Curly haired Muppet is role model for little girls
(Agencies)
2010-10-21 14:52
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Mazzarino said this bothered him.
"I thought it was because she had two white parents that she was going through this. And I didn't know about the larger sort of issues with African-American girls until Chris Rock's movie came out," he said, referring to Rock's 2009 documentary "Good Hair," which takes a serious, and sometimes lighthearted, look at the black hair care industry and the history behind concepts of so-called "good hair."
The idea of "straight" or "white" hair has been an albatross for black American women and men, tied to slavery and racism, and a society that stripped them of pride by defining beauty in terms of only one ethnic standard.
The lengths some women and girls would take to "look white" was poignantly framed by Whoopi Goldberg in her 1984 one-woman show on Broadway. She played a 9-year-old who pours bleach over her brown body and wears a white slip on her head as pretend long blond hair. The child wants to be on "The Love Boat," a cruise ship sit-com from the 1970s-'80s.
"I think there's a larger part society can play. And I say this, being a dad of an African-American girl. ... The images she sees and the Barbies she gets and the American Girl dolls she gets — even if they have brown skin, the hair's not right. It's all straight," he said. "They do have a little curl but it looks like straight Caucasian hair that's had a curling iron to it."
The day the video was shot, Mazzarino said, everyone felt the power of the song. "
"All the African-American women came down to (the set) to watch," said Mazzarino, who has been with "Sesame Street" since 1990. "If there's a celebrity, people will come down to watch. But really, it touched them. And I think I should have known that — that this is something that is deeper than just your kids."
Mazzarino said he would like to do more self-esteem videos like "I Love My Hair" or even recreate older "Sesame Street" clips such as "Skin I'm In," performed by 1970s-era Muppet Roosevelt Franklin.
"I'm looking at those — possibly redoing them, or coming up with new songs that would work for kids (on) issues like hair or skin color and things like that," he said.
Meanwhile, a little Muppet girl in pretty pink dress says it all: "I love my hair ... there's nothing else that can compare, I love my hair."