Photo: Paul Bruinooge/Patrick McMullan
Viola Davishas beenwearing her hair natural for years, but it apparently continues to come as a surprise to some unprepared stylists. OnThe Late Show With Stephen ColbertTuesday night, theHow to Get Away with Murderstar discussedAmerican Coco, a new show she’s producing about an agent who solves ‘sticky racial situations.’ When Colbert asks her to explain the phrase, Davis has an example ready to go.
“Sticky is like, when I was doing a movie and I was doing it with my ‘fro and this Caucasian woman had her fingers in my hair, she said ‘I’m going to make it really pretty’ and so she put some white goo in it,” Davis says, clarifying that she’s referring to “goo only white people would use.”
That’s why, Davis says, a character like the one inAmerican Cocowould come in handy, to address awkward situations just like this. “Then you gotta talk about hair and then you gotta say, ‘You don’t know what to do with my hair,’ but you cant say that because you’d be insulting [her].”
For future stylists set to work with her hair, though, Davis has some pro tips to make sure you come prepared. “By the way, when you put water on a ‘fro, if it’s this big, it will become this big,” she laughs, gesturing with her hands from big to small. “It shrinks. That’s just a little lesson.”
The star is just the latest to speak out about underprepared white makeup artists and hairstylists who don’t know how to work with different skin tones and hair types. Ebonee Davis recentlywrote an impassioned letterabout the need for diversity on sets, following similar missives from models Leomie Anderson andNykhor Paul. And Zoë Kravitz spoke out last year about the controversy surrounding Zendaya wearing dreadlocks tothe Oscars: ““I think it’s just about black women being able to be who they are and people are getting that or not getting that,”she said. “But I don’t think we should have to change the way we look at all, depending on what’s in fashion.”
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source: people.com
