In the 2014 film Dear White People, which has since been turned into a Netflix series, filmmaker Justin Simien takes on the myriad forms of racial prejudice and ignorance faced by people of colour at largely white colleges. Now, he’s honing in on the cultural significance of hair to women of colour, with a horror-satire entitled Bad Hair. Speaking to Deadline the director said: “This will be both a love letter to black women and a critique of the cultural forces our society puts them through.”
The cast has not been confirmed and details are scant at this point, but the film will be based around a young woman who, faced with the pressures of a showbiz career, gets a weave that turns out to be a lot more than a hair piece, and drama ensues. Sounds like a literal interpretation of hair’s ability to ‘take on a life of its own’.
Following the massive success of Get Out, Bad Hair similarly looks set to explore racial oppression beyond cinema’s typical genre-confines. At a time of extreme tension across the US, this couldn’t be more necessary.
Watch the announcement teaser if you want to experience disembodied hair in slow-mo close up paired with very ominous music.