Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
There's no denying the fact that Chris Rock is one of the funniest men in not just America, but also the world. His last HBO stand-up comedy special "Kill the Messenger," which came out on DVD earlier this year, was shot in New York, London, and Johannesburg, proving that his brand of searing observational humor transcends cultural differences. If you speak English, odds are you'll find Rock funny. Gonig even further to prove this thesis is his latest film, GOOD HAIR, an eye-opening documentary that every woman I know is desperate to see.
Although Rock is hit and miss with his feature films--NEW JACK CITY, NURSE BETTY, THE LONGEST YARD, I THINK I LOVE MY WIFE on the hit side; BAD COMPANY, HEAD OF STATE on the miss side--GOOD HAIR is an absolute slam dunk. It highlights what Rock does best--point out the absurd behavior that people accept as part of the every day. It's something he does in his stand-up routine, and it was one of the best aspects of his HBO talk show "The Chris Rock Show." When he left the studio and went into the street to talk to people, the comedy just wrote itself. In this case, the topic is the strange and often toxic (literally) things black women will do to their hair in the name of style, regardless of the cost. You may wonder what this subject has to do with your life, Mr. and Mrs. White Person, and the answer is, probably not much. But if you like to laugh, you can't afford to miss GOOD HAIR.
Rock isn't so much interested in skewering black women for making their hair straight and light to conform with social definitions of beauty, but he does take to task women who use men to pay for their multi-thousand-dollar weave sessions. He's not vicious, although he easily could have been. But simply pointing out some pretty bizarre behavior is enough to unlock the laughter. The icing on the cake are the segments of the film devoted to the Bonner Brothers Hair Show in Atlanta, which features the film's most genuinely shocking and funniest moments.
Chris came to Chicago a couple weeks back to film an episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," but I managed to talk to him for a few minutes the day before that taping. The first thing that struck me about Rock is how direct he is in answering questions. In reading older interviews to prepare for our talk, I'd noticed the same thing--short answers, not a lot of riffing, he answers the question, injects a little humor, and then it's time to move on. And yet he comes across as extremely personable, and it made me excited when he did start to talk at length on certain subject, including the every-elusive POOTIE TANG sequel, which he still contemplates.
As an aside, while I was waiting in the hallway outside the hotel room where Rock was conducting his interviews, I ran into Nelson George, executive producer of GOOD HAIR along with Rock. I've known of George as a columnist, author, and expert on all aspects of black culture. He's appeared in countless music documentaries and was even a producer on the early Rock film CB4 and was a "consulting producer" on "The Chris Rock Show." I've always admired his insight, and the trip to talk to Rock was doubly worth it because I got to have a fairly lengthy chat with George about the film and other fun things. Anway, here's the great Chris Rock. Enjoy…
Capone: Hi, Chris, good to meet you.
Chris Rock: You're with Ain’t it Cool?
Capone: Yes.
CR: Cool, good to meet you.
Capone: I saw GOOD HAIR Friday morning, and then I went right from there to Tyler Perry’s new film [I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF, which opened the same day] and I was watching it in an entirely different way, because I could not take my eyes off Taraji Henson’s hair; I was deconstructing her hair. This is probably going to happen to a lot of people--they are just going to look at people’s hair in a different way. Was that part of your intention?
CR: No! The intention was to just try and make a funny movie that people enjoy.
Capone: It worked in that respect, but I couldn't stop staring at her hair--is it straight, or is it long enough to be a weave?
CR: Ha!
Capone: The other thing that struck me about the film was Maya Angelou in this movie, and she is great. She strikes me as a person who just loves to laugh, and people don’t really think of her that way. Did you find that to be the case?
CR: She was funny all day. I always say everybody is funny, and you just have to find the right context in which they are funny. So, Maya Angelou, in this, is funny. In THE HANGOVER, she wouldn’t be that funny. “We have got to do that one again Maya Angelou…” “Who’s baby is it, Maya? Is it your baby?”
Capone: Had you met her before?
CR: I’m trying to think; I’m sure I met her before. I had to meet her at some point.
