What Curly Hair Represents In Movies & TV (& How It’s Changing) | Trope Explained
Curly hair, like hair colors, is often used to represent something specific about a character on screen. Sometimes curly hair is a …
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March 12, 2026
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Thanks so much for watching! We couldn't fit all of our favorite curly characters in just one video, so if we missed your fave let us know who they are in a reply!
& Up next, check out our video on movie & tv vacations (from the $$$ luxury to the hilariously relatable) https://youtu.be/wUdwpnGBOhY | or our video on why SATC's Samantha and Charlotte are surprisingly… similar! https://youtu.be/nM21Nma4Okk
I always felt inadequate when wearing my curls, but now that i have a daughter Im learning to love them, embrace them and make them look healthy and crazy! I want her to feel empowered w her own curls
Unkeep your hair. Not curly or straight, just tangled.
I have 3b/c hair and growing up, I loathed my natural hair. I had no idea how to care for it and relaxed it for years.
I hated my curls and one day a boyfriend saw me w my natural hair and said “make sure you keep it straight when we go out” I got offended but… dont I was my first hater?
My current husband told me once that he was obsessed w my “Mirabel curls” and he wished I let my curls shine more often
I would love to the take do a deep dive into the culture of texturism black women have faced in the States. As a black woman myself I have watched The Take explore so many pop culture topics over the years with grace and respect. While I know the channel is run by Caucasian women, I would really trust them to creatively present the information in same authenticity and care I’ve seen them present in the past. I don’t know if they would ever consider it but if they make the video i would love to watch it.
I have curly hair and I M enjoying it
The Friends episode hurt me so much. It was just mean. Watching the episode as an adult, I've realized why I was ashamed of my curls growing up, indeed curls were presented as a curse for too many years in movies
My curls were coarse, S-shaped, abundant, and high-maintenence. I was obsessed with getting my hair Japanese straightening perm. But, those are way too expensive, so I got a keratin treatment instead. My stylist said it probably wouldn't straighten it out completely, but it would make it easier when I flat iron it.
I guess someone was into granting wishes because it took out all of my curl!
However, now I have to keep up with getting the keratin treatments. And it gets less effective with each one. I never thought I would miss my curls, but when I see pics of myself with my curls (when I was having a good hair day😅) I miss them.
Be careful what you wish for, I guess.👩
I've been conflicted for about 5 years about this. A while ago I understood that me respecting my natural hair meant a lot, and it makes me feel authentic and respectful of my roots. However, the truth is that as I have a fuller face, blow outs (not completely sleek japanese-ish straight hair) look great on me. I believe so and many have told me the same. Whenever I get the urge to do me that bouncy airy blow out, I get remorseful 🙁 as if I was betraying what I stand for. Thoughts? :')
Even in the business world those of us with curly or textured hair are expected to "tame" their wild mane for the corporate world. Well, I'm here to tell you that I think that's bull 💩 and needs to stop! What difference does it make what my hair looks like? I think what's inside my head is far more important. I've experienced this first hand. I'm always with a blowout at an interview but sometimes you have a "natural" day and you can see in some places how their perception changes right in that moment. I didn't want to believe it but it's sadly still true. We need to judge on quality of ideas and experience, not whether someone has naturally curly or textured hair. We are ALL beautiful!
I loooove my curly hair……but I notice that I still subconsciously think it can be a bit…..much. Some days I feel out of place and unsettled, thinking that I need to do something to my hair to make it look put together. This video however makes me feel so blessed to have “unruly” and “wild” curly hair. ❤
I always looked at hair as fashion and something that needed to be styled. But the fact is letting your hair be its natural self is freeing somehow. So no matter how you like to wear your hair, let it be natural sometimes (most times) and notice how confident you become because you are showing up as your natural self
As someone with pin straight hair, I’ve always been envious of the curly girls. My hair does nothing. It’s flat and boring. I can’t even make it curl. It won’t hold.
Nearly every depiction of black hair was loose biracial ringlets. Good video but you missed a mark there
I appreciate what the creator of this video did. Showing biracial women to represent black women is not okay or as it does not exemplify the reality of who is actually affected when we talk about black women's hair and house society has treated it. More often than not, It is not the loosely curled hair that most biracial people have. Is the tightly curled kinky afro hair that black people typically have? That has been the target of so much hate.
