Dads, daughters, love and hair
Makers of a nominated short film want to show the world more Kobe-Gigi relationships
In “Hair Love,” a young girl named Zuri wakes up one morning and attempts to style her hair in a way befitting the special occasion she excitedly prepares to attend. When it doesn’t quite go as planned, she turns to her father for help. Except he’s no expert either. But it’s OK. He learns. “I liked the idea of something that was centered around a black family, because so often you don’t see that in animation,” says writer and co-director Matthew A. Cherry of the short film that originated from a 2017 Kickstarter campaign and is now nominated for an Oscar at the 92nd Academy Awards being held Sunday.
“It felt like a great opportunity to really shine the spotlight on black fathers, because so often in mainstream media they just get a bad rap,” he adds. “If you watch movies and TV, you would think they don’t exist, but studies have actually shown that they’re among the most involved groups in their kids’ lives.”
Cherry, a former NFL wide receiver, turned to directing (“The Last Fall,” “9 Rides”) after he left football, but this is his first animated project. Inspired by the videos he came across of dads doing their daughters’ hair, he sees the short as an opportunity to normalize black hair.
“Every week it seemed like there was a new story with a kid not able to go to school because of the type of hair they have,” Cherry says. “I remember that disturbing video with the wrestler and how they forced him to cut his hair right before the match. And the situation with DeAndre [Arnold] that’s been going viral lately.” Arnold is the Texas high school senior who was told he couldn’t attend his prom or graduation unless he cut his dreadlocks. Cherry was so moved by the student’s plight that he’s invited Arnold and his family to the Academy Awards as his guest.
Among Cherry’s collaborators is Karen Rupert Toliver, Sony Pictures Animation’s executive vice president of creative, who was drawn to the cultural specificity of the project and became a producer on the film.
“To be sitting in a room with three black men directors and another black female producer — I’d never been in rooms like that in all the years that I’ve been in animation,” says Toliver, who worked at Fox Animation and Walt Disney Animation Studios before coming to Sony. “It just felt very comfortable, and it felt great for us to be able to really tell our stories and figure out how to get it in a piece of animation.”
Cherry also turned to artist Vashti Harrison, who illustrated the “Hair Love” book, which also was made possible by the Kickstarter
campaign, and became the film’s character designer.
“The way she draws hair and the way she draws young black children,” Cherry says, “her drawings are just so special and unique.”
Cherry and Toliver discussed “Hair Love” and centering black stories and storytellers during a recent afternoon at Sony Pictures Animation.
After Kobe Bryant’s death, many of the emotional remembrances have been about him being a proud “girl dad.” How important is it for people to see images of strong, supportive fathers?
Toliver: I think it’s everything. I think a lot about masculinity, you know, and the images and stereotypes of what it means to be a man. I think it’s so powerful when you see the soft side of a man that we know is there and needs to be there. It’s incredibly powerful.
When you see the role that media plays in terms of changing social attitudes toward sexual orientation, gender norms and all of that, I just feel even more responsible to really kind of open the door to show the various ways that men can be men. I think that’s the best way for them to understand that it’s OK to be warm and loving.
Cherry: I think personally, with rent being so expensive everywhere, we’re living in a time now where both parents have to work. And it’s weird because dads get [special] credit for doing stuff that moms do all the time. I would love to get to a point where that’s all normalized. If you see a dad pushing a stroller or having a baby in the little baby carrier or whatever, like, it’s just a normal thing.
We’re seeing more awareness and discussion about black natural hair. How has it been seeing “Hair Love” as a part of that conversation?
Cherry: I think with each story that comes out about a young kid who’s not able to wear their natural hair to school or somebody being fired from their job because of what their hair looks like, it becomes more and more relevant.
That new law that got passed in California, the CROWN Act, I think that’s the thing I’m most personally excited about. Because it’s a real-life action that is in direct correlation to what our vision was for the short film. We wanted to effect real change. And this is something that I think really could help kids not have to deal with this moving forward. It’s such a crazy thing that you need a law to be passed to be able to wear your hair.
Why was it important to feature a young dad with locs and tattoos?
Cherry: On the Kickstarter, the dad looked different. He was kind of your typical, cartoon sitcom dad. He was in his 40s, a little
bit of a potbelly — he was safer. When Karen got involved, she had really the great idea to make him younger.
Toliver: I loved the idea and how powerful images are, that you can sort of take people one way and make them think, “OK, is he that person where you should walk across the street?” And then shift the perspective and make him that dad.
We’ve been having conversations about Hollywood’s lack of diversity for years. But “Hair Love” is one of the few films centered on black experiences that received an Oscar nomination this year.
Toliver: It was crazy when we saw that statistic of how few there are. But it’s kind of unfortunate for the conversation to get focused on the very end of the process when the movies have been made.
It’s about the diversity of the beginning. It’s making sure that more [films] get made, that there are more people like myself in the room who want to tell those stories. There’s going to be one year that ebbs and one year that flows, but it’s like, enough already. We need to keep it as a constant conversation at the beginning of the process and make more movies.
Cherry: The work is there. You have films like “Clemency” and “The Farewell” and “The Last Black Man in San Francisco.” There are so many great movies that came out this year that were worthy, but for whatever reason, they didn’t get that recognition.
Sadly, when it comes to awards like this, so often, they’re not ahead of the curve. They don’t normally recognize first-time filmmakers. What ends up happening is that you have this long, illustrious career and then 30 years later you get your flowers.