Good Hair

I have Good Hair. I mean, I guess I do. I do because I am white and my hair is straight (if not me). Bad Hair would be classified as "black" people's hair--hair that has not been straightened and is without chemicals. Good Hair is long and flowing and perfect. With that description, my hair no longer seems so Good, but it is straight, and that may be good enough.

Good Hair is a documentary narrated by Chris Rock about African American women's hair (and beauty and societal pressures on women in general) in the United States. On Oprah (when Rock was promoting this film), Rock said that he was inspired to explore this topic when he overheard his little daughter talking to her white friend, telling her how much she loved her hair. The dialogue made Rock uncomfortable because he could tell that his daughter was not only complimenting her friend in a secure way, but that she was gushing over something she could only dream of having--the set standard of Good Hair.

I watched this movie with two girls (14 and 16) whom I have known since they were born. They are the kids of my mom's good friends and they were adopted from Ethiopia. They are black girls who are being raised by white parents in a white town. The older girl gets her hair done--braided in a twist fashion--every few months for a substantial cost, and her sister lets her hair alone and wears it mostly in a ponytail.

I couldn't help but think of how these young girls felt while watching Good Hair. For me, it was interesting to learn about how the hair for weaves comes mostly from India and which chemicals are used for certain hairstyles. I learned that even girls as young as three years old have their hair straightened with chemicals. The women who were interviewed were candid about the different procedures and reasons behind some of the drastic measures (such as the astronomical costs of wigs and weaves, not to mention scalp and even potential neurological damage from chemicals). Though they spoke of procedures for African American hair, to me the documentary was relateable in that it touched on the beauty expectations of women of all races and ages.

But, what about my dear girls with whom I watched the documentary? They're teenagers and they don't readily spill their feelings. However, when prompted, they said that the film was interesting. Their parents did gush and say how interesting this whole world of hair straightening was. One of the parents said that the girls would not be getting a weave or a chemical perm. It is too expensive, she said. Well, yes, they are expensive. I think, though, that the girls' mom was saying, in her own way, that her daughters' hair is beautiful--that the girls themselves are beautiful--just as they are. That is, of course, completely true.

Mannequin

I can’t decide if Mannequin is a movie filled with metaphors for a man’s sexual insecurities and all-around bouts of self-loathing OR if it’s just really cheesy and bad in the way that only movies made in the 1980s can be. Yes, it stars Andrew McCarthy, the flavorless lug in Pretty In Pink who manages to suck out most of the charm that Duckie puts into that movie. It seems that Andrew’s job in movies is to sulk around to provide some sort of pseudo balance to the flamboyant gay/not gay man that befriends him or is somehow simply in the same movie.

In Mannequin, Andrew is a “weird” guy who gets a job dressing windows at a department store. Well, I think in the beginning he’s hired as a janitor or as a mannequin dresser or something. Then, voila, he makes these amazing window dressings. Amazing? Yeah, right. Please—before I go any further—allow me to explain these AMAZING pieces: the mannequins are all dressed in undergarments! The mannequins are simulating a tennis game by having a ball (that is on a string) sway back and forth! Amazing! Believe me, even when I first saw this movie as a very little girl, I knew this window dressing was boring at best. I played along then, so bear with me now. As you probably know, he’s not doing these displays alone. The mannequin comes to life. And, it’s Kim Cattrall who, in 1987, looks incredibly gorgeous. I mean, WAY too good for meal-y Andrew McCarthy. Of course, Andrew’s uber-flamboyant co-worker is named Hollywood. I always thought he was Anthony on Designing Women. Does it even matter if he’s not? It’s practically the same person. Anyway, I guess that’s the movie’s way of adding spice, much like the juxtaposition to Duckie in Pretty In Pink. Listen, it doesn’t really work. Andrew is bland. Just let him be that way! Do not infiltrate a movie with gay stereotypes just to add color to a vanilla actor. Now, that’s boring.

