'Bad Hair' exposes truths surrounding Black hair through comedy and drama
Just in time for Halloween, there's a killer hair weave coming to terrorize a screen near you.
Streaming on Hulu starting Friday "Bad Hair" is a new horror film that follows an ambitious young woman, Anna Bludso, who gets a hair weave with hopes of succeeding in the image-obsessed world of music television in 1989.
Bludso, played by Elle Lorraine, finds out that her flourishing career comes at a cost as her new hair starts to haunt her.
The film taps into harsh realities women of color have faced for decades when it comes to hair and how it affects their career trajectory.
"All of this takes place against the backdrop of the New Jack Swing era, a dramatic acceleration of the assimilation of urban black culture into pop," said writer and director of the horror satire Justin Simien in a statement. "Like my first film, a satire called 'Dear White People,' which I've since spun off into a series for Netflix, I'm making this because I have much to say about the hidden costs and quiet personal deaths one feels when trying to thrive in a world not built with them in mind."
The film stars a wide variety of notables such as Emmy award-winning writer Lena Waithe, Vanessa Williams, Kelly Rowland, Laverne Cox, Usher Raymond and several others.
In an interview with "GMA," Williams points out that there has previously been Japanese hair-killer movies produced in the past and how "Bad Hair" has a similar spin.
"It's a great marriage of taking something that was done in the '80s, and he shot it on film to make it look more like the times, and added a new twist. So my hair and a lot of people's hair in the movie does have some evil intentions," Williams said.
While "Bad Hair" is mostly a horror movie, there are some underlying messages throughout about Black women's relationship with their hair.
"I think for a lot of Black women, particularly in corporate America, they have been forced to conform and to look palatable for their white co-workers," Waithe told "GMA." "I think that we've also had this image of European beauty and what we're supposed to look like, so I think there is a lot of pressure on Black women to straighten their hair even if they don't want to."
"It's definitely not a film that's anti-straight hair or natural hair," Waithe said. "It's more about having the freedom to wear your hair however you choose, and things like the C.R.O.W.N. Act are a prime example of that. The movie is really all about not conforming to fit in, but more about doing what makes sense for you and standing out."