Learning to love my frizzy, curly hair has been a long and painful process. I love my hair now.
The person who made this video clearly didn't live through the 80s when everyone and their dog had a perm
There are strange examples of this in GoT, and one in particular that is the most strange. If you pay attention to hair in the show, it starts to look like s low budget production. It's almost creepy.
First and foremost is the spread of hair textures across Westeros. South of the wall, the biggest characters all either have straight hair, or wigs with perfect curling iron waves. The soft, gentle type that are still mostly straight, you know??
North of the wall, the free folk have the legit curly hair, going up to actual fros. All except for the love interest of Jon Snow, of course. But her unique feature is that she's a red head. SO all of that fits in with what's said in this video. It's quite blatant, yet it's gets more blatant still.
On the other side of the world, Daenerys is given the "fake white curls" treatment. But there is one scene in particular between her and one of her Dothraki. This is where it gets worse than problematic. The Dothraki are said to only cut their hair when they lose in battle. Those with the longest hair have the best reputations. SO at some point, Daenerys sends one out on a scouting mission. The guy has curls, tight ones. Somewhere between 3B and 3C level. And to maintain the whole, "long hair for those who haven't lost in battle" thing, they attach a horse hair pony tail to the back of his head.
It looks insane. A guy with a full head of short and tight curls with a horse hair pony tail on the back of his head at the nape of his neck. How ignorant and naive were the producers of this show to black hair?? HOLY MOLY!
And it gets worse. He's slain out on his scouting mission, and the horse is sent back with his head in a saddle bag. Gruesome. When his head is pulled out, it's wearing a wig of unhealthy wavy hair. A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT HAIR TYPE. The fact the wig appears to be unhealthy is insult on top of injury, literally.
This is racism; there is no other explanation. Direct evidence that people look at black hair, and see white hair. And as a white guy with natural thick/wavy hair, I took note. I DO NOT HAVE BLACK HAIR. But it's not straight either, holy hell.
I'm still disappointed in GoT for such poor taste and verifiable poor professionalism. Seems like terrible representation from this evidence alone, right?? If it doesn't evolve from a stereotype to something more real, what does it accomplish???
Watching these movies and seeing the curly haired girls get their hair straightened in a make over. Made me wonder what little curly haired girls thought.
My whole life I've had curly hair and my whole life. I feel like the social pressure for my hair to be straight to look "professional" was absurd.
I literally didn't pursue careers like being a Weather person or a newscaster because I never saw anyone with curly hair doing the job when I was young.
If you're a dark skinned black woman with very kinky coily hair, this video is not talking about you. Things have not changed in Hollywood at alllll. Girl. What in the paper bag test did I just watch?! 😂😂
Mu hair is somewhere between very wavy and curly, but i felt like such an outcast as a tenn because i grew up during the paris hilton/emo scene era. Thick, brown, curly hair was not in.
Wow. As a black woman with naturally curly hair. I can say this is an amazing video that everyone should take the time to watch. Very well done.
Another texture-related point i'd like to bring up is the wavy hair that many brown (South Asian) women naturally have – hair that is neither straight nor curly, often dense and silky, possibly prone to frizz and "baby hairs" around the hairline and nape of the neck. Often, this natural hair texture is considered "unkempt" and "unprofessional". As a result, many brown women often flat iron, rebond or do keratin treatments in order to "smoothen" and "tame" their strands. Which is such a pity, because repeating these treatments for years, decades even, leads to severe damage and hair loss over time.
I have wavy hair. When i was younger, the blow dryer was the accessory that was attached to everyone 's hand! Motive? Straighten that hair! Be like all those models/movie & TV stars in the 1970-s with the perfectly straight hair. After many years of fighting frizz brought on by too much use of blow dryer I realized especially in the summer months that hair is going to do whatever its going to do, and that the best thing is to work with what texture you have! Life is far too short to try to change what you are naturally blesed with!
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I was told I needed to tame my curly hair to get a promotion. When I started straightening it, I got promoted and praised for having more "professional" hair.