Update (9/4) - Nickelodeon is pulling its preschool animated show
Made by Maddie off its schedule until further notice in response to a
controversy about similarities between its characters and those in the Oscar-winning short
Hair Love.
The show had been set to premiere Sept. 13 on Nick Jr., the ViacomCBS network's preschool channel. After Nickelodeon released a teaser for the show earlier in the week, the show drew criticism on social media for its characters' resemblance to those in
Hair Love, the short written and co-directed by Matthew A. Cherry that won the Oscar for best animated short earlier this year.
"
Made by Maddie is a show we acquired several years ago from Silvergate Media, a renowned production company we have previously worked with on other series. Since announcing the show's premiere date this week, we have been listening closely to the commentary, criticism and concern coming from both viewers and members of the creative community," Nickelodeon said in a statement.
"In response, and out of respect to all voices in the conversation, we are removing the show from our schedule as we garner further insight into the creative journey of the show. We are grateful to Silvergate Media for all of their work. And we hold Matthew A. Cherry and the wonderful and inspiring
Hair Love in the highest regard."
Made by Maddie centers on an 8-year-old Black girl who uses her fashion sense and design skills to solve problems, along with the help of some friends and her parents, Dee and Rashad. Maddie frequently wears a pink headband in her hair, while Dee is depicted with natural hair and Rashad with locs.
The parents in
Hair Love also have natural hair and locs, respectively, and the little girl, Zuri, also wears a pink headband. The similarities sparked a wave of criticism on social media, with users accusing Silvergate Media and Nickelodeon of copying Cherry's work. Cherry hasn't spoken on the matter but did retweet or reply to several posts calling out the resemblance.
Silvergate Media (
Peter Rabbit,
Sunny Day,
Octonauts) maintains it has been working on the show (formerly called
Fashion Ally) since before Cherry began a Kickstarter campaign in 2017 to fund
Hair Love.
"Silvergate Media has been working on the series for the last five years and throughout the production has taken steps to ensure a diverse production team and an appropriate voice cast lending their expertise and talent," CEO Waheed Alli said. "As creators ourselves, we have the utmost respect and admiration for Matthew A. Cherry and Hair Love, and our hope is that when people watch our show, they will see it is its own story with its own adventures."
Original post:
The production company behind Nick Jr.’s upcoming series
Made by Maddie has issued a statement denying that the preschool series is copying Matthew A. Cherry’s
Hair Love, following criticisms made by social media users who called out the similarities between the preschool cartoon and the 2019 Oscar-winning short film.
“
Made by Maddie is a preschool show about an 8-year-old girl who uses her fashion sense and design ingenuity to solve problems,” Silvergate Media CEO Waheed Alli said in a statement provided to
TheWrap on Wednesday, which was accompanied by date-stamped images of
Made by Maddie that were created between 2017-2018, before
Hair Love was released in August 2019.
“Silvergate Media has been working on the series for the last five years and throughout the production has taken steps to ensure a diverse production team and an appropriate voice cast lending their expertise and talent. As creators ourselves, we have the utmost respect and admiration for Matthew A. Cherry and
Hair Love, and our hope is that when people watch our show, they will see it is its own story with its own adventures.”
Hair Love, which was created and directed by Cherry, a Black man, centers on seven-year-old Zuri and her father Stephen as they attempt to style the little girl’s hair by following an instructional video narrated by her mother (voiced by Issa Rae). Cherry funded the film in part via a Kickstarter campaign that raised $300,000. In July, HBO Max ordered an animated series from Cherry inspired by
Hair Love.
Created by Paula Rosenthal, a white woman,
Made by Maddie,
is set to premiere Sept. 13 on Nick Jr. Here is the official description for the show:
"
Made by Maddie centers on Maddie (Alyssa Cheatham), a quick-thinking little girl with a big personality and a huge heart, who has a passion for fashion. Maddie finds design inspiration around every corner and her big ideas couldn’t become a reality without the love and support of her aspirational and talented fashion designer mom Dee (Patina Miller), and her super cool and upbeat musician dad, Rashad (James Monroe Iglehart), along with the assistance of friends and neighbors, including kind, animal-loving best friend, Jada (Sophia Torres), and the twins–rule-following Harper (Amanda Dressel) and fearless Hudson (Ames McNamara)–who are always up for adventure. Maddie’s creative thinking and dazzling designs are a reflection of the bustling, colorful city of New York and its residents. Maddie confidently embraces her own unique style, celebrates individuality, treats everyone with kindness, and encourages others to take risks and be themselves."
Early this week, several Twitter users began tweeting side-by-side screenshots of
Made by Maddie and
Hair Love, and listing off similarities they saw between the two, including the physical appearances of the animated families (and their gray cats).
Cherry himself joined the conversation by retweeting and commenting on some of those comparisons, including this one, in which he added an inquisitive-looking emoji (see below).
In response to one Twitter user,
who wrote, “@MatthewACherry, PLEASE tell me you’re going to do something about this. I legitimately thought
Hair Love was getting an animated series. That alone should tell you enough,” Cherry
said, “We are getting a series and this wasn’t it.”
A representative for Cherry declined to comment to
TheWrap Wednesday and
Hair Love studios Sony Pictures Animation and Lion Forge Animation did not immediately respond to the request.
