Chris Rock takes a humorous look at African-American coifs in the documentary Good Hair. (Roadside Attractions)

Chris Rock’s documentary Good Hair is jam-packed with black celebrities who talk about the socio-political minefields that reside on top of their heads. Maya Angelou weighs in, as does actor-rapper Ice-T. But no one is quite as pithy as comedian Paul Mooney: “If your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed. If you’re nappy, they’re not happy,” he says while wearing a comically oversized Afro wig.

The desire among many black Americans – mostly women – to have straight hair has spawned a $9-billion-US annual industry in high-priced weaves and chemical relaxers.

The desire among many black Americans – mostly women – to have straight hair has spawned a $9-billion-US annual industry in high-priced weaves and chemical relaxers (a.k.a. “creamy crack,” a substance that straightens natural curls). Another stunning stat: while blacks represent around 12 per cent of the American total, they buy 80 per cent of the hair-care products.

Rock’s interest in the topic was stirred when his daughter Lola, then five years old, asked him, “Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?” Dialling down his standard frenetic delivery, the comic decided to go on a quest to try to understand this anti-nappy impulse. The result is a hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking journey that takes Rock to a variety of barbershops, hair salons and factories. He dons goggles and a white lab coat to hang with a scientist who claims that relaxers are toxic and can damage young girls’ follicles. (Point taken: the film shows that it doesn’t take long for pop cans to dissolve in the goo.)

Rock also drops in on an over-the-top “hair battle” in Atlanta, where he interviews white stylist Jason Griggers, who’s referred to as “the Rosa Parks of black hairdressing.” Rock’s deadpan reactions to the competitors’ artistic visions are priceless — especially his response to a woman who insists on cutting a model’s hair underwater in a quixotic attempt to win the contest.

The film is a fascinating mix of comedy, cultural reportage, economics and science, always circling back to black self-esteem and race relations. Good Hair pulls off the rather remarkable feat of staying light and celebratory while delivering some hard-hitting messages on a fraught topic.

“A lot of things that black people have done have been in response to trying to fit into white culture,” says Nelson George, the film’s executive producer and a long-time friend of Rock’s. The two first worked together on the 1993 comedy CB4 — a kind of rap version of This Is Spinal Tap — and then again on HBO’s The Chris Rock Show. "Certainly, the pressures aren’t the same as they were before. But in the post-civil rights era there’s still a sense that if I want to be successful in the white mainstream, I have to look a certain way. Because if I don’t, I’m not going to get this job or I’m not going to advance as far.”

Indeed, it’s tough to imagine U.S. President Barack Obama or Michelle Obama deciding to grow an Afro anytime soon, given the political connotation of that style. The filmmakers shot segments on the history of the Afro and the jheri-curl (the slick, damp hairstyle worn by Michael Jackson in the Billie Jean video), but decided not to include them.

“That’s all been done before,” George explains. “As we began looking at the wealth of material, it was very clear the freshest stuff was going to be about women’s hair, weaves and relaxers. We didn’t want to do a piece about what happened in the 1960s or 1970s – we wanted to do a piece about right now.”

There are sobering moments alongside the comedy. Rock gently chides some women for purchasing ridiculously priced weaves (up to $4,000 US in some cases) when they clearly can’t afford them. Most notably, he heads to India to find out where much of the hair used in weaves and extensions comes from. He discovers it’s snatched – rather unscrupulously – from a religious ceremony called tonsure, in which impoverished women offer up their hair to the gods as a sacrifice.

“No one has gone over and really seen this whole connection between tonsure, Indian culture and how the hair gets here," George says. "This 'remy' hair is considered the best for the weaving — it’s the purest hair, the best-quality hair. It’s kind of amazing that no one had done what we did before. And it’s one of the things that I think makes the film. It takes it out of a discussion about black women’s hair in America and frames it in a discussion about beauty esthetics around the world.”

Filmmaker and comedian Chris Rock. (Roadside Attraction)

Hair insecurity is an issue that transcends race and nationality, which may be why the film has received positive responses at various festivals in front of diverse crowds. “When we played Sundance, that was a really big moment," George says. "OK, we’re going to play in Utah, it’s the whitest audience we’ll ever have. But we got really great feedback. All audiences seem to get something out of it.”

Good Hair’s combo of humour and investigative muckraking is clearly influenced by Morgan Spurlock’s fast-food romp Super Size Me. And although Rock has cited Michael Moore as an influence, he and director Jeff Stilson avoid the heavy-handed proselytizing of Moore’s recent picture, Capitalism: A Love Story.

It’s a perfect hosting gig for Rock, and one of his best performances. He’s a quiet and considerate listener when he needs to be, but he retains the freedom to unleash his high-speed wit. When he sees a massive vat of relaxer in a factory, he opines that it would “last Prince about a month.”

After the film won a jury prize at Sundance, momentum for the project continued to grow. George seems legitimately surprised, considering that Good Hair was originally intended just to be a documentary for HBO.

“Ultimately, we want to show the film wherever they speak English and there are black folks," says George. "I’m looking forward to this film playing Johannesburg … oh, that’d be amazing.”

Good Hair opens in Montreal and Toronto on Oct. 16, in Vancouver on Oct. 23 and throughout the fall in other Canadian cities.

Greig Dymond writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.