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Barbershop: Going...Going...Gone.
by linda f. harrison
For African-Americans raised in the inner city and for those
who have escaped it for suburbia, Barbershop evokes images
and memories that are familiar and endearing. Driven by an ensemble
that features the big screen debut of Eve, the comic Cedric the
Entertainer, and screen veteran Ice Cube, plus an excellent supporting
cast, Barbershop hits all the right notes in its effort
to genuinely portray black America's Barnes and Noble: the barber
shop. Here, you can find all makes and models of the black man.
In fact, this movie contains about every specimen imaginable
and adds to it.
 The
film evolves around the character Calvin Palmer, played by rapper-actor
Ice Cube, as the owner of Calvin's Barbershop. The barbershop
was inherited by Calvin from his father, but Calvin is feeling
the financial pressure of operating the shop and he has his own
dreams of making it big through other schemes, all legitimate
but unfulfilled. Calvin has exhausted his bank resources because
he has borrowed against the business in order to finance a variety
of the dreams he has unsuccessfully chased.
But more burdensome than his
financial woes, Calvin is suffering from a lack of vision. Standing
behind a barber's chair every day, looking only at the customers
who wander into the barbershop, he loses his purpose for being
there. He can no longer see the value of struggling to maintain
this black-owned business in this bleak environment when doing
so requires that he constantly size up his customers only for
their monetary value. He refuses to be like his father, who worked
every day only to die broke. With his first child on the way,
Calvin wants desperately to provide more for his family than
his father could provide for him. It's this crisis that propels
him to do something that his father would never do: sell the
business.
There are other characters
that make this movie an instant classic. There's Ricky, the two-strikes
ex-con who is working in the shop and trying to keep his nose
clean. A young, intelligent, sensitive black man, portrayed by
handsome Michael Ealy, he is a reminder that in the United States,
1 black man in every 7 is in prison, and no matter how bright
you are or how hard you try, sometimes trouble finds you. Contrast
him to Jimmy (Sean Patrick Thomas), the college student know-it-all
who is just cutting hair until he can start his life. No one
challenges him when he corrects them with his "facts"
(some of which turn out to be wrong), but it's clear that they
think less of him because he thinks less of them. You can picture
him in 10 years driving by the barbershop in his "beemer"
(BMW), pointing it out to his wife and kids as if it's an amusement
ride that he survived, totally disconnected. His appearances
in the neighborhood, if any, will consist of a weekday ribbon-cutting
ceremony commemorating a feel-good "giving back to the community"
effort he helps orchestrate. He has already sold out.
Cedric the Entertainer plays Eddie, Calvin's connection to his
past and to his father. Eddie has all the history, knows all
about what the barbershop meant to Calvin Sr., and all about
the way things used to be. Although he has no customers now,
he is at his best when recounting the events in history that
had significance to black America and to the barbershop. Not
shy about speaking his mind, Eddie holds court on just about
any topic. When challenged about some of his opinions, he is
quick to point out that the barbershop is where any black person
can say anything, no matter how ridiculous. From putting Rosa
Parks in her place to expressing his opinion on Rodney King and
O.J. Simpson, Eddie churns the debate and keeps everyone honest.
This is truest when addressing Calvin, who at times becomes a
churly character who is cracking under the stress of having to
pay the bills.
Terri (Eve) and Isaac (Troy
Garity) are the objects of different elements that are present
in the black community: the female victim of a cheating, sweet-talking
man who she lets run all over her, and the white man who really
believes he is black because he has acquired the trappings of
blackness...the phat (fine) black girlfriend, the escalade (Cadillac),
the bling-bling (jewelry), the vernacular ("yee-ah",
"whasup", "homie"), and the "keeping
it real" attitude ("dis is me, deal wit it").