But, let’s get into what this movie is REALLY about. Like I said before, the mannequin is leggy and gorgeous and an amazing (completely mediocre) designer. She only comes alive when Andrew is alone with her. What is this movie saying? A man is so insecure that he must completely possess a beautiful woman? I mean, she is giving him the pleasure. She is for him and him alone. Why can’t she be seen by others? Maybe, he’s so insecure that he believes that if she goes out into the world, she will understand that she can do so much better than him. Maybe, if she were to brave society, she would realize that there is more to life than the male gaze (this ONE male gaze). She would maybe understand that her life does not have to be about giving this man pleasure—pleasure by way of her body and her talents. The more I write this, the more I am disgusted with this movie. Men, it seems¸ are so insecure in relationships and in themselves that they think that in order to hold onto a beautiful, smart woman, they have to literally hold on to her and cloak her from the effects and influences of society at large. The mannequin in the movie holds a blank stare when in the presence of other people (besides only Andrew). We accept her dead eyes and then embrace her loveliness and charisma when she is alive with Andrew. Maybe we do accept that because we are all so programmed to believe that women are most alive when validated by the presence of the one man, the one “special” man who chooses such possession. I swear, I am holding back the impulse to shake the intelligence back into every girl or woman who has ever copped to the belief that they are only worthy if a man deems them to be. Don’t think I leave myself out of this notion; I am shaking the cobwebs out of my own brain as I write.

Grey Gardens (revisited)

The documentary, Grey Gardens, was made in 1975 by the Maysles, two filmmaker brothers. I already reviewed the HBO movie by the same name starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange. I praised Barrymore just because I thought her acting was good. In the documentary, Little Edie talks about someone playing herself in a movie. She doesn't want anyone to do that. No. If anyone were to play Little Edie, it would be Little Edie. Well, I'm back again to give Drew her props. She looks just like Little Edie--and talks like her, and dances like her, and (dare I say it?) she even captures her charm.

I didn't know anything about the documentary until the HBO movie came out. Of course, that film sparked my interest in the real-life Big Edie and Little Edie (the Beales). I learned a lot in the documentary. I learned that the Maysles really came to love these two women, and that their portrait of them would not have been so endearing had they not. The documentary has become sort of a cult hit. I get why; it's really because of Little Edie. She is an icon and an eccentric--an articulate eccentric. In other words, she's kind of irresistible. Little Edie promotes a sort of thrift store glamour. She's a Bouvier, and with that name comes a social status that turns out to be unshakable. Oh, her fashion sense. It is quirky, but completely spot on. She's really great with color choice and even the manipulation of fabrics and whole outfits. Little Edie wears brooches on her hand towel turbins and 1950s bathing suits as a base beneath an upside down skirt.

The women are not crazy--just over the top and real. The documentary now comes with previously unseen footage of the Beales. They are incredibly charming and social. Little Edie manages to engage in the filmmakers quite a bit, even though they try to stay out of the shot. A 2006 interview from the surviving brother, Albert Maysles, reveals that there was always a bit of a running joke between the brothers and Little Edie about who Little Edie was after. She played it up, too. But, she didn't play it up for the camera. The camera just happened to be there. I think that is the charm of Little Edie. Of course, that is also the charm of the documentary. It is a ride.

Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee

I entered the eighth grade in a new school in a new town. I cannot much remember the first days of other school years or even the first days of new jobs. However, I remember my first day of eighth grade and pretty much every day after that for the year. I got called a boy by the choir teacher. Consequently, I yearned to crawl into a ball and never leave the corner of the room. This town I moved to was small, and the mindset of the people felt small, and my bedroom felt small, and my tolerance for ignorance was becoming smaller and smaller. See, eighth grade was a time when I was really trying to understand myself and express myself. That is when I began to listen to "peace" music, like Joan Baez. I became, more than ever, interested in women's liberation. Most of all, though, I became interested in Native Americans. I was obsessed, you might say. When I fall in love, I fall hard. This was no exception.

I started to read about the American Indian Movement of the 1970s. I devoured the autobiographical books of Mary Brave Bird. I learned about the incarceration of Leonard Peltier and watched documentaries about him. I was convinced, then, that he was wrongly convicted of murdering FBI agents. I would write the White House on a fairly regular basis, urging the powers that be that Peltier was a political prisoner and nothing more. Those White House folks always wrote me back, saying that the Peltier case was still pending. "Yeah, right," I thought, as I popped in the CD of Joan Baez singing Prison Trilogy. I would like to say that I discovered the American Indian Movement on my own, that I just happened to be reading my encyclopedia when I decided to learn more about the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre and the 1970s re-taking of the land. No, that did not happen. What did happen was there was a television movie called Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee (based on Mary Brave Bird's books). I saw it and something clicked. The Native Americans were strangers in their own land; on some level, I could relate.

See, a 13 year old is sort of a stranger to herself. I mean, I was. I was awakening to the strength of my beliefs and realizing the passion behind my convictions. That's heavy for a kid. I needed help, so I transformed my struggle into the struggle of the American Indians. I made their struggle my struggle and vice verse. The historical, 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre was a slaughter of the American Indians. Then, in the 1970s, the American Indians (via the American Indian Movement), many of whom were living in poverty or who were indoctrinated with Christianity, came together to re-claim their land, to re-claim their identity. A symbol of the A.I.M. was the upside down American flag. That was used to symbolize the dissatisfaction of the American Indian people within American society.

