This Gabrielle Union & Dwyane Wade-Produced Film about Black Hair Won an Oscar

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 09: Gabrielle Union (L) and Dwyane Wade attend the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 09, 2020 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images)

“Hair Love,” an animated film about a black man learning to do his daughter’s natural hair for the first time, won an Oscar!

The short film was produced by Karen Rupert Toliver, Gabrielle Union, and Dwyane Wade, and it won in the Best Animated Short Film category.

NFL player Matthew A. Cherry, who directed the film, had created a Kickstarter campaign to fund it, and said:

We’re trying to promote hair positivity and inspire young kids to take pride in their natural hair, and show black fathers in their kids’ lives.

Accepting the award, he shared that Toliver created the film “because we want to see more representation in animation and to normalize black hair.”