Earlier today, Nickelodeon removed the network's
Made by Maddie page from NickJr.com. It's currently unknown whether Nick Jr. is still planing to premiere the show on Sept. 13.
From the
Los Angeles Times:
A new kids’ show was accused of copying ‘Hair Love.’ Here’s what you need to know
“It’s time to dream it, draw it, make it,” the tiny heroine of Nickelodeon’s new animated preschool series “Made by Maddie” says in its trailer. But the program, scheduled to premiere later this month, is already attracting scrutiny online over its own creative process.
When Nickelodeon shared the series’ trailer and first-look images on Tuesday, social media users were quick to point out that the central character and her parents bear a striking resemblance to the main characters in “Hair Love,” Matthew A. Cherry’s Oscar-winning short about a Black millennial father attempting to style his young daughter’s hair.
The Sony Animation project, which debuted in 2017 as a Kickstarter campaign, has since led to a children’s book and an animated series, currently in development at HBO Max. It spoke both to the lack of inclusive representation in children’s programming and the fact that, in Hollywood and beyond, Black people have historically been pressured to alter their natural hair in order to align with Eurocentric beauty standards.
Among the similarities observers noted were, well, the hair: In both “Made by Maddie” and “Hair Love,” the fathers have shoulder-length locs, the mothers have natural curls, and the little girls wear bright pink bows atop their updos. One Twitter user noted that even the AI-powered image search tool Google Lens was baffled.
Cherry himself commented on another: the family cat. “It’s wild. Coulda been a dog, fish, anything,” he tweeted, while also correcting fans’ congratulations on the unrelated Nick project. (Cherry declined to comment on the matter to The Times.)
Silvergate Media, the production company behind “Made by Maddie,” asserts that its creation is its own. “Silvergate Media has been working on the series for the last five years,” Waheed Alli, CEO of Silvergate Media, said in a statement, “and throughout the production has taken steps to ensure a diverse production team and an appropriate voice cast lending their expertise and talent.
“As creators ourselves, we have the utmost respect and admiration for Matthew A. Cherry and ‘Hair Love,’ and our hope is that when people watch our show, they will see it is its own story with its own adventures.”
“Made by Maddie” was created by children’s programming veteran Paula Rosenthal and is the third Nickelodeon project from Silvergate, after “Sunny Day” and “Peter Rabbit.” A representative for the studio emphasized that Rosenthal, who is white, worked on the series alongside multiple Black creatives, including its story editor, fashion consultant, curriculum and educational consultant and songwriting supervisor, as well as a diversity consultant.
First announced at Nickelodeon’s 2018 Upfronts as “Fashion Ally,” work on “Made by Maddie” was already underway, with a Black family at its center, by September 2017, according to a script excerpt and a detailed description of additional characters that Silvergate provided to The Times. (In the latter, the look of the young girl’s father is modeled on the Black List founder Franklin Leonard, replete with a photo collage of Leonard in gray suits with his signature locs.)
The studio also provided sketches of the girl, her parents and the family cat, dated September, October and November 2018. (Silvergate shared another image of the girl from “Fashion Ally"/"Made by Maddie,” this one without a timestamp, which the studio’s representative claims is from 2015. The Times has been unable to verify the timing of the image’s creation.)
“Hair Love” did not begin production until January 2018, but the Kickstarter campaign to fund the endeavor was launched in July 2017, complete with character illustrations by Vashti Harrison. It went viral on social media and received support from the likes of “Proud Family” creator Bruce W. Smith, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” co-director Peter Ramsey, and then-Pixar animator Frank Abney, all of whom boarded the project. It was fully funded, at three times its original goal, by Aug. 9 — one month before the earliest dated material provided by the producers of “Made by Maddie.”
Nickelodeon, which declined to comment on the matter to The Times, described the premise of “Made by Maddie” as one that “follows 8-year-old Maddie in New York City, as she uses her imagination and design ingenuity to turn every problem into a positive with the perfect fashion fix.”
It shares fewer similarities with “Young Love,” the upcoming HBO Max series based on Cherry’s short. Upon its announcement, the platform described that project as “an honest look into the world of the Young family — including millennial parents Stephen and Angela, their daughter Zuri and her pet cat Rocky — as they juggle their careers, marriage, parenthood, social issues, and multi-generational dynamics all while striving to make a better life for themselves.”
The controversy over resemblances between “Made by Maddie” and “Hair Love” comes as the animation industry, like much of Hollywood, reckons with discrimination against Black creatives in the wake of the nationwide movement for Black lives. In June, a number of animated programs announced that their nonwhite characters would no longer be voiced by white actors, and an open letter asked that studios conduct investigations into internal incidents of racism and commit to the hiring, training and advancement of Black staff.
And as in many other industries, the public now regularly comments on Hollywood’s actions when it comes to the issue of diversity and representation, and is no longer afraid to levy criticism against the parties in question on social media.
“You didn’t dream this or draw it,” said one Twitter user in response to a Nick Jr. tweet about the series. “There’s nothing new [about] stealing Black labor to turn a profit.”
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Originally published: Thursday, September 03, 2020 at 02:12 BST.
Sources: @TVShowsFan, Nickandmore!; Anime Superhero Forum /@superkeegan9100..
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