My own mind was awakening to certain injustices and wrongs in our society. I understood the American Indians' overall unhappiness with the state of their world. I understood their unhappiness really by way of my own unhappiness with the world. I was coming into a time of my life (a state in which I still currently dwell) when I hungered to understand and paricipate in social movements for the betterment of society. Well, in a sort of solidarity with the idea and passion of social change that I saw in A.I.M., I painted an upside down flag and hung it on my window. I still remember when I was made to take it down for fear that people would shoot at the house if they saw it. (That's the kind of small town in which I was living.) I knew my flag was freedom of expression. I knew that it was unfair to take it off the window. But, I did it. I did it and I thought I understood the oppression of the American Indians. I now know how selfish I was for even relating my own pain to a whole people's. I did learn later, though, that there is no hierarchy of pain or oppression.

I love ROLLER RINKS

Longs Drugstore was located about five miles outside of the town where I went to college. If you've ever lived in a traditional college town, you know that there is a big difference between the students who come from far and wide to attend school and the people that actually live in the town. And, you also know that people who are supposedly smart (i.e. the students) can very suddenly turn into smart asses. Longs, being a safe distance away from the sprawling university, did not really cater to the students. Therefore, REAL people shopped there. A cross-section of people. Poor. Rich. (Mostly poor.) Black, White, Asian, Indian, Purple, Homeless. This was a truly refreshing place. I could hop on my bicycle and reach the land of real life. The land of Longs. A roller rink, nowadays, is kind of like Longs.

It is fair to say that I had not been to a roller rink in twenty years when I decided to go again. When I was very little, I used to go to Mom & Tot Skate, to birthday parties, and to elementary school class parties all at the local roller rink. I used to do "shoot the duck," I couples skated with my friends, and I ate at the snack bar. I thought I was incredibly cool on my skates. I thought all of my friends were cool. I thought the skating rink was cool. Now, going there as an adult, I think I was delusional. Either that or times have really changed. See, skating rinks attract representation from every section of people. On Adult Night at the roller rink, I've seen: business people in suits; couples; single women in their fifties and sixties; lots of over-forty single men; lots of over-forty single men with mustaches; young, hip men; women with hot pants on; women with feathered hair; and lots of people in jeans who looked like they ambled in without knowing they were entering a roller rink. Lots of the single men are incredibly good skaters. They zip around the rink and occasionally do tricks. Everyone moves with ease, and I've never seen even one collision.

Like I said, there are lots of single people. I was a little concerned that it would be a bit of a freak-show meat market. People are pretty friendly, but there's more of a camaraderie than a place for pick-ups. I was asked by a Regular to skate with him in a couples skate. I had to decline because, although 50 year old men with mustaches have always been my type, I couldn't betray my nonexistent boyfriend. And, besides, skating was my outlet--my fun--and I just didn't want to taint that with some pseudo skate romance. My heart wouldn't be able to take it. Anyway, it dawned on me later that he probably only wanted to skate with me so that he could stay on the rink. It was a couples only song, after all.

So, yes, there are lots of odd-ball people, including the lady in pink tights who insists on skating on one leg with her other one extended behind her, and the man who most definitely used to be an ice skater who insists on doing axles in the middle of the rink. There are also the younger men who fall in line together on the rink and do a routine as they skate the circle. That's my favorite. Those guys usually don't get to the rink until about an hour and a half into Adult Skate Night. I chatted one of those hotties up tonight. "You're such a good skater. Oh, you have a locker here. Do you work here?" I said as I batted my eyelashes. Of course, he skated only with his pals, but I kept my eye on him the whole time. He was leading their routine, and you know I love a boy who can dance--especially on skates.

There are a lot of characters. Some form of those characters are, no doubt, in attendance in all of the roller rinks across the Midwest. You get to skate under a mirror ball while watching weirdos and the (extremely) occasional eye candy. Plus, skating is lots of fun. You groove to the music. You're free. You're so free that your freakiness ceases to matter. Here, you're allowed to kick your leg out or wear a leotard or break dance in the middle of the rink. You'll be able to wave you Freak Flag, and that is infinitely better than any coolness factor you thought you possessed.

