Drawing Inspiration From Jenny Slate's 'Game-changing' Curly Hair

Feminist comedian and actress Jenny Slate is one of my favorite celebrities. Her voice is forever immortalized in my head as Marcel the Shell; her 2014 comedy Obvious Child is one of my favorite films; and I think that her ridiculous role on Parks and Recreation as the absurdly JAPpy and overall insane twin sister of Jean-Ralphio Saperstein, Mona-Lisa, is one of the best characters to have been created for contemporary television. (It was also my Halloween costume last year.)

In addition to being hilarious, Slate is frankly feminist in her comedy. Obvious Child tackles abortion and dating as a young single woman; it is acerbic and utterly unapologetic in its portrayal of womanhood. So I was delighted to read her recent article for Glamour, in which she talks about learning to love her natural curly hair. Although Slate (who grew up in a Jewish family) does not mention her heritage in the piece, she does show solidarity in challenging the beauty standards that Jewish women (see Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were), Black women (see Good Hair), and many other women and femmes of color have taken on for decades now.

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