Capone: It just seems funny that if this were the first time you met her, and all you're talking about is hair. She should be talking about world issues.
CR: You talk to any woman about hair, and they just light up.
Capone: I guess so, even Maya Angelo! It’s interesting, you just touch on it in the film, but we don’t normally think of Michelle Obama in regards to her hair, but you might change that. In some of the interviews I have read from Sundance, that’s what people were always asking about. Does having the first lady and her daughters clearly with product in hair…
CR: The first lady has got product, but I’m not sure if the daughters have product.
Capone: Really? Their hair is long and curly, but maybe you are right.
CR: You have to remember, their grandmother is white.
Capone: If that’s true, then they have a look that a lot of black women are spend thousands of dollars on to get artificially. And First Ladies are often such fashion icons. Does that put pressure on the black women of the world that didn’t go that route to think “Maybe that’s how women with power are supposed to look.”
CR: Most black women have something in their hair. Most black women’s hair is straight. There’s a lot without it, but most have it.
Capone: That’s what was interesting about listening to Tracy Thoms in the film. I don’t think there would be a right-thinking male on the planet who would think she’s unattractive, because of her hair, but she’s working with what she was born with. Was part of the reason you made the film, to address that confidence issue? That’s something you talk about in the film.
CR: Yeah, with my daughters… You always hear “confidence” and “reinforce love.” But hey I just make a movie to make people laugh, and try to pick a topic that not only works for the movie, but I can do 20 or 80 interviews and not lose my mind.
Capone: How did you decide that Jeff Stilson would be the right director for this? I know you have worked with him before.
CR: He worked on the show and he used to shoot all of the remote stuff we used to do, so we always talked about doing a longer version of one of these things and it just worked out. Plus Jeff worked with Michael Moore. He worked on "TV Naiton," which was the TV show, so that training… Jeff worked with me, he worked with David Letterman, Bill Mahr; he kind of knew what he was doing.
Capone: There is a Michael Moore quality to the way you approach this, because you could have opted to stay off camera. When did you make that decision to be on camera and to narrate beyond just doing the interviews?
CR: I guess early on. I never thought about not being in front of the camera. It’s weird, because I’m on camera, but I’ve got no make up on. I have grey all up in my beard, you know what I mean? I might be 10 pounds heavier than I am right now, so it wasn’t like I was consciously…I never thought about it like a movie, like “Okay, we are shooting this doc…”
Capone: You are just a correspondent.
CR: I am a correspondent. You kind of want to blend in with people.
Capone: How did you go about lining up the interviews? You’ve got the actresses and Al Sharpton and Ice-T. How did you go through that process and pick the people you wanted to talk to?
CR: You just cast a net and see who is interested. Part of it was I had a TV show and people were just paying me back for being on the TV show. I directed a couple of movies. So unless I hate the director, if the director asks me to do anything, I kind of do it, because you never know down the line. “Jason Reitman needs you to help paint something.” “Okay, I guess I should help him paint his garage, and maybe I’ll end up in a movie or something.” That’s what happens. You try to not abuse that power as a director, because actors are very eager to please you.
Capone: Were there any genuine surprises, either with the hair-care aspect or at the hair show?
CR: The show is just insanity. Nothing prepares you for the show. I recommend you guys go this year. I think there’s one in February. I just went to the last one in August. It’s so good. Dude, it is sooooo freaking good. It really is good. The hair show is just always going to shock you. It was amazing how much some women who couldn’t afford it were paying for their hair. You know Beyonce spends five grand to get ready for the Grammy’s and then “Kiki” was spending five grand to work at Sunglass Hut. It’s like, really?
Capone: That payment part of the film was really interesting, because I felt like you didn’t want to say it, but that might have been the moment where you edging toward “Guys, don’t keep paying for this, and women, don’t pay it if you can’t afford it.” It seems like there might be a lot of sexual bartering there when it comes time for a new weave.
CR: Yes, there is definitely sexual bartering going on. I will say I cut out a couple of lines.
Capone: What were the lines?
