Nappily Ever After

The book adapted film Nappily Ever After made it's Netflix debut on September 21, 2018.  The main character is Violet Jones played by actress Sanaa Lathan. Violet works in advertising which is ironic because she is marketing products that say they will make women perfect all while she herself is struggling with accepting her natural hair. The film uses words like "fixed" to express that black hair needs fixing. The whole point of the movie is for black women and girls to see a reflection of themselves on screen and understand that their hair is a part of them and that they should love themselves for it. My biggest critique is that Violet is fixing herself not necessarily to adapt to the white culture by having perfect straight hair but that she is doing it to satisfy a man, specifically a black man. I don't think there is anything wrong with a romantic comedy it just think this movie is more about her finding love than falling in love with herself and her hair.

Also it is a very big exaggeration of what it's like to have black girl hair when it's straight and to always be worried about it or to go bald from putting a relaxer in it. Also I don't think the solution to loving yourself and your hair is to cut it off. 

However blogs like cnet wrote, "Nappily Ever After, which is based on the novel of the same name by Trisha Thomas, is a solid example of the work Netflix is putting into telling more diverse stories, especially those involving black people." I think this true and it is a valiant effort on the part of Netflix to have a movie like this but the movie  itself I felt could do a lot more as far as better character development that doesn't surround just her hair.