Blue Magic: Celebrating Black Girls Hair.

Long, short, black, thick, fluffy, curly, wet, tangled or dry strands of kinky hair. That’s how many black girls possess their power, with black girl magic. Written by Olivia Fraser, a Jamaican writer, director, creative and CEO of Brown Sugar Movement, Blue Magic is a short film that celebrates black hair. It’s a seven minutes and sixteen seconds highlight of a black girl’s morning routine and the difficulties she faces when she has to fix her hair.

The short film starts with a voice over saying, “there was once a tribe of women who were given immense power through the beauty and strength of their hair. As the years passed all has changed, they were brought, sold, beaten and were forced to change their hair in order to be accepted. Their beauty was no longer seen as beautiful. In turn, knowledge of their power was lost over the years from their ancestors and they started to add harmful chemicals in order to fit the new norm, the new beauty with this mental loss of power, but being the women they were strength from their hair has transcended and was already running through their vains without their knowledge though we saw glimpses of their power in their everyday lives, they knew not of their full form or full capabilities…”

This voice over doesn’t just highlight ancient mythology or fictional stories. In actual fact, it reminded me of an Instagram post I stumbled upon this week. A series of written texts titled Why it’s not “just hair.” These texts were breaking down how black women’s hair has always been deemed as “ghetto“; “messy” and “unprofessional“. How it was not (still not) categorized under “beauty” due to social beauty standards, but it gets appropriated without references and appreciation. This text was written and posted by @thepoliticaljargons. The written texts also reminded us of the Tignon Laws that were enacted to force black women to hide their hair cause it was a threat to white women and it attracted white men.

The voice over was accompanied by medium shots with a teal tint contrast of a mother and daughter. We see the mother sitting on the couch with her daughter sitting calmly on the floor with her head tilted to the side as her mother is applying, the missing magic ingredient into her hair, blue magic.

This short film was beautifully written and directed, credits to Olivia Fraser again and Ashleigh Jadee. On the second shots we get transported into Tasha’s bedroom and we see her standing in front of the mirror not knowing what to do with her hair with the continuation of the voice over talking about the magic her hair possesses, “my hair is magic, that’s what my mom always told me since I was young. Mom said God took his time when he created my hair, every curl and every twist. She told me my hair has special powers that’s why everyone wants to touch it” as the voice over progresses we hear, “Tasha hurry up & get ready” and that’s the voice of her Jamaican mother in the kitchen standing over the stove cooking breakfast. We also get introduced to another black girl with long strands of black relaxed hair. That’s Tasha’s sister and unlike her mother and little sister she doesn’t have thick kinky blown-out natural hair, but does that take away her black magic ? Maybe or maybe not and what happens next ? well you’ll have to watch the full short film and see how Tasha manages to get her hair done before going to school.