Last night, I watched Willow Smith's video, Whip My Hair. As I observed it closely, my first impression was that it was a celebration of hair...but specifically the hair of people of African descent, namely braids. The video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymKLymvwD2U&ob=av2e is colorful, vibrant, creative, entertaining and most importantly, enlightening. Here we see a little girl utilizing braids, through the long held African tradition of extensions, to exude color on to an otherwise drab environment. This is truly N.I.C.E. Note that the camera zooms in on her "heart shaped" braided style as she gives a quaint smile to the students sitting, dressed all in white with drab, sullen faces. The room suddenly exudes with color and energy as the students rise to the occasion.
This video arrives on the heels of the wonderful Muppet creation per my last post, entitled, about the video I LOVE MY HAIR, which was created by an Italian Father, who is also a Muppeteer, who was concerned that his little adopted, Ethiopian daughter was expressing a desire for Eurocentric hair as she played with her dolls http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130653300&sc=fb&cc=fp. It appears that through creative ingenuity, the mouths of babes are being utilized to help rectify the problem of lack of love for what comes natural...our natural and beautiful hair. Although Willow has a number of styles in her video, each one exudes color with the emphasis on "Whipping the Braids" as if they offer some type of vibrant, alter-ego to the tame, smiling girl at the end quaintly letting on that she has just revealed some kind of necessary secret. Ultimately, Whip My Hair is a commentary that N.I.C.E!
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