What to know
- ‘Church Hat’, a children’s book by Jamaican-born Toronto author Debra Williams, has been adapted into a seven-minute animated short film.
- The story follows a child who tries on his mother’s church hat and, instead of being shamed, is met with a conversation about boundaries, self-expression and acceptance.
- Williams drew inspiration for the story from her own Jamaican family, including her mother, grandmother and Gay uncle, to tell a story about creating safe spaces for children to be themselves.
- The stop-motion film, which took roughly a year and a half to produce, features Jamaican-born actor Sheryl Lee Ralph as the voice of the child’s mother.
- Church Hat will screen Sept. 9 as part of the CaribbeanTales Film Festival “We Reach!” programming in Toronto.
A little boy puts on his mother’s church hat, and instead of being told there’s something wrong with him, he is given space to ask questions and be himself. That simple moment is at the heart of Church Hat, a new animated short film that explores Queerness, gender expression and acceptance through the intimate lens of a Caribbean family.
When a young boy sneaks into his mother’s room to try on her church hats, he expects to be caught, and he is. But instead of shame or punishment, his mother offers him a conversation. The moment is at the heart of Church Hat, a children’s book turned animated short film by Jamaican-born Toronto author Debra Williams, who drew on her own family history to tell a story about gender expression, acceptance and the importance of allowing children to be themselves.
The story’s maternal figure is based on Williams’ mother and maternal grandmother, while the boy is inspired by her uncle, a Gay man who grew up in a home where he did not have to hide, code-switch or make himself smaller to make other people comfortable.
“My uncle very early on exhibited a sort of genderless quality, where he was very flamboyant in his dress, and it was just very obvious that he had his own unique style, and he wasn’t forced to shove that back into a category that made other people comfortable,” she told Queer & Now.
“He did not have to hide. He did not have to other himself. He did not have to mask who he was,” Williams continued.
The author explained that she remembers both her mother and grandmother creating such a space both in Jamaica and later in Canada, welcoming people into their home and providing a space where everyone had the opportunity to be themselves.
That dynamic inspires the relationship between the mother and son at the heart of Church Hat, which deliberately avoids turning a child’s exploration of identity into a crisis. Instead, the conflict begins with another issue familiar to Caribbean households: a child playing with something that belongs to an adult.
The mother’s church hats are not toys, but rather carefully kept pieces of her wardrobe, reserved for special occasions. But when she catches her son trying one on, she reminds him that the hats are for adults. However, she also notices his individuality, and instead of punishing him for trying on “women’s clothing” and shutting down her son’s natural curiosity, she proposes a compromise: they will go shopping together and get him a hat of his own, customized to his taste.
“The offence is that really he’s putting on her hat,” Williams explains, rather than that he is asking questions about his identity, allowing the hat itself to become a segue into that conversation.
The message is simple: there can be boundaries around what a child does, without making the child feel there is something wrong with who they are. That distinction is important to the author, particularly because the story is set against a Caribbean cultural backdrop where expectations around gender, respectability and identity can be complicated.
Church Hat: Based on a true story
Williams grew up in Jamaica in the 1970s before moving to Toronto, where she has now lived for 26 years. She explained that after relocating to Canada, her family continued to preserve Caribbean culture through traditions practiced with their extended family and community in Scarborough.
Losing both her grandmother and mother not long before the COVID-19 pandemic, she found herself missing the matriarchs during lockdown. Reminiscing, she began looking through old family photographs, coming across images of the two women in Jamaica wearing large church hats. She says the pictures brought her back to the culture she grew up with, including the formality of getting dressed up to leave the house, particularly for church.
They also became a metaphor. People wear many hats throughout their lives, Williams says, but underneath those roles should be a commitment to kindness, tolerance and love.
Williams first transformed that message into a poem before turning it into a children’s book, and now, a short film. At the core of the project remains the question: What happens when children feel safe enough to ask difficult questions? For Williams, the answer should begin with listening.
“Children should be able to ask questions without immediately inheriting the fears, stigma or discomfort of the adults around them,” she explains.
Queer identity in a Caribbean context
The responsibility, she argues, is on adults to guide children through difficult conversations, not to make children carry the weight of adult stigma. That idea becomes particularly significant when the story is considered through a Caribbean lens.
The author says the lingering stigma surrounding 2SLGBTQIA+ identities in Caribbean communities can be dangerous, particularly for those whose gender expression or sexuality falls outside conventional expectations. Jamaica is one of five Caribbean countries where same-gender relationships are criminalized, with 2SLGBTQIA+ communities facing intense cultural stigma both on the island and within migrant communities.
Despite this criminalization, Queer people have always contributed to Caribbean culture, Williams says, even when they have not always been able to live openly or authentically. Part of that silence is connected to colonialism and the cultural shame that persists around sexuality and gender.
The author-turned-filmmaker explains that she believes radical kindness is an intervention to this issue. For instance, it can begin with something as small as not overreacting when a child begins to question or experiment with their identity.
“If they can’t say that in a safe space around the adults that they have to rely on,” she says, “that changes everything.”
While the book has received largely positive feedback, Williams shared that more often than not it is adults, rather than children, who struggle with its message. She explains that at book fairs, she has watched children respond to the story with curiosity, wanting to see what the hat looks like and understanding the basic premise: a child wants to be himself, and his mother tells him he is safe.
She says that adults, however, sometimes take issue with the story. She explained that her professional experience working at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health influences how she responds to this discomfort and rather than dismissing parents who struggle with the subject matter, she tries to unpack where that upset comes from.
Church Hat the movie
First published five years ago, Church Hat has now evolved beyond the page and has been adapted into a short film. Williams explains that she wanted to create something that could capture the way a child sees the world while making a potentially difficult conversation feel approachable for both children and adults.The result is a seven-minute stop-motion film created using 2D paper puppetry, which took about a year and a half to produce.
Notably, the project features the voice of Jamaican-born actor Sheryl Lee Ralph, whose unmistakable voice brings the mother’s perspective to life. Williams says she initially thought getting Ralph on board was a long shot. But after reaching out to her team, she learned the actor was interested.
Following the end of the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes, the production team received a narrow window to record the voiceover in Los Angeles. Williams says Ralph completed her recording session in less than an hour, giving the film another connection to its Caribbean roots.
Read More
The film premiered at the BraveMaker Film Festival in Redwood City, California, in July, before travelling to other festivals in North America. For the author, watching Church Hat move from a poem to a book and finally onto a festival screen has been surreal.
That journey includes CaribbeanTales, an honour Williams considers especially meaningful. For more than two decades, the annual festival has created space for the sharing of stories from across the Caribbean diaspora. Williams says it’s important to make room for Queer stories like Church Hat in these spaces because Black and Caribbean stories are not a monolith.
For her, that is ultimately what the film is about: making room. That includes room for children to ask questions, for families to have complicated conversations, and for Queer Caribbean people to exist without having to code-switch or hide.
Church Hat screens on Sept. 9 as part of the We Reach! programming, slated for 9:00-11:30 p.m. at this year’s edition of Toronto’s CaribbeanTales Film Festival. You can secure tickets on the film festival’s website.
