‘ Bad Hair’ weaves in reallife hair horrors
Scary comic film set in 1989 recalls how era’s Black styles led to permanent scars
The horror comedy “Bad Hair” goes out to anyone who has had the misfortune of getting scalp burns after a family member doused his or her head with lyefilled hair relaxer.
It’s one of the many unfortunate hair moments Justin Simien, the movie’s African American writerdirector, has been through.
“I had so many traumatic hair experiences, first of all,” recalls Simien. “I definitely tried to rock the Scurl situation a few times in middle school and was horrified at the results — and the process of straightening my hair. I’m extremely tenderheaded so, like, I tried to get twists once and I had to stop immediately.”
Black hair is a subject that’s near and dear to Simien’s heart. In his 2014 debut feature, “Dear White People” ( which spun off a show on Netflix), a young college student ( Tyler James Williams) spends the movie rocking a gigantic, unruly Afro that a white female character can’t help but play with. Of course, that was Simien back in the day.
“I had an Afro in college that white people couldn’t keep their fingers out of,” he recalls. “And, eventually, I went bald. So, I can’t say my hair journey has been a walk in the park.”
For his latest film, which began streaming on Hulu on Friday, Oct. 23, Simien follows another Black character who’s having some hair issues. “Bad Hair” has newcomer Elle Lorraine as Anna, a young woman working for a fledgling Black music video channel. When the channel gets new management, she’s informed she needs to spruce up her image if she wants to get, um, ahead. Even though she’s got a scar from that time as a kid when her big sister gave her a curlrelaxer treatment, she eventually gets a weave, which turns out to be quite a killer — figuratively and literally.
Even though there are some digital effects, Simien says getting that hair to go psycho was a group effort.
“Every time you see the hair do something,” he says, “it is based
“Bad Hair”: Streaming on Hulu.
“I had so many traumatic hair experiences. ... I’m extremely tenderheaded so, like, I tried to get twists once and I had to stop immediately.”
Writerdirector Justin Simien
on, you know, a shot where we had hair and puppets and strings and pulleys and levers.”
“Bad Hair” is set in 1989 Los Angeles, which Simien believes was a watershed time for Black folk. It was a time when hiphop was on the rise, new jack swing started infiltrating the pop music charts and hair weaves became popular among Black women. It was also the year when 6yearold Simien lost his father.
“Honestly, it felt really similar to right now, where it’s like, ‘ Oh, it’s a Black renaissance. There is Black music and movies and activist voices and all this stuff — isn’t this wonderful?’ But the crazy thing is that, like, five years later, you’re in 1994 or 1995,” Simien says.
“The same music that used to be called new jack swing that Janet Jackson and Teddy Riley and Keith Sweat and Guy — all those groups — invented, suddenly that music was called pop music,” he says. “And Britney Spears was the queen of it and ’ N Sync was doing it, and it was like we forgot about Jody Watley and Karyn White.”
Even though Simien has some good memories from that era, “Bad
Hair” basically delves into how African Americans were being subconsciously led to believe at that time that things would go their way if some things were, shall we say, straightened out.
“I can look back at 1989, and I have this sense of nostalgia for it,” he says. “Like, the music is great. The fashion is cool. Black people are out here in these streets. But there’s something about it — like there’s a doubleedged sword to it, you know. It’s like there’s something about it that we weren’t being really told, that we weren’t really fully let in on at that time. And I think the movie is kind of asking us, ‘ OK, well, let’s take the things that feel like they’re about celebrating us. But make sure that we understand what it’s really saying and where it’s really taking us.’ Because this world wasn’t made by us. It wasn’t — and we’re trying to get that power right now. But it wasn’t made with us in mind. It’s not always for us. It’s not always for our benefit.”
Simien rounded up quite the impressive supporting cast: Vanessa Williams, James Van Der Beek, Jay Pharoah, Lena Waithe, Laverne Cox, Blair Underwood, Usher, Kelly Rowland, even MC Lyte. They all fell in love with the script, Simien says.
“Everyone — James Van Der Beek included, MC Lyte included, Kelly Rowland included — had a personal connection to the story, had a personal reason for telling the story,” he says. “And it felt like, ‘ OK, well we’re like in this community of storytellers.’ ”