After talking about the songs competing for the Oscar, it’s time to turn our attention to the Best Animated Short Film category. Among the five nominated titles – including Kitbull – there is one in particular that caught our attention, Hair Love. 

Made by Matthew A. Cherry, Everett Downing Jr. and Bruce W. Smith, Hair Love manages to get right to everyone’s heart by telling a story about family, but also about culture, black culture. 

The protagonist of the short film distributed by Sony Pictures Animation is a black girl who decides to do her hair on a very special day, but doing it alone seems an impossible challenge. Running to her aid comes the father who for the first time is facing such a situation. 

The little girl’s hair was always taken care of by her mother who, due to reasons that you will understand only once you see the short until the end, now she can’t do it. 

Following a tutorial on YouTube seems to be the hardest thing in the world for the father, who does not give up and decides to get in the ring facing every single hedgehog of his daughter. 

Hair Love shows how difficult it is to be a parent, but also what challenges a father and mother are willing to face for their children’s happiness. It is the perfect representation of the phrase “parents you become”, learning something new day after day. But on top of that, Hair Love contains something more important. 

If for a white girl, hair is nothing more than an accessory, to be changed according to mood or trends, for a black girl, her thick and voluminous hair tells a story, hers and that of the entire black community. 

All the little curls and perfect braids hide a centuries-long tradition and the time dedicated to them does not aim at a purely aesthetic result, but every second spent on them turns into a ritual to which we should all give more weight and more respect.