Did ya’ll see the last episode of Showtime’s House of Lies? S5| Ep 6 Johari Window? I’m a big fan of the show and recently binge watched it to catch up. Wanda Sykes has been co-starring this season as Jeremiah’s (Marty’s Dad played by Glynn Turman) girlfriend so it’s already just hilarious with her on there with her natural hair and her throat cutting one liners. But this episode went where I’ve never seen it go before and that to a Hair Show!
In this episode Marty Kaan (Don Cheadle) is working within the Black Hair Care Industry. He is trying to broker a huge contract between a large natural hair product line (“Planet Curl” which is owned by a White dude who is pretending to be Black, a sort of Rachel Dolezal thing) and some “Europeans” that want a piece of the pie. So him and his staff visit the so called Annual “Braxton Bros.” International Beauty Show: The Largest Trade Exhibition for Black Hair! Sound familiar? They walk through this hair show and you can see booths and Black models with extravagant hair styles. You can hear product makers in the background demonstrating the variety of ways that Black women can wear their hair as they walk through. While there. Marty talks about the 700 million dollars that exist in the Black Hair care industry. Art imitating life. As a Natural hair blogger in Atlanta I’ve literally lived at the real life Bronner Bros International Beauty Show for the last 5 years. I’ve covered the Bronner Bros Show both in front and behind the scenes so I feel comfortable in saying that the House of Lies producers were spot on in this knock off version that they created of the Bronner Bros International Beauty Show! All the way down to the Shea Moisture booth!! (heey Shea Moisture!!!) Did the Bronner Bros. know about this? Did they know that House of Lies would base this episode on their empire? I’ll always wonder.
from www.Sho.com
Later, Wanda Sykes character, Rita, is asked if she can recommend some natural hair products and then her natural hair is touched without permission to which she responds:
“Unless you my stylist and I’m sittng up in yo chair I dont give a f— what you do for a living, you do not touch a Black Woman’s hair!!” ~ Rita (Wanda Sykes, House of Lies)
This episode is full of some of my favorite Black actors including Keegan Michael Key of Key and Peele and Donald Faison (Scrubs). If you watch the show then you know that Marty and his family are generally the only Black people on there. The main character Marty Kaan (played by Don Cheadle) is portrayed as that “sell out” type Black dude who has “made it”, who code switches in the presence of white people and who only dates and procreates with white girls. I’m not judging just saying that is who he is on the show, so it’s really hypocritical to have him calling out someone in this episode for not being “Black enough” by his standards. Kwanzaa and Erykah Badu were also referenced during this episode. Is it Black History Month or something??? Who knows. It was entertaining to say the least.
***Spoiler Alert***
At the end Marty Kahn calls out Planet Curl CEO for pretending to be Black in the Black Hair Care Industry. I believe the word “Oreo” was thrown around more than once. Pots. Kettles. It definitely deserved a snicker…maybe a giggle and I totally get the Johari Window reference.
Check out the trailer
Did any of you see this episode, if so what did you think?
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