The “Today Show” Hair Fail and Anti-Blackness in the Beauty Industry
August 8, 2016Last week on the Today Show, a nightmare for naturalistas everywhere became a reality for Malyia McNaughton. The segment was titled “60-second Summer Hairstyles” and it featured beauty expert, Deepica Mutyala. Deepica, famous for her tutorial video highlighting how to use red lipstick as a corrector, would be showing Today Show viewers how to do four summer hairstyles that would each take less than a minute.
Deepica begins with the first model, Phan, who has straight, wet hair, as if though she just came from the pool. She effortlessly pulls Phan’s hair into a high ponytail and styles the pony into a “rope braid.” The style takes about 50 seconds, with a few of those seconds wasted as Deepica struggled with trying to turn the chair, and then she moves onto the next model, Malyia.