As a Black woman who has done the big chop -the act of cutting off all chemically relaxed or damaged hair and leaving only the natural hair- some years ago, I was interested to see how this topic would be handled in recently surfaced film Nappily Ever After, directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour. The film is a Netflix exclusive based on the novel by Trisha R. Brown about a Black female advertising executive. After a romantic setback, the main character, Violet Jones played by Sanaa Lathan gives up straight hairstyles, and in an emotional drunken night, shaves off all her hair, beginning a journey of self-discovery. I should probably say the film has a 15 rating for a couple of explicit scenes but isn’t that what remote controls are for in Muslim households?

When I first saw the trailer I found it to be cringe-worthy believing the film was going to be awful. It wasn’t so much awful as missing the point. There are many issues to unpack including the Eurocentric beauty standards applied to women globally and the misogyny of molding women into what men want to see. I can’t do the topic of natural hair justice because our views and experiences are so diverse. My own views have continued to develop over the years. Black hair is a big business. In 2014 a study in the UK found that 80 percent of total hair care sales were made by Black women. Black people including children in school routinely find themselves blocked from accessing jobs or education because of their hair. The politics of our hair is imposed upon us. Controlling how we grow and style our hair is an extension of the histories of colonialism and slavery.

This film’s concept, though noble, is outdated by at least ten years. The proof of this comes at the end when the two main characters sell natural hair products in a meeting room of a top marketing and advertisement agency lead by a black man, and our protagonist is explaining the products like they are the first of their kind. Any supermarket over the last decade has stocked plenty of natural hair products aimed at Black women. I was in a Boots store in an obscure town in Cornwall seven years ago, and found an entire shelf of natural Black haircare products!

I think I was asking for too much from a regular (and I hate this term) “chick flick”. The discussion around hair it turns out was only a nominal side story. For example, when Violet, shaves off her hair she wakes up the next morning and screams when she looks in the mirror. Most women when they do the big chop do so with purpose. It is a deliberate act. In short, this film’s focus was about a woman finding herself and not enough about complexities of Black hair. Of course, we Black women are more than the sum of our follicles and our hair is not our pathology but this was the USP of the film and it didn’t in my view deliver.

Both Muslim and non-Muslim Black women have moved on from these discussions. Women know they can wear wigs or weaves and still have and love their natural hair. I wrongly believed for the longest time that it was haram to wear any wigs or weaves but I discovered the fiqh prohibition of wigs, weaves or extensions only explicitly applies to the use of human hair. Synthetic or animal hairs/wool were used by women even in the time of the Prophet (saw). The permissibility of using synthetic or animal hair is narrated from such sahaba and sahabiyaat as Abd Allah ibn Abbas, Umm Salamah, A’isha and other Companions (May Allah be pleased with them all).

The harsh critic in me rests now because I could really relate to growing up surrounded by the views and attitudes of the mother’s character. A woman with a compulsion to keep straightening her own and daughters hair, was a notion that was all too familiar. That pressure to be neat & “pretty” by controlling the frizz of our hair constantly was no alien concept to me. The word ‘nappy’ itself is often used as a pejorative term. The scene in the film where the mother faints after seeing her daughters shaved head was as funny as it was sad for me. I only did the big chop of my own hair when I was thousands of miles away from my own mother because I feared her reaction, even though I was a fully-grown woman. Up until then, I had my hair chemically straightened since my very early teens. Hooked on what is jokingly referred to as the creamy crack.

I did not shave my hair as the woman in the film does, but rather I cut off all my straightened hair leaving just my natural growth into a TWA – teeny weenie afro. It was liberating. I was no longer held hostage to keeping my hair straight. My decision came after my hair was severely damaged by a home straightening kit. Let’s just say it was the last straw for my hair which had been repeatedly damaged by years of chemicals as well as heat. So, after the chop, I began my journey of learning how to care for my actual hair in its natural coily state. That journey continues.

Even within the natural hair community, the hierarchies of what is deemed attractive is still pegged to structural inequality and Eurocentric standards of beauty. Namely the looser the curl pattern and the lighter the skin of the hair bloggers, the more brands approach them for advertising. Black Muslim women who wear hijab have a host of other issues to deal with. First, the hands of non-Black sisters which find their way into our hair without permission, the moment we remove our hijabs in gatherings. Second, the drying nature of cotton hijabs and bandanas. I recommend satin under-scarves, it’s a game changer.

While it’s true that no unrelated men other than husbands should see a hijabi’s hair, it’s important that we remember it’s our hair. It needs to be healthy for us, just like our skin and nails. Also, not all women marry or even want to marry. Caring for our hair should be something a woman primarily does for herself.

Hodan Yusuf

Film Review: ‘Nappily Ever After’ & Being a Natural Hair Hijabi