There has always been an underrepresentation of minorities in cinema—in retrospect, how many cult classics actually had a balanced coloured to white character ratio, or how many films had women playing the lead? Over the years we have undoubtedly come a long way, but there are still gaps within the industry that need to be filled. Taking a step forward towards diversity, Sony Animation recently announced that they will be picking up the short animation film, Hair Love
Hair Love is a five-minute animated film that shines a light on the relationship between African-American father (Stephen) and his daughter (Zuri), and her naturally beautiful hair. After Stephen’s wife is unavailable to do their daughter’s hair before a big event, Stephen needs to figure out a way to style it on his own. A simple story depicting a situation that a lot of girls and their fathers will relate to, according the director Matthew A Cherry the need for a film like this came from a lack of representation in mainstream media, especially in animation. Promoting self-love and acceptance, the film sets to encourage women and men of colour to own their natural hair.
On his Kickstarter campaign set up two years ago he said, “I’ve had the idea for this project for a couple of years now, but it wasn’t until I recently started coming across a lot of viral videos of black fathers interacting with their sons and daughters online that I finally had the confidence to try and make this a real thing.”
Audiences are always looking to explore content and storylines which they connect with, and Hair Love is one such film that is not just culturally diverse, but is also paving the way for more films like it.
