Hair Love: A short film celebrates the glorious natural hair of African Americans

Article By Trisha Howard // Black Films // Family

Photo Credit: Sony Pictures Animation

 EEW Online celebrates the beauty of natural hair in all its various textures, numerous curl patterns and intricate stylings—and so does a perfect new short family film titled, Hair Love.

Directed by Matthew Cherry, Hair Love, currently in theaters—which plays before the main feature, The Angry Birds Movie 2— follows the story of an African American father, Stephen, and his daughter, Zuri.

Adorably, Stephen is trying to figure out how to tame Zuri’s naturally glorious mane, which proves to be a not-so-easy task. Hair Love is an important film, in that, it gives African Americans more big-screen representation.

The director told NPR, "I think it does a lot for young people's confidence when they see themselves represented.”

Cherry, who has also released the companion book, continued, "You know, media is so powerful. And when you grow up and see magazine covers and TV shows and movies, and you don't see yourself represented, but you see every other type of hairstyle represented, that can really affect your self-confidence."

Hair Love

By Matthew A. Cherry, Vashti Harrison

Buy on Amazon

Though Cherry has no children of his own, he was also deliberate about portraying a black man lovingly and tenderly in a fatherhood role.

"We really get a bad rap in mainstream media—particularly black fathers," he said. "There's always the stereotype that we're not present or deadbeats.”

Cherry acknowledged that, while “those situations do exist,” it is still true that black men are “disproportionately represented in that way,” and such is not a reflection of the full truth.

"I have a lot of friends that are young fathers, and they're all willing to do whatever it takes for their young girls," Cherry said.

Stephen in Hair Love, created in collaboration with Sony pictures, is one of them.

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