At the Oscars, it’s the big-ticket categories that tend to draw the most attention, but this year the winner for animated short rose to prominence.

“Hair Love” is a sweet and joyful story about an African-American father learning to style his daughter’s natural hair in his wife’s absence. The film uses words sparingly; the characters’ gestures and expressions take viewers through the father’s commonplace but poignant endeavor.

One of the film’s messages — embracing and loving your natural hair — was transported to the ceremony itself on Sunday. The actress Gabrielle Union and the former N.B.A. champion Dwyane Wade, married producers of “Hair Love,” invited to the ceremony a black high school student in Texas who was suspended because of the way he wore his dreadlocks.

The student, DeAndre Arnold, was told that his look violated the student handbook, which said that male students’ hair must not extend below the top of a T-shirt collar. Critics of the policy called it racist and rooted in limiting gender roles.