CULTURE / REPRESENTATION
Natural texture is far more visible in movies and television than it once was. But representation gets more complicated when we ask which curls are being shown—and which ones still feel exceptional.
There are more curls on our screens now.
Defined ringlets. Big natural styles. Braids. Locs. Afros. Protective styles that actually look like someone knew what they were doing.
That progress matters.
But “curly representation” can hide another question: are the tightest coils being represented with the same frequency, variety and ease?
First, what do we mean by 4C?
“4C” is commonly used as shorthand for very tightly coiled hair with a small, compact curl pattern.
But it is worth saying this upfront: 4C is not a scientific biological category.
The familiar number-and-letter curl chart comes from consumer hair-typing systems, and recent scientific reviews have pointed out their limitations. They do not capture things like density, strand thickness, porosity or the fact that one person can have several patterns on the same head.
So we’re using 4C here the way people commonly use it in beauty conversations: as a convenient name for very tight coils—not as a perfect measurement of anyone’s hair.
Two people who both call their hair “4C” can have completely different density, shrinkage, strand thickness and styling needs.
The label can help us talk about visibility. It cannot tell the whole story of someone’s hair.
Has natural Black hair become more visible onscreen?
Yes.
A 2025 academic review of Black girls’ hair in screen culture describes a recent increase in the visibility of natural Black hair in mainstream U.S. and U.K. media. It also points to the importance of having more Black women working not only as actors, but as producers, directors and hair-and-makeup professionals.
That behind-the-scenes part is important.
Research involving 103 Black women found that viewers noticed hair as part of whether Black female characters felt authentically represented. Hair rituals, natural styles and even small moments of women caring for one another’s hair could feel meaningful rather than incidental.
So yes, seeing the texture matters.
But how the texture is presented matters too.
So what’s missing?
Often, it is the full range.
“Natural hair” can become its own beauty standard—one that technically includes textured hair but still rewards curls that are longer, looser, shinier or easier to read as traditionally feminine.
This conversation has happened within the natural-hair movement itself. Hairstylists, writers and women with tightly coiled hair have questioned why campaigns celebrating natural hair so often seemed to put loose, bouncing curls at the centre.
The result is an important distinction:
Including curly hair is not automatically the same thing as representing the entire spectrum of textured hair.
Representation gets more interesting when textured hair is allowed to be ordinary—not only symbolic.
Remember when seeing natural hair at all felt like a television moment?
One of the most studied examples came in 2014, when Viola Davis’s character Annalise Keating removed her straight wig on How to Get Away with Murder, revealing her natural tightly textured hair underneath.
Researchers who studied the audience response found that viewers immediately understood the significance.
It was intimate. It was recognizably Black. And natural kinky hair on a powerful Black woman in primetime television was still unusual enough that people discussed the scene in real time.
But there is something revealing about that too.
Her natural hair appeared during a moment of vulnerability, when the polished public version of the character was being removed.
That does not make the scene bad—it became memorable partly because it felt so honest.
It does show how hair can be used as storytelling shorthand.
Straight hair can signal polish. Natural hair can signal vulnerability, rebellion, home, authenticity or a character finally “letting herself go.”
Sometimes textured hair should be allowed to mean absolutely nothing.
What would better 4C representation actually look like?
Not simply adding one character with a perfect Afro.
Better representation would mean tightly coiled hair appearing in the same range of circumstances as every other texture.
4C hair can be short, long, stretched, shrunken, braided, twisted, picked out, pressed, tucked under a wig, wrapped for bed or left completely alone.
Showing the range matters as much as showing the texture.
It means the lawyer can have tight coils without the hairstyle becoming a storyline.
The romantic lead can have shrinkage.
The awkward teenager can have an Afro.
The glamorous character can have 4C hair without it being straightened first to communicate glamour.
And a character can change her hair constantly without every style needing to represent a transformation in her identity.
That is what normal representation starts to look like.
There’s also a behind-the-scenes problem
Putting more textured hair onscreen requires people who actually know how to work with it.
Black actors have spoken publicly for years about arriving on sets where the hair department did not have someone trained to style their texture. Some actors have described bringing their own products, doing their own hair or having to advocate for a stylist who could work with it properly.
And this is not only a Hollywood conversation.
The Black Screen Office in Canada has highlighted the shortage of film and television hairstylists trained in Black and textured hair and supported programs specifically designed to improve those skills within the industry.
Because representation does not begin when the camera turns on.
Someone has to be able to do the hair first.
Why does getting the hair right matter so much?
Because viewers notice.
In research examining audience reactions to How to Get Away with Murder, Black viewers celebrated seeing natural hair and familiar hair-care rituals onscreen—but they also criticized details they felt were inaccurate.
That is a pretty good reminder that textured hair is not set decoration.
People recognize the way a bonnet is worn.
They recognize whether someone would realistically comb that texture dry.
They recognize the difference between a twist-out, an Afro, locs, braids and hair that has simply been made to look vaguely “textured.”
Good representation lives in those details.
Does every Black character need to wear natural hair?
Of course not.
Black hair culture includes wigs, weaves, silk presses, relaxers, braids, locs, extensions, curls, coils and almost endless combinations of them.
Replacing one narrow beauty standard with another would miss the point.
A character wearing a wig is not automatically less authentic than a character wearing an Afro.
The real question is whether all of those choices are given room to exist—including the tightest natural textures.
The bottom line
Curly hair has unquestionably become more visible onscreen.
That deserves to be celebrated.
But the next step is looking beyond whether a character technically has “natural hair” and asking what kinds of texture we repeatedly get to see.
When tight coils can be glamorous, boring, messy, professional, romantic, funny, powerful and completely unremarkable, that is when representation starts feeling complete.