The seven-minute animated short about a girl and her afro hair has won fans and critical acclaim – but the battle is far from won
On its release last year, Hair Love, a sweetly poignant film about an African-American father’s efforts to style his daughter Zuri’s curls, became the latest in a handful of productions to take a deeper look at the cultural significance of afro hair. Chris Rock’s 2009 documentary Good Hair memorably critiqued the billion-dollar black haircare industry, while 2018 rom-com Nappily Ever After explored one woman’s fraught relationship with her natural hair in a society that was openly hostile towards it. It is vital that this subject continues to be explored, not least because incidents in the US, where a student wrestler was forced to cut his dreadlocks, and in the
UK, where a pupil has been punished for wearing her afro, show hair discrimination is still rife.
While these films, and others like it, have received critical praise, it is Hair Love’s recent Oscar win for best animated short that has opened up a wider conversation about society’s perception of afro hair. The film was written and directed by film-maker and ex-NFL player Matthew A Cherry and funded by a Kickstarter campaign, which raised more than $200,000. David Steward II, one of the film’s producers and CEO of Lion Forge Animation, was enamoured with Hair Love from the moment he heard about it. He says: “[Co-producer] Karen Rupert Toliver mentioned this project she had that needed help getting off the ground. It ticked a lot of boxes for us in terms of the projects that we’re looking at putting out.”