Hair Scare

Directed by Premika Ratnam

Canada, 1991 (children's / fiction, 15 minutes, colour, English)

Film Description:
"Amar, a Sikh boy, moves to a new neighborhood and comes face to face with kids who make fun of his turban. Although he makes friends with Mark, the class bully, Cliff, still teases him. When Amar join Mark at the community pool, he is told that he is not allowed to swim because his long hair would be a 'health risk.'"
-- WorldCat (source)

Film Credits (partial):
Written by:	Ali Kazimi
Produced by:	Barbara Boyden, Ruth Vernon
Principal Cast:	Amar Bhalla, Warren Peng, Tuvia Borok, Ronica Sajnani, Suresh Bhalla, Heather Mitchell, Theresa Paskar
Music:	Heather Conkie, Roy Cummings
Production Company:	TVOntario Productions

(sources)

Quote about Hair Scare

"There are fascinating sequences in both films. In A Sari Tale, we see a mother empathizing with her daughter's embarrassment with Indian culture—and, yet, feeling palpable, profound sadness about it when her daughter is out of view. In Hair Scare, the nagging question 'What's underneath the turban, eh?' is answered. We see Amar, after he's had a shower; combing his long hair, gathering it and tying it with string; we see his father help him with the cloth that is tied around the bunched hair; we see the father and son discuss their common experience with turbans and being teased. Both videos have aired repeatedly on TVOntario and on the Knowledge Network in British Columbia. Deservedly so: they tackle the wide ranging issues of racism sensitively, facing head-on the stereotypes that all Sikhs are terrorists and that all Indian parents are insensitive to their Canadian children's needs. What is more, they portray youth issues in a way that the widest possible audience of children and parents can relate to. And, best of all, the avoidance of neat endings: the filmmakers acknowledge that, by definition, dilemmas never afford an easy way out. "
-- Sanjay Khanna (source)

Bibliography for Hair Scare

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Khanna, Sanjay. "Video in review: A Sari Tale; Hair Scare." Rungh: A South Asian Quarterly of Culture, Comment and Criticism, vol. 1, no. 4, January 1993.