Every year, after meeting the winners of the big film awards, the media fills with news as red carpet comments watch the winners’ speeches. Everyone talks about Oscar-winning films, directors and actors, but it should be remembered that other categories also compete for these awards and are often overlooked, although they can house small gems like Hair Love.
Last year, everyone was surprised when a film about menstruation won the statuette for best documentary, a short film that revealed a silent reality. These categories, often ignored, also hold talent and potential. Short films are able to concentrate, in a word, messages that can touch us, excite us or excite us.
- This year.
- The small discovery lasts only six minutes and can be easily found on YouTube.
- Hair Love won the award for best animated short film and offers us a moving story that aims to normalize what should already be assimilated in society.
Fun and exciting, simple but very effective, Hair Love shows a father painting his daughter’s wild hair.
Matthew A. Cherry devoted himself to football until at the age of 27 he decided to move away from the sport and devote himself entirely to film, in fact, his early films were not very successful.
After making more or less successful and daring video clips with independent movie titles, he launched a proposal in 2017 on the Kickstarter website, a platform designed to raise funds for artistic and creative projects.
The project was designed to raise $75,000 and eventually reached $300,000. Cherry began working and surrounded himself with people with a solid background in animation.
Producer Karen Rupert Toliver joined Cherry and the short film was screened in theaters as a prelude to the film Angry Birds 2, from that humble beginning came to the Oscars. From the same short film, there was also a book illustrated by Vashty Harrison, which received more than favorable reviews.
A simple, delicate and captivating piece, but with a deeply normalizing and demanding component. Hair Love presents us with an absolutely positive image of fatherhood and arises from the need to find a greater presence of black in animation spaces. Something as simple as hair ends up becoming an element of union and representation.
Beauty standards often neglect Afro hair and black skin. Until recently, it seemed that soft, shiny hair was the only possible symbol of beauty. Few cosmetic or hair care ads 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 increasingly realistic and inclusive advertising campaigns are trying to reach a wider audience, but much work remains to be done.
For Cherry, the field of animation had to explore that path and, after watching many videos on platforms like YouTube, which compensated for the shortcomings of conventional media, came up with the idea, which are videos that go viral, videos of parents painting their daughters. They served as inspiration for this short film.
In addition, these parents seemed to break, in a way, with the tradition of gender roles in which women are responsible for the style of girls.
This idea of beauty vlogs is very present in the short, in a story that, with originality and grace, takes us to a battlefield with the undoed curls of a girl.
In recent years, we have witnessed a reinvention of traditional masculinity in the media. From advertising to movies, it’s no longer surprising to see a man crying or using hair or skin products.
Cinema has always been a place for male heroes, especially whites; fortunately, this idea has evolved over time.
If we start the article remembering last year’s price for the period, end of prayer?(in Brazil, Absorbing Taboo) and we congratulate you on naturalizing or normalizing something as everyday as menstruation, Hair Love makes us smile through a joyful and funny story, but with a message that should not be forgotten.
In fact, we should ask ourselves why many find it captivating – not surprising or strange – to see a father combing his daughter’s hair, but they don’t think the same thing as a mother, we may consider it natural for the mother, though it’s not for the father.
The short film seeks this standardization. In a simple but beautiful way, it tells a story of family and love. As said in the tutorial we see in Hair Love, with effort and love we will achieve everything.
One way or another, it invites us to face problems from a positive point of view, from the simplest obstacles, such as a tangle in the hair, to the most serious problems that affect our lives. Never has a hairstyle been so demanding.