 Quick note: Hair and Surprisingly Good Movies
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Jun. 1st, 2009 @ 07:25 pm 
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This evening I rewatched Miss Congeniality with a friend, and noticed something I'd previously not given a second thought:
In the pageant scenes, the black contestants have relatively natural hair.
I say "relatively" because it's still heavily styled. They're playing beauty pageant contestants; every woman has heavily styled hair. But the black women's hair is styled in ways that take advantage of thick curls, of the things their hair can do that the white women's can't, and look like they just require scrunching and gel and hairspray.
I never noticed before, I think, because natural hair on black women isn't something that pings to me as something to take special note of - most of the black women I see in real life have natural hair, and since most of the television I've watched of late has been Japanese (and I hardly ever watch movies), I just don't see enough black women with heavily-processed hair to have overcome my tendency to think of natural as the default for hair on black women. (Japanese TV shows? Not heavily loaded with black characters. Or any characters who aren't Japanese. "Foreign" is "from Osaka".)
Miss Congeniality is a movie whose awesomeness I really kind of want to advocate. In addition to just being genuinely entertaining, it has stuff I just approve of. Like beautiful black women with hair that looks real. Positive representation of non-heterosexuality. A range of characters who aren't stereotypes:
The sweet, naive Miss Rhode Island, who comes off as lovely but sheltered, is the one who's described as majoring in physics and minoring in elementary particles. The non-white characters include the slightly bitchy Miss Hawaii, the worldly but clearly kind-hearted Miss New York who trades barbs with Miss Hawaii in defence of other contestants - but before the movie's out, it becomes clear that there's no real animosity in it after a while, and it's something they're just doing because they can. Miss California, also black, is warm-hearted and friendly - because the bitchy isn't because they're not white, it's because they're them, and the different characters have different personalities.
And when it's important, all of them are good people. A woman can be warm and kind and supportive of other women when it matters, even if she's a bit catty or outright bitchy when it doesn't.
Not really spoilery, because it's not plot, and the movie isn't exactly new anyway: You also get bits like Gracie's conversation with Cheryl, Miss Rhode Island, where Cheryl mentions offhandedly that there was this time when one of her college professors invited her to his office to discuss a paper.
Cheryl, rueful/bitter: He wanted to "discuss a paper", right? [...] Anyway, he attacked me.
Gracie, shocked: Did you report him?
Cheryl: No, I never told anyone before this. I know that happens all the time.
Gracie exclaims that it doesn't, it totally doesn't, and starts talking about teaching Cheryl self-defence. Miss Congeniality 2 also has the "self-defence for women" thing and how important it is - because the message, in Miss Congeniality, is that sexual violence happens, and the woman may well not even report it, because it's just expected... but women can try and establish some agency, take some steps to protect themselves. Which doesn't make it okay.
Also, conforming to the unrealistic beauty ideal requires, at best, an agony of alterations.
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I wondered why I loved this film so much considering it's about - ugh! - beauty pageants and a not-hollywood-attractive woman getting a makeover etc etc. But, like you said, there's so much more to it: it's almost (and this will sound so pretentious) a strange sort of character study where the environment happens to be a beauty pageant.
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| From: | ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) sami |
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June 1st, 2009 01:54 pm (UTC) |
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It's true.
It works better yet if you consider it in tandem with the sequel. Where the outcome of her getting together with a guy she knew was incredibly shallow and kind of a jerk at the end of the first film is that three weeks later he dumps her in a dickish fashion, which messes her up badly - and she only comes to terms with that, and with herself, when she comes to terms with who she is, and realises the importance of resisting the pressure to conform to an unrealistic barbie-doll image.
Together, the two movies chart a full arc of personal growth until she's back to being comfortable in her skin and happy with who she is. It's brilliant.
The thing is?
Movies about personal growth, about identity and self-image and all that stuff - they don't have to be Serious and difficult. I think in a lot of ways the reason I think the Miss Congeniality movies are so brilliant is that they carry this stuff off, talking about issues that really are important things for women, in a way that's seemlessly integrated into a film that's light-hearted and fun and enjoyable to watch, with characters who are three-dimensional and dodge stereotypes everywhere.
Like, I love that Sam Fuller, in the second movie, is a black woman with "anger management issues" and a generalised intolerance for bullshit - but when she and Gracie have a heart-to-heart and talk about the things that made them who they are, Sam's story of her childhood is... "It wasn't bad." She got to spend time with her father, who she loved, and her memories are happy. Fuller is angry because the world is full of stupid people and she has no patience for fools, not because of some kind of Giant Childhood Trauma or because she's black - she had a content childhood with a loving dad. When people aren't being stupid at her, she's not irrationally hostile, she just does not suffer fools.
You can have a minority, who's angry, and still dodge the Angry Black Person stereotype - imo, Miss Congeniality 2 is a brilliant example of that. Because we have reason to see that her character can be more than just angry. She's not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd still call her a great example of a positive black character in a film, because she's flawed, but she's awesome.
OK, you've sold me. I now not only have to buy Miss Congeniality on DVD, but also the sequel. I avoided it mostly because a)sequals tend to be bad and b)sequels with sassy black 'side-kicks' are always bad. This has completely ruined my hypothesis and for once, I am glad!
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| From: | sami |
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June 1st, 2009 02:04 pm (UTC) |
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*grins*
I really wouldn't describe Sam Fuller as "sassy". I'm pretty sure she would punch me in the face if I tried, despite being fictional.
MC2 is different. No pageant, for a start. But I think it's really, really good, and I honestly don't think she's even exactly a sidekick. She's a partner. She has more screen time, and a more important role in the development of the plot, than Benjamin Bratt or Michael Caine did in the first film - and she's *not* just a prop for Gracie's personal development, because even though she *does* help Gracie to grow as a person, she has her own moments of growth too, and she has that effect *because* they're partners.
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| From: | willow |
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June 1st, 2009 07:36 pm (UTC) |
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I liked the first movie, but avoided the second because 1)sequel and 2) loud mouthed black woman sidekick? Oh no.
It's interesting to hear that's not the case.
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| From: | sami |
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June 2nd, 2009 03:09 am (UTC) |
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I can't guarantee it would come off as awesomely to you as it did to me. I'm not really sensitised to those tropes, because I watch so few movies and the ones I do watch aren't that kind - I can't, offhand, think of a movie I have seen which included a character I could call a loud mouthed black woman sidekick at all. I think the only mouthy black sidekick movie I *can* think of is Rush Hour, and I'm not sure how well that label applies to a movie starring Jackie Chan and Chris Rock. (Not to mention that whole thing where I'm white, and it's easier for that stuff to go right past me if I'm not paying attention.)
However, as mentioned, I really do think Sam Fuller is an important character in her own right in the movie. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the film does in fact have a happy ending, but it wouldn't have without Fuller being brilliant in her own right, and showing that no, really, she's in the FBI because she's *good*.
She's a partner, not a sidekick, and I just love that more than words can say. It's a cop buddy movie starring women. Real, non-barbie-doll women. One of whom is black, and that's both an important part of who she is, but not the sole thing that defines her. If you had to describe her as a person, black is part of it, but there are other adjectives too.
Also, Regina King is awesome, and one scene in particular makes me fall in love with her utterly every time.
Wow! It would never have occurred to me to watch those. Now I'll have to look out for them on Freeview (I have a big backlog of things I've recorded off air).
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