While women are a relative staple in the barbershop, the white
man is an uncommon one (women are there largely to braid men's
hair; white men are there...well...why?). However, they round
out the personality of the surroundings, which is an important
statement in this film. As important is the presence of Dinka
(Leonard Earl Howze), an African who is fighting to understand
a culture that differs greatly from his, but with which he's
associated because of the color of his skin. Additionally, there
is an East Indian shop owner in Calvin's neighborhood who is
supported by Calvin and told to "stay strong" originally
because he sympathizes with him as a victim of the robbery around
which the film's story evolves. His ATM machine is stolen by
Ricky's cousin JD (Anthony Anderson) and his sidekick Billy (Lahmard
Tate). The East Indian shopkeeper later gains Calvin's respect
when, on a visit to his store, he learns that he has a black
wife and intends to remain in the neighborhood and rebuild his
store because of the inspiration he took from Calvin's words
to him. While this acceptance by a black shop owner of a East
Indian competitor is the biggest stretch the filmmakers ask the
audience to make, it's consistent with Calvin's personality and
thus, easier to swallow.
The antagonists round out the
ensemble of Barbershop. JD and Billy are the buffoons
who, after stealing the ATM machine, cart it all over town trying
to break into it (unaware that it is empty). JD is willing to
let Ricky take his third strike for his crime, by using Ricky's
truck and leaving the license plate behind. Lester (Keith David)
is Calvin's savior-turned-swindler. He offers Calvin more money
than he could turn down to sell him his barbershop with the promise
of keeping the "name on the door" only to find out
that he intended to make it a "gentlemen's club" called
The Barbershop. The remainder of the story revolves around Calvin
trying to give Lester his money back after Calvin changes his
mind about the value of the barbershop not only to him, but to
all his patrons who rely on it as part of their lives.
This movie could have been
among the genre of film that portray an inner city black man
as violent and criminal. While violence and crime were still
there, the movie had a kindlier, gentler approach to presenting
them. Barbershop expressed the tolerant atmosphere of
the typical neighborhood barbershop as cultural institution.
But this movie takes an interesting look at several cultural
forces currently present in black America, some new, some old.
Of course, black women have always been present in the barbershop,
sometimes because their beauty shops were appendages, or because
they offered other services within, such as relaxers or manicures.
To some extent, black foreigners have been present, either from
the Caribbean or Africa, so that theme is also recurrent.
Newer, however, are the presence
of the East Indian and the assimilating white man. Both of these
are presented in interesting ways. The East Indian, a natural
enemy (or so the media would have us believe) of the traditional
inner city black-owned business, seems to be supported by Calvin.
His motivation is unclear, though. It could be because Calvin
sympathizes with him as a victim of common prey (the criminal),
or because he presents himself with common traits (a black woman),
or because he connects with Calvin personally by revealing to
Calvin what his words of support meant to him. In any event,
all this is going on while the other members of the barbershop
continue to confuse his national origin and disparage him in
other ways.
Isaac, however, is more complicated
because he is presented as the real deal. He is a white man whose
identity as a white person is forged with his identity as an
inner city resident. The tension in the movie is between him
and Jimmy, the black college student. In many ways, Isaac beats
Jimmy out on the black scale. He eventually wins respect from
Jimmy and everyone else at the shop, but only after he does the
only black thing he has left to do...give Jimmy a haircut that
passes the test. (Jimmy has already failed at that in a scene
where he gouges a hole in the hair of a young teenager because
of his inattentiveness.) Isaac has Jimmy pegged as a sellout
and offers that when Jimmy is long gone, he will still be there
and still be "real". Now that's an interesting concept
to ponder. Blacks are selling out and whites are hanging behind
and keeping it real. Once Isaac passes the test, it's unclear
what effect that has on Jimmy. In a sense, it appears as if Jimmy
approves of Isaac as someone who can maintain the traditions
of the barbershop. It's not clear whether Jimmy has made that
decision for himself; the movie ends there. I guess Barbershop
II will reveal who's left to keep the tradition alive.
Posted October 7, 2002
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