‘Young Love’ Series Portrays West Side Family’s Modern-Day Life in Ch…

You might remember the beloved Oscar-winning, nearly 7-minute animated short film “Hair Love.”

It centered around a Black father navigating how to care for his 6-year-old daughter, Zuri, and her hair.

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Matthew A. Cherry expanded on that short film by creating “Young Love,” an animated series featuring Zuri and her family living on the West Side of Chicago.

“When it comes to Chicago representation and mainstream media, especially when you’re talking about Black Chicago, normally the South Side is what gets all the representation,” Cherry said. “I just really wanted to honor my family, the life they lived and how they had to struggle and come up. … We really just wanted to set it in a hardworking city that kind of just represented those strong Midwestern values.”

Meanwhile, Cherry’s new series aims to explore and promote hair love among young men and women of color even more than his short film did.

“We really try to showcase…