A Talk with Chris Rock

2009-10-12
By Sergio Mims

If there’s someone who definitely doesn’t need an introduction it’s comedian, actor, writer and producer Chris Rock. With concert dates, TV appearances and two new films scheduled to come out next year, a remake of the British comedy Death at a Funeral with Zoe Saldana scheduled to open in April 2010, and Grown Ups with Adam Sandler next summer, Rock is avery busy man.

His new documentary, Good Hair, opened in five major cities this weekend and around the country on October 23. Rock explores the very complicated and tortured relationship between black women and their hair and the huge multibillion-dollar business behind it.

EBONY: First I have to tell you about something I overheard which relates to Good Hair. A few weeks ago I was standing in line at this place and there was this black woman behind me on her cell phone and she kept saying: “When I get out of here I gotta get my ten inches. I need to get my ten inches. I need my ten inches”  I swear honestly I thought she was talking about her boyfriend. It took me a long time to figure out that she was talking about hair extensions!

ROCK: (laughs) Yeah, that’s good one man.

EBONY: The first obvious question regarding Good Hair is…why you? Why not a woman?

ROCK: Don’t ask me, ask Oprah why she didn’t do it. Why didn’t Tyra do it? Why didn’t Wanda Sykes do it? Why didn’t Whoopi do it? I just did it because it was there.

EBONY: But one can argue that perhaps being a man gives you more of an objective distance from the subject matter where as with a black woman it may have been too personal.

ROCK: Look, all the greatest rappers of all time are not from the hood. They live next to the hood (laughs). You know Ice Cube didn’t live in the projects, he lived next to the projects. So yeah, when you have a little distance, it helps. It helps a lot.

EBONY: But I have heard many times that black women, according to them, straighten their hair or get weaves for men because men like it? Do you agree?

ROCK: No not at all. Look at a black men’s magazine. Hair goes all over the place. It’s all ass. (laughs) It’s all black men care about is ass. That’s all black men ever cared about. You can be bald…

What guy doesn’t look at Kanye West’s girlfriend (Amber Rose) and go crazy?  Black men are all about the waist to ass ratio. Waist, ass, hips, that’s black men (laughs) Always has been, always will be. End of story.

EBONY: Let me ask you this, have any women after seeing the film come up to you or the filmmakers and said that it changed their minds and they’re no longer going to straighten their hair?

ROCK: There’s been a little bit of that, but We Are the World didn’t end world hunger you know what I mean?(laughs) Public Enemy didn’t stop people from doing anything.

EBONY: Well let me ask you this, some will argue that this is really a film for white people to explain our strange ways to them since there’s nothing in the film that we don’t know about already.

ROCK: I disagree. And I have the advantage since I’ve screened the movie over 30 times and I’ve had way too many black people coming up to me and saying “I didn’t know this, I didn’t know that, I didn’t know this, I didn’t know that…” Do we know more about it than
the average white person going in to see the film? Yes, yes we do. But black people definitely do not know all this stuff.

EBONY: O.K. granted, things like the dangerous harmful ingredients in hair straightener that can cause serious damage, that I see people not knowing. But for example the money aspect, just how expensive weaves are -- people already know that don’t they?

ROCK: They know they’re spending that much money on their hair, but they don’t know who’s’ making the money. But yeah they know they’re spending that much money on their hair. We shot that but we had to cut some of it out because it was…unpleasant.

EBONY: Oh really like what?

ROCK: Well how the money aspect effects relationships. Yeah we get into that a little in the film but…it’s like having a habit. There’s a cost. A cost is something that you need every month. So even though a cost can bust your ass, that even though you and your woman knows that the rent needs to be paid, or the heat or the gas, whatever, this will eat at your relationship.  Now you’ve got a hair cost which is equal to your rent cost, that’s even more. You know it’s kind of like dating an addict.

EBONY: Well I have to admit that the whole hair cost thing did surprise me, since practically every woman I know has their own hair, no weaves or any of that.

ROCK: Oh so you’re from that side of town (laughs). That little village over there. That’s the little village over there, only three blocks. You guys have your own generator and you don’t pay for electricity. But in the greater Chicago area…(laughs)

EBONY: During the making of this film which took maybe a year, a year and a half and half to shoot on and off…

ROCK: Almost two years!

EBONY: But what really surprised you on your journey in uncharted territory?
 
ROCK: That up in Harlem, in an impoverished neighborhood like literally next to abandoned buildings, that people are spending $3,000, $5,000  for a weave. That’s shocking! I knew the big dogs were doing it. I knew Beyonce spends $8,000 when she goes to the Oscars, but to think a school teacher would do this…It’s no different than the banks loaning money on
those bad mortgages (laughs)

EBONY: But I’m sure you’ve gotten complaints from people like, “Why are you airing our dirty laundry? Why do have to make a film like this, letting people know how ashamed we are of our hair?”

ROCK: Oh they say that to me all the time. I’ve been getting that one since “Bring the Pain”.

EBONY: Why do you think that is?

ROCK: Well, look, is there a chain of black movie theaters I can go to and only show this to black people? I mean it’s not like we’re hiding it. It’s not like there aren’t any relaxers in Walgreens, at Rite Aid (laughs). It’s  like people are thinking: “Oh what will white people think of us if they knew this about this,  if this gets out there, that we have all these horrible self esteem issues.” Yeah right. I’ve never been tripping off what white people thing. Like my dad always used to say to us: “They don’t pay your bills and they can’t kick your ass so what do you care?” Right, what do I care?(laughs)

EBONY: Just to veer off the subject for a second you have a new comedy coming out next year Death at a Funeral, but the surprising thing is that it’s directed by Neil LaBute, who directed the film Lakeview Terrace and is known in his stage plays for his uniquely grim, serious, very misanthropic views of people, especially men. I don’t associate him with comedy of all things.

ROCK: You know what? It’s weird because he’s the nicest guy.  I’ve worked with him before, and you know what they say, get someone you know who you’re comfortable with. Like Sam Jackson told me told a long time ago that you can’t do comedy with strangers.  Your friends knows all the album tracks, strangers just know the hits. So I felt really comfortable with Neil and the movie’s really funny. I saw an early cut a few weeks ago, it’s really funny.

EBONY:  But I have a complaint, why aren’t there any sisters with dreads in the film in Good Hair or were they left on the cutting room floor?

ROCK: Well we shot some but you know they really weren’t that interesting. I mean don’t get me wrong. They were nice, but look at it this way… one woman is putting beeswax in her hair and the other is putting nuclear waste in her hair, which movie do you want to see? (laughs)

EBONY: O.K. I see what you mean…

ROCK: Yeah leave that for Soledad O’Brien and Black in America 3 (laughs)

EBONY: Your daughters appear in the film in a few scenes, but not your wife Malaak, why not?

ROCK: Because I don’t believe in hiring people you can’t fire. So if she was in the movie and she was great, it’ll be great, but if she wasn’t what am I going to do cut it out? (Laughs) No!

EBONY: There’s a logic to that isn’t there?

ROCK: I’m just saying. How many bad movies have you seen that couples do together? A lot! You can’t cut your wife or your girlfriend out, so you’re just stuck.

Film critic, lecturer and festival consultant Sergio Mims covers all things film from the city that works, Chicago. He is a regular contributor to EbonyJet.com.