In recent months, Netflix has sprung a vast amount of great movies on us, some of which have concerning taboo topics. One such movie is Cierra Burgess is a Loser. In this movie they depict bullying, warped expectation for women, and even a new trend, catfishing. Nappily Ever After, another Netflix film was released as of September 21st. This movie also addressed the unrealistic expectations for women — specifically, the standards our society expects black women to live up to.

In the movie, Violet Jones, a beautiful and successful woman, is struggling with the relationships in her life and even her career… the root of all of these problems- her deep struggle with being perfect. Violet was raised with the values of her superficial mother drilled into her head from a very young age. She was taught “how to be the girl every guy wants, but not the girl that she wants to be.” Our society constantly pushes these unrealistic expectations upon women on how to look, how not to look, act, speak, and this movie really did a great job of depicting that.

After reaching a breaking point, Violet shaves off her entire head, ridding herself of the thing that “matters most to us as women,” -hair. Hence, the title of the movie, Nappily Ever After. This was a real milestone for Violet. She was letting go of all her superficial beliefs and unrealistic standards she always had managed to live up to. She was starting to learn what matters most to her, and who she wanted to be, not who men, or even her mother wants her to be.