For greater than 4 a long time, Lagueria Davis’s aunt, Beulah Mae Mitchell, labored at Mattel. Davis, the director of the brand new Netflix documentary “Black Barbie,” was not a fan of dolls, however was drawn to the topic by her aunt, who’s a loyal collector.
On the floor, the documentary is about what led to the 1980 launch of Black Barbie, however the points it explores run a lot deeper: the hurt of missing a “social mirror,” the sluggish tempo of progress and the tensions round darkening a white fictional character.
There have been already Black dolls within the Barbie universe earlier than Black Barbie, however all have been ancillary — buddies of Barbie’s. The Black model of Barbie, created by the corporate’s first Black designer, Kitty Black Perkins, was meant to be a major character.
What’s most fascinating concerning the documentary is the query of whether or not Black Barbie ever managed to flee her predecessors’ marginalization, as white Barbie stays the usual. Does society want Black variations of white cultural merchandise or new merchandise during which Blackness is centered?
That includes a variety of Mattel staff, teachers, cultural commentators and girls who’ve had Barbies made of their picture, such because the Shondaland founder Shonda Rhimes, the ballerina Misty Copeland and the fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad, Davis complicates our understanding of Black Barbie, each celebrating her existence and recognizing her limitations.
“Black Barbie” appears at a Black toy firm that produced multiracial dolls and a line inside Mattel that was centered on stand-alone Black characters, created by Stacey McBride-Irby, a protégée of Perkins. Staying with these scenes slightly longer, exploring what labored and didn’t, would have expanded the conversations going down within the movie and the dissonance inherent in attempting to make a white doll Black.
Black Barbie: A Documentary
Not rated. Working time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Watch on Netflix.
