Curly haired Muppet is role model for little girls

(Agencies)
2010-10-21 14:52
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Curly haired Muppet is role model for little girls

CHICAGO – A plucky little muppet in a pretty pink dress, her brown hair a perky 'fro, is helping little girls — and their moms — to accept themselves just the way they are by loving their hair.

The nameless muppet manages to trim away generations of yearning for long, silky locks with her song, "I Love My Hair" and has become an Internet sensation. Now her creator wants to give her a life beyond YouTube.

"I really want to sit down with the writers and figure out what we can do with her and give her a name, and really expand her out," said Joey Mazzarino, head writer for "Sesame Street," who co-wrote "I Love My Hair" with composer Chris Jackson. (Jackson played Simba in "The Lion King"; Chantylla 'Chauncey' Johnson, who sings the song, also appeared in the Broadway show as Nala.)

The video is being shared on Twitter, and posted on gossip sites and blogs. It is popping up on Facebook pages and discussed in the comments section on YouTube, where the original clip gets a steady stream of views. It was posted Oct. 12, and had more than 600,000 views on YouTube as of Wednesday, and tens of thousands more at other sites.

The tune is breezy and bouncy, the lyrics simple and filled with pride: "Don't need a trip to the beauty shop, 'cause I love what I got on top — it's curly and it's brown and it's right up there. You know what I love? My hair!"

With fast cuts, the Muppet changes hair styles — braids, pouffy ponytail, curly top. And no matter what the style, "I want to make the world aware, I love my hair," she sings with happy confidence.

"When I first did the song, it really touched me because I really love my hair," said Johnson. "My hair is very curly. And the thing I like about the song is that it shows the different ways I can do my hair." The 13-year-old recently read for a part in a new production about Josephine Baker.

"It struck a particular chord with African-American moms like me," said author Denene Millner, a columnist for parenting.com and the creator of parenting blog MyBrownBaby. "I think that at some point, if you have a little girl, we all deal with the day your child comes home from school and says, 'I don't want my hair to look like this; I want it to look like Annie's.' And Annie's hair is blond and long and not what she has."

She says she is teaching her daughters Mari and Lila — ages 11 and 8 — to "love their hair as it grows out of their head." Millner, like many African-American women, recalls the big plastic comb, thick grease and sizzling hot comb used on her hair when she was a little girl.

"It was horrible," she said.

It was a similar discussion with his 5-year-old daughter Segi over tight, curly hair that inspired Mazzarino to craft the song and video. He and his wife, both white, adopted the little girl from Ethiopia, who told them that she "wanted her hair to be long or blond like Barbie or a princess."

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