CR: [Laughs] I cut them out for a reason. “Oh boy, I’m coming on too strong!”
Capone: I really did learn a lot from the film. I'd heard of weaves, but I didn’t know the infrastructure of them. I know women that can crochet these really tricky patterns that would just die trying to figure out how to stitch one of those things on.
CR: Can you imagine having that thing on your head?
Capone: To have something on your body that is semi permanent that you are not allowed to touch or let anyone else touch…
CR: Just imagine have that on your head every day. What would that do to your attitude? Wouldn’t you get angrier quicker than most people? Yes, you would. Would you have less patience? Yes, you would.
Capone: The actresses, in particular, were they at all protective of their secrets or is it kind of out there now?
CR: We cut those girls out.
Capone: There were some?
CR: If you stay for the credits, everybody we used is in the credits. We gave a thank you to everyone we used in the credits, but some of them are just a little too guarded about it. All of the loose women are in the movie.
[Both laugh]
CR: That’s what happens.
Capone: I was particularly impressed by Raven Simone. In my head, she's this Disney kid who's got this image that she is trying to protect, but she ended up being the most talkative.
CR: She was great.
Capone: When she pulls her hair, it’s like “Oh, that’s how it works.” That told me more than anything else.
CR: She is great. And I would have no idea who she was if I didn’t have daughters.
Capone: You never watched "The Cosby Show"?
CR: I was so done with "The Cosby Show" by the time she came on. That was like the last year, right?
Capone: Yeah, the last year or two.
CR: I was on stage at eight o'clock on a Thursday. I was out of there.
Capone: I know you have said that you just want people to laugh, but is there something that you want men and women to take from this film?
CR: I don’t know. I know Michael Moore got the bullets off of WalMart. If they took “Kiddy Perm” off of the shells, I would pat myself on the back.
Capone: That’s one of the key images. I have even seen some ads on websites where that image of that little girl with the relaxer in her hair is the image of the movie. That’s pretty hardcore.
CR: That is pretty hardcore. I like that poster much more than the one-sheet we have, but, you know, You’ve got to get them with honey.
Capone: Otherwise they’d go “That looks like they are torturing children, I’m not going to that movie!” Let me talk about some other stuff. Are you working on any stand-up stuff right now?
CR: No, I just got off tour, literally.
Capone: Is that a tour we've seen?
CR: I think it’s a special, "Kill the Messenger" like on HBO. So I just got off the road with that. We just did a movie with Martin Lawrence, DEATH AT A FUNERAL.
Capone: I was going to ask about that, because I saw the title and was like “That’s the title of that Frank Oz movie from two years ago, because I interviewed him here for that movie.” I’ve heard of people remaking foreign films, but never a remake of an English-language movie from two years ago. You co-wrote the screenplay on that?
CR: I de-Britishized it. We actually wrote a lot of new jokes, but it was like this perfect movie that a lot of people didn’t see. I don’t know anybody that’s not in the comedy business that saw the movie, but it’s not that simple. You would be amazed at how British that movie is, and we worked on the script and got it to a place, and I think we got something.
Capone: But Peter Dinklage is still in it? He must be attached to the script in any form.
CR: He is. [laughs] He puts a different twist on it. He’s such a good actor.
Capone: That’s a good role.
CR: It is. [laughs] I’m sure he will play it on Broadway, too. “With Peter Dinklage!”
Capone: So what has been happening in the world? Have you thought much about what Kanye West has been up to these last couple of days?
CR: Everyone keeps asking me and I am not dissing Kanye. I don’t want to end up in some rap record--too many things rhyme with “Rock.” [laughs]
[Both Laugh]
CR: Not going to get me! I'm not getting in that dissing rotation.
Capone: Since you haven’t been on a tour since Michael Jackson died, and he’s someone you have talked about before in you shows. But what do you think about this circus that has resulted post death?