A marginal review

I'm back! Life has felt so so small. Started a new job that takes up at least 8 1/2 to 9 hours of my day. How am I supposed to review movies?! I've been a bad movie reviewer again and of course Kathleen has been as on her game as ever. Never missing a beat. It's funny because I recently watched Lovely and Amazing and loved it, as well. The director, Nicole Holofcener takes a risk in that film because none of the characters is particularly relatable or likable--least of all Keener, who is her perennial muse and star. Keener played plucky, aging Homecoming Queen so well. She was entitled and spoiled but she was ABOUT SOMETHING. Sometimes the something was unclear...She was about making tiny, oversized figurines? She was about telling random people to "F*** off"? But she stood up for herself, at least. Holofcener is the Nancy Meyers antidote. Her movies are darker, more somber. Her films feature women who don't have sprawling mansions with breathtaking vistas. Her movies are real and sometimes they make you uncomfortable. I watched "Walking and Talking" a few years ago--starring Keener and Anne Heche. That movie was about losing your best friend to your best friend's boyfriend. Well, it was only marginally about that...Who among us can't relate to that? I remember meeting my sister's college boyfriend when I was an angsty sixteen year old and just hating him. I wanted my sister all to myself! He stayed in our home over winter break and I couldn't even make eye contact with him. Then, as now, I had very few social skills. Sometimes Holofcener skirts the question : What is female friendship when unmediated by men? The answer to that question is so much more interesting than the kiddie pool rom coms that can only ask : What is female friendship in relation to men? In the latter, the sidekick can only comment wistfully or wittily about the boyfriend/prospect. Who cares!?!?! Bride Wars I'm thinking about you....Women have thoughts, you know. Internal lives that don't always revolve around boys. Holofcener shows that. There are so few female directors in the limelight. I try to do my best to support them when I can.

One Memorial Day three years ago the three writers of this blog dressed up in all black and held an actual memorial for fallen soldiers. Foregoing barbecues and red tag sales we stood around a gorgeous hand dyed yellow flag and set it on fire. We talked about soldiers dying and how such a somber day could come to mean 50% OFF EVERYTHING!!!!! We talked about make up and the inexorable push and pull to it. Then we poured a bucket of water on the fallen flag and wondered how to get the smell out of our hair. See? Movies should portray women like this--making no sense, making little sense, making beautiful sense, making a scene...Trying to articulate thoughts that are ineffable. I love women.

Toy Story 3

"Would I be lost because I didn't see the second installment? Would Buzz and Woody's inside jokes make no sense to me?" I mulled over the answers as I entered the movie theater to see Toy Story 3. I needn't have worried; Toy Story 3 is a good movie--all on its own.

Toy Story came out in 1995. 1995 was the year I stopped playing with my Barbies. Once I made the decision to stop playing, I could not start again. I know because I tried. I set up my Barbie houses with my Barbie furniture, picked out the Barbie dolls I would play with, and started. But, I could not go back once I quit. That was one of the saddest days of my life. My Barbies used to be everything to me. I would play for hours. I kept story lines going. It was absolutely my escape. Once I put a moratorium on playing, my sanctuary was destroyed. I gave it all up because I was afraid a friend would come over and make fun of me for still playing Barbies. No friend in eighth grade (I know...that's how OLD I was) was worth that, but I gave up part of my life anyway. The Toy Story film makers understand and respect each toy. They understand each toy's back story, how it is played with, who would play with it, and why. The film makers also understand the children who love such toys. That, I think, is the charm of the Toy Story movies.

The first movie is sweet in that it explores a child's relationship and devotion to her or his toys. Really, the movie explores how children create their own allies within their own little world. I can relate. I mean, I guess that's why I spent so much time and energy on my Barbie world; it was controllable and intricate and friendly in a real world that was not always that way.

Toy Story 3 brings the charm of the first one, but adds a new dimension. The toys' boy, Andy, is no longer a little boy. He's heading off to college. What, then, should become of his toys? I was not expecting to be moved by this movie in the way that I was. At the heart of Toy Story 3 is this message: Respect your past enough to allow yourself to move on and leave what you can in capable hands. Remember in the first Toy Story when all of the toys worked together (and relied on the Army men) to find out what toys Andy got for his birthday? Well, there's a scene in the beginning of T.S.3 that mirrors that in an alternate universe. The toys work together once again to concoct a plan to make a 17 year old Andy open his toy box. See, Andy doesn't play any more, but the toys think that maybe, MAYBE, just by seeing them, Andy will want to love them again. That scene is a prelude to the tears that will inevitably come for the viewer at the end of the movie. Be comforted that you won't be the only one weeping during the last 15 minutes of the film. I will not say more about it. Just go see this movie.