Hair Piece: A Film for Nappy Headed People; Flag

Dublin Core

Title

Subject

African-American, documentary, activism, woman director, feminist, racism

Description

Dub for teaching. I used these films often in my first years teaching feminist and women's film. Maybe Women Make Movies or the artists sent them to me for research for my film and book, Women of Vision.

Date

1985; 1989

Abstract

Hair Piece: A Film for Nappyheaded People (1984) is an animated satire that unpacks the stereotypes associated with Black hair texture and styles, and the ways in which Black hair is made to be non-normative. In this satirical short that incorporates mixed media and animation, Chenizira critiques the limits of the European beauty standard. She draws attention to the physical pains Black women have endured to straighten their hair, and the emotional pain that comes as a result of the pressure to conform. Hair Piece also commemorates the power of Black cultural icons and the Soul Power era for helping to shift the perception of Black hair from ‘nappy’ to a texture of beauty. -- Ayoka Chenzira

Linda Gibson revisits the emotional disturbance produced by her early fascination with patriotic symbols and rituals. She assembles a patchwork of scenes around discrepancies between democratic rhetoric and the reality of racial exclusion, mingling a child’s diary entries, stills and home movies, printed texts, street interviews with people attempting to define the meaning of the American flag, and a medley of physical routines in which idiosyncratic dance movements collide with stylized variations on saluting. “Flag” flickers with the uncertainties of memory, the evocation of a child’s credulous view of equality tempered by an adult knowledge of social hierarchy and oppression. – Paul Arthur