just yesterday, Lola came into the house crying and said ‘Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?’ I wonder how she came up with that that idea?

The film goes on to document just how these little girls got the idea that their hair wasn’t good enough.

In the film, actress Nia Long tells Rock:

There’s always a sort of pressure within the black community, like, oh, if you have good hair, you’re prettier or better than the brown skinned girl that wears the afro or the dreads or the natural hair style…The lighter, the brighter, the better.

 

Comedian Paul Mooney explains the phenomenon to Rock most concisely:

If your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed. If you hair is nappy, they’re not happy.

“Good Hair” ends as it begins, with images of Lola and Zara shown at a playground while Rock muses: “So what do I tell my daughters? I tell them that the stuff on top of their heads is nowhere near as important as the stuff inside of their heads.”

A few months after I saw “Good Hair,” I watched nine year old Willow Smith bust out of the gender/ race matrix, exuberantly celebrating her hair and her independence with her hit song and video, “Whip My Hair.”

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Willow sings:

Whip your hair back and forth,

Don’t let haters keep me off my grind,

Keep my head up,

I know I’ll be fine.

She explained the song to MTV:

Whip My Hair’ means don’t be afraid to be yourself, and don’t let anybody tell you that that’s wrong. Because the best thing is you.

Just a couple weeks ago, when this picture of Willow, now 12 years old, made the rounds on the internet, her mother, Jada Pinkett Smith, was derided for bad parenting.

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Jada responded to the criticism on her FB page:

This subject is old but I have never answered it in its entirety. And even with this post it will remain incomplete. The question why I would let Willow cut her hair. First the ‘let’ must be challenged. This is a world where women, girls are constantly reminded that they don’t belong to themselves; that their bodies are not their own, nor their power or self determination. I made a promise to endow my little girl with the power to always know that her body, spirit and her mind are her domain.

Willow cut her hair because her beauty, her value, her worth is not measured by the length of her hair. It’s also a statement that claims that even little girls have the right to own themselves and should not be a slave to even their mother’s deepest insecurities, hopes and desires. Even little girls should not be a slave to the preconceived ideas of what a culture believes a little girl should be.

How cool is that? And how different is Jada Pinkett Smith’s public message to her daughter, and about her daughter, than the more conventional and ubiquitous “good mom” message from this Elizabeth Arden ad?
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And speaking of beauty, there are few factors more obvious to reveal that what we call “beauty” is indicative of the time we happen to live in than hairstyles. “Beauty” is all about culture and class, status and money.
If African-American women represented the majority of CEOs in America, professors and department heads of Ivy League universities; if they dominated our boards and Academy Award winners, movie dierctors and nightly news anchors and on and on, do you think for one second any viewer would write in that the black lady on TV looks like she has cancer?
The racist comment has nothing to do with hair or “beauty” and everything to do with what it means to be black and a woman in America.
You’ve got a better chance getting into the power ranks if you look the part. Every woman knows how important her appearance is and how intimately what she looks like influences her chances of success.
In the history of People Magazine, only two African-Americans have graced the “World’s Most Beautiful Woman” cover. I guess white people are just prettier than black people. Go figure. Note that Beyonce wins the title as a blonde.
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If women ran Hollywood, do you think People would create a “most beautiful” issue at all? Or would the magazine come out with something more like “The Sexiest Woman Alive” featuring older stars on its cover? Real life “Sexiest Man Alive” winners include Pierce Brosnan at age 48, Harrison Ford at age 56, and Sean Connery at age 59.

Of course, it helps to come off as “sexy” when you’re portrayed in movie after movie as a hero and shown with “hot” sidekicks who are desperately in love with you. Though People covermen do have one thing in common with the women: Denzel Washington is the only African-American ever deemed “sexy” enough to win.

When Rhonda Lee defended her hair to a racist commenter, she wrote:

Little girls (and boys for that matter) need to see that what you look like isn’t a reason to not achieve their goals.

That’s the same reason Chris Rock made his documentary. It’s the same reason Willow Smith wrote her song, and Jada Pinkett Smith spoke up for her daughter. Is Rhonda Lee not famous enough or powerful enough to speak up for herself without getting punished for it?

Please support Rhonda Lee and sign the petition to demand that she get her job back.

 

Chris Rock’s daughters inspire a film

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Comedian Chris Rock’s documentary “Good Hair,” just out on DVD, begins with stills of his two young daughters. “Those are my daughters, Lola and Zara,” Rock narrates, “The most beautiful girls in the world. And even though I tell them that they’re beautiful every single day, sometimes it’s just not good enough. Just yesterday, Lola came into the house crying and said ‘Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?’ I wonder how she came with that that idea?”

So begins Rock’s quest to discover why so many black women don’t like their hair and what they go through– money, time, refusing swimming and sex– to ensure that it stays “beautiful.”

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Six year old getting relaxer

Actress Nia Long tells Rock: “There’s always a sort of pressure within the black community, like, oh, if you have good hair, you’re prettier or better than the brown skinned girl that wears the afro or the dreads or the natural hair style…The lighter, the brighter, the better.”

Rock travels from Greensboro, North Carolina, the capital of the 100 million dollar hair business (and also, the former capital of the Confederacy) to India where hair is the country’s biggest export, and finally to the pricey salons of LA. He interviews black women, their boyfriends and husbands, and even the well coiffed Al Sharpton trying to figure out the root of the hair obsession.

Comedian Paul Mooney explains it most concisely: “If your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed. If you hair is nappy, they’re not happy.”

The chemical many African-Americans use on their hair is, in fact, called “relaxer.” The “creamy crack” or “napidote” is the dangerous chemical sodium-hydroxide. “Get some in your eyes, it’ll lead to blindness,” explains a worker at Greensboro’s massive relaxer factory. “If you inhale the chemicals, its will have an adverse affect on your body.” Rock visits a scientist who dips aluminum cans in sodium chloride, showing them in various stages of charred decay.

The movie has sad scenes like when Rock interviews a group of female, African-American college students and young professionals, most who agree they wouldn’t go on a job interview, nor would they even hire someone, who was sporting the kind of hair that looks too natural, even a “cute” short afro that one girl in this group wears.

Also poignant but funny is when both genders adamantly agree on the rules of “weave sex:” never touch a black woman’s hair. Taking a shower together is more intimate than practically any other act; swimming ranks a close second if it involves getting in past the chin.

Actress Nia Longwww.topnews.in 

Actress Nia Long

All cultures include people who do crazy stuff to their hair and bodies, and Rock leaves pretty much everyone except for African-Americans out of his film. Reality star Kate Gosselin’s much mocked do and subsequent makeover could be its own documentary. Not only that, poker straight haired white girls have always pined for curls and vice versa. But teen dreamers and reality stars generally don’t experience anything as profound as being black and living in a culture that celebrates and rewards whiteness every day, and that unique experience is exactly what Rock set out to make a movie about.

“Good Hair” ends as it begins, with images of Lola and Zara, now shown at a playground, Rock musing: “So what do I tell my daughters? I tell them that the stuff on top of their heads is nowhere near as important as the stuff inside of their heads.”

Congrats to Chris Rock for listening to his small daughters, taking their words seriously enough to make a film that communicates how tyrannical and insidious our ideals about “beauty” can be. “Good Hair” gets a triple ***GGG*** girlpower rating (though it’s not a movie for kids, too much weave sex.)