CR: I don’t know. Everyone is like “You can tell how good a father he was by the way those kids cried.” Parental hate doesn’t really come in until your mid-teens, when you start meeting other people’s parents and realizing they're sane. “You guys eat every day?” All 7 year olds love their parents. Even if the parents that beat them, all little kids love their parents, even the bad parents, so we don’t know yet. It's sad. "If Marshall McLuhan could see this, he would spin!" [laughs]
Capone: And I’m sure that Army Archerd’s death pains you a great deal.
CR: Yes, it does.
Capone: Did you ever meet him on the red carpet?
CR: Yes. He might have been there when I got my star on the Walk of Fame. I’ve got a feeling that Army Archerd was there when I got my star.
Capone: So, that one you actually have a connection too. Does it still shock you, or are you even aware, that POOTIE TANG is still very much a part of film-geek culture.
CR: I’ve got a lot of POOTIE TANG questions today.
Capone: People quote it all of the time. Are you and Louis CK aware that you have created this cultural icon?
CR: It’s weird. We hung out about a wekk ago. We keep talking about doing a sequel, but I just can’t get him to focus on it.
Capone: He’s too busy acting these days.
CR: He’s acting and doing this stuff like a big star now. Lance is running the the George Lopez show ["Lopez Tonight"]. Wanda is doing her thing. It’s hard to get the band back together, but I would love, love to do another POOTIE TANG.
Capone: At this point, you might run the risk of making it too good the second time.
CR: I would loooove… Hey, Louis has a destructive side to him, don't worry, he wouldn't let it get too good. Looove. We were talking about it for a while. We were talking about POOTIE TANG, but actually it was Bruce Willis as the bad guy. We were really trying to figure out POOTIE TANG. Or was it Pootie Tang and Bruce Willis fighting crime like DIE HARD? I forget. [Chris launches into what can only be described as giggle fits.]
Capone: That would work!
CR: [laughs] That would be so funny--Pootie and Bruce Willis.
Capone: One of your new films is directed by Neil LeBute [Rock's NURSE BETTY director]?
CR: Neil LeBute did DEATH AT A FUNERAL, and I just did GROWN UPS with Adam Sandler and Kevin James.
Capone: That’s right. You are in DEATH AT A FUNERAL, too, right? Who do you play in that?
CR: I play the lead guy, whatever his name is. And Martin is the brother.
Capone: What’s the Sandler film?
CR: The Sandler film is like THE BIG CHILL, kind of, like starts off with us all playing basketball in high school and our coach dies, and we get together for the funeral. We haven’t seen each other in however many years years and hilarity ensues. It’s like two funeral movies, actually. There’s a lot of my and death. In this movie, they are killing hair.
Capone: In GOOD HAIR, were there any people that you would have really liked to have interviewed for this film that you didn’t?
CR: I really wanted Diana Ross, just because she meant so much to my mother and it’s kind of the first weave I remember seeing. The first time I remember people talking about a weave, like “Is that her hair?” “No, it’s not her hair, it’s a weave.” "Really?" They started it. In a weird way with the wigs and the straightening, they kind of started it, so I would have like to have talked to her, but that’s it.
Capone: Now that "Everybody Hates Chris" is now done, and I watched every episode of that show, and probably mistakenly, I took every word of that show as something that happened to you.
CR: Thank you. A lot of it did happen to me. I would say about 30 percent. The first two years, verbatim.
Capone: Are you sad that that’s gone?
CR: I think it ran its course. I think was got some really good stuff out of it.
Capone: He’s going to run out of high school eventually…
CR: Eventually, exactly. I’m proud of it. I’m definitely proud of it.
Capone: I’ve been seeing ads that it's coming back in syndication now, so it will be around for generations.
CR: It will be around for a loooong time.
Capone: All right, well thank you so much, Chris.
CR: Ain’t It Cool! Have I ever gotten a good review on Ain’t It Cool? I don’t think so.
Capone: I have no idea. I know I liked THE LONGEST YARD, but that wasn’t really your movie. And I'm pretty sure I gave a positive review to NURSE BETTY and I THINK I LOVE MY WIFE.
CR: I think you're right. But THE LONGEST YARD, I actually did get a good review for. Good meeting you.
-- Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com
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