Beautyshop, starring Queen Latifah and out later this month, is a spin-off from the Barbershop films with Ice Cube and Eve. Set in a black, hairdressing shop in Atlanta, it's a cross between Cutting It and Desmonds, but with Queen Latifah as queen bee instead of Sarah Parish.

Unfortunately, it's one of those "not quite" films: it's not quite funny enough, the plot is not quite good enough and the script not quite real enough; it's also not quite bad, which is something, I suppose. It's a perfect aeroplane film, but, sadly, given Queen Latifah's greatness, hardly a classic. But then I doubt it's supposed to be, and if everyone else can make cheesy, feel-good films, why not her?

Besides, there are some genuinely funny moments - and there was something almost magical in watching a film about the otherworldly experience that is going to a black hairdresser. It's heart-warming to know that even Queen Latifah gets a bit miffed when she walks into a salon and is at first ignored, then looked up and down by a couple of girls wearing sprayed-on jeans and not much else. When Andie MacDowell, as one of Latifah's rich clients from the largely white salon she left to set up on her own, walks into Queen Latifah's shop, everyone (customers and staff alike) gasps in shock. The implication being that she must be lost, foolish or both.

Which got me thinking - even in London, Afro hairdressers are one of the few places where the white person would feel like the odd one out. Black women — and most black men, for that matter — will through necessity have gone to a white hairdressing salon at some point, only to be looked at as if they have three heads.

Perhaps that's why, when it comes to Afro hairdressers, we put up with what is often (but by no means always) bad service. Because, in return, we get to feel like we're normal (rather than exotic), our hair is lovely (rather than "difficult") and we can relax, safe in the knowledge that the person to whom we have entrusted our hair isn't seeing it as some kind of experiment.