Hair Love: A Little Gem
Each year, after the announcements of the winners of the major cinema awards, the media fill up with news that ranges from the styles seen on the red carpet to the speeches of the winners. Everyone’s talking about the most Oscar-winning films, actors and filmmakers. However, we cannot forget that other categories are in contention during these awards ceremony. It’s always good to take a look at those prices that barely resonate but can hide little gems, like Hair Love.
Last year we were all surprised when a film about the rules won the statuette for best documentary short; a short film that made us discover a sometimes deadly reality. These categories that are not given much attention are home to so much potential and talent. Short films are able to concentrate, in a few words, messages that can touch us, enchant us or wake us up.
This year, the little discovery lasts just six minutes and we can easily find it on YouTube. Hair Love won the award for best animated short film. He tells us a heartwarming story that seeks to normalize what should already be assimilated in society.
The story behind the short film Hair Love
Matthew A. Cherry played American football until he decided, at the age of 27, to move away from the world of sports to dedicate himself fully to cinema. Even if it is true that his beginnings were not particularly striking.
After making a clip with varying degrees of success and devoting himself to various independent cinema titles, in 2017 he launched a proposal on the Kickstarter site. It is a platform intended to raise funds for artistic and creative projects.
The project needed $75,000: it ended up raising $300,000. Cherry got to work and surrounded herself with people with solid backgrounds in the animation world.
Producer Karen Rupert Toliver has joined Cherry. The short film then saw the light of day, managing to be screened in theaters as a trailer for the film Angry Birds 2. And so it began, until arriving at the Oscars. From this same short film was born, moreover, a homonymous book illustrated by Vashty Harrison. The latter has received very favorable reviews.
A simple, delicate and touching piece, but with a deep standardizing and claiming component. Hair Love presents us with an absolutely positive image of fatherhood. This short film is born from the need to find a greater black representation in animation spaces. Something as simple as hair ends up being transformed into an element of union and representation.
Hair Love : viral videos are where we find inspiration
The canons of beauty often forget about afro hair or black skin. Until recently, it was as if smooth, shiny hair was the only symbol of beauty possible. There were only a few cosmetic or hair care ads that included black women or afro hair. Something as everyday as hair care seemed to exclude a large part of the population.
It is true that more and more realistic and inclusive advertising campaigns are striving to reach a wider audience. However, there is still a lot of work to do.
For Cherry, the field of animation had to explore this path. After seeing an endless number of videos on platforms like YouTube that highlighted the shortcomings of conventional media, this idea appeared to him. Videos that go viral, fathers styling their daughters, and more, were the inspiration for this short.
In addition, these fathers seemed to break, in some way, the tradition of gender roles, where women were responsible for styling little girls.
This idea of beauty vlogs is very present in the short film, in a story that, with grace and originality, takes us to a battlefield with the indomitable hair of a little girl.
Love and family
In recent years, we have seen a reinvention of traditional masculinity in the media. From commercials to movies, it is no longer surprising to see a man cry or to see him use products for the care of the skin or the hair.
The cinema had always been a place for male and predominantly white heroes; luckily, this idea faded over time.
If we started this article by referring to last year’s award given to Period: End of sentence and praising it as naturalization or normalization of something as everyday as menstruation, Hair Love makes us smile through a happy and funny story. His message should not be forgotten, however.
Standardization
In fact, we should be asking ourselves why many people still find a father who combs his daughter’s hair touching – not to say surprising or strange – when, for a mother, it would be considered normal. It is perhaps considered something natural for the mother, and not so much for the father.
The short film seeks this normalization through our smile. In a humble, yet beautiful way, it presents us with a story about family and love. As we are told in the tutorial that we see in Hair Love, we end up succeeding with a good dose of effort and love.
In a way, it invites us to face issues from a positive perspective, whether it’s a simple obstacle like a knot in our hair or those more serious issues that are affecting our lives. Never had a hairstyle been so demanding.
Our thoughts Masculinity has taken on various forms over time. We can for example appreciate this if we compare the male image of there are two if …
