Bad Hair is Justin Simian’s second major film release, following 2014’s Dear White People. Bad Hair is half horror half satire with a plot that speaks true to the African American experience.
SPOILER ALERT (PLOT REVEAL):
Bad Hair is about a woman named Anna Bludso, who has a love/hate relationship with her hair. Anna’s traumatized at an early age when a patch of her hair is burned out due to a botched hair relaxing treatment.
Anna eventually ends up working as an assistant at Culture, a Black music television station. Held back by her timid nature and the way she looks, Anna fails to advance in her career after working for the station for four years.
Rock Music Video, owner of the Culture channel, decides to take the channel in a different direction and Anna’s mentor, Edna (played by Judith Scott) decides to step down. She is then replaced by former model Zora (played by Vanessa Williams). Culture is renamed to Cult and the natural women VJs with natural hair styles are now being pressed to either get in line or leave.
Zora interviews Anna and realizes she has great ideas for the station. Zora not so subtly tells Anna that she needs to change her natural look or she will no longer be employed at the station. Zora then hands Anna a business card to an upscale salon.
Zora reluctantly visits the salon and convinces the main hairstylist Virgie (played by Laverne Cox) to give her a new hair weave that ends up being so painful that she passes out.
The rest of the movie sees Anna’s luck change for the better, along with the station’s success. Meanwhile, Anna also begins to receive some sinister help from her new hair weave.
Justin Simien’s second major blockbuster received warm reviews as well as recognition for putting together a star-studded cast that includes, Jay Pharoah, Blair Underwood, MC Lyte, Kelly Rowland, James Van Der Beek and Usher.
This film made a great satire of the real horror that many black women go through with hair weaves. Both physically and mentally, having to conform to the world around them that does not look the same.
Simien’s attempt at satire was a good one. After the success of Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us, film studios are beginning to take chances on horror with African American themes.
What really stood out was the satire of real life African American television station BET. In the movie, Culture, the unsung black television network debuts and features the latest African American artists. Culture is owned by Rock Music Video (RMV), similar to Viacom eventually owning BET. Immediately, one of the first changes made are the removal of some of the station’s principle employees. The second change is the renaming of Culture to Cult, which becomes symbolic as the story progresses.
Bad Hair was Simien’s foray into what was possible to explore in the horror genre through an African American lens. It was a great storyline and hopefully just the beginning for future subgenres of African American themed horror films to come.