Week 5: My Reaction to "Hair Love" Told by Gifs

 Reader Warning: This blog is very non-traditional. It is a reactionary chain of gifs to demonstrate how I felt while watching Hair Love. 

This “cuteness” gif is a representation of the emotions I had while watching the beginning scenes. To me, it was so adorable when the little girl woke up and she had a silent conversation with her cat. I have actually done that before, so I could relate.

This was my general reaction to her trying her best to do her hair herself. I couldn’t find the perfect word to truly summarize my emotions during that scene, but this is still very fitting.

I genuinely laughed out loud when she blew the hairdryer in her dad’s face when he tried to put a beanie on her head. That short section of the film displayed so much determination and sass and I loved every aspect of it.

After attempting to style her hair but failing, the dad resorted to using the beanie. I am almost certain this is what my face looked like. My inner monologue was saying, “Come on now dad, you can do better than the beanie.”

Another section of the video that made me giggle was after the little girl ran to the bathroom upset and the dad sat out in the hallway defeated, but the cat opens the door and just silently judges him. Like, can you imagine getting judged by a cat? I can, because my cat judges me DAILY.

These are the actual words that came out of my mouth when I had the realization that the woman from the videos was her mother. At this point in the video, I thought her mom had passed away, so she was using her tutorial videos as a way to connect with her again. So, needless to say, my heart was breaking for this family.

 This is the best visual explanation to demonstrate my emotions when the dad finally mastered doing her hair. You go, dad, keep doing your thing!

This is the final gif I selected to show my emotions at the ending of the video. To see that her mom had lost her hair from an illness but was so proud of her babies. As well as, the daughter bringing joy into her mom’s life; also, the fact that the mom was finally able to go home. All these factors made me sob and boy did I sob hard.

Final Thoughts: After reading Phoebe Robinson's, You Can't Touch My Hair and Other Things I Still Have to Explain, and watching the short film Hair Love, I now have a much stronger understanding of how of an impact hair has one someone. In Robinson's book, she discusses the idea of finally accepting her natural beauty by saying, "witnessing this acceptance over time has encouraged me to embrace my own natural beauty..." (28). This shows relevance in the short film as well as, the tutorials on the mom's channel are embracing the natural "fro" people have. During one of the tutorials, the mom says, "remember the road ahead might look rough, but you can make the journey with a little bit of work and a whole lot of love" (3:56-4:01). Overall, in both the book and short film, both women are saying that love and acceptance of your true beauty help make the journey a little bit easier.