What’s It About
When the filmmaker’s 83-year-old aunt Beulah Mae Mitchell asks, “Why not make a Barbie that looks like me?,” the story of the first Black Barbie begins.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
Before the introduction of the Black Barbie, there were already Black dolls within the Barbie universe, but they were all portrayed as secondary characters—friends of Barbie. The Black version of Barbie, designed by the company’s first Black designer, Kitty Black Perkins, was intended to be a main character. The most thought-provoking aspect of the documentary is the exploration of whether Black Barbie ever transcended the marginalization of her predecessors, given that the white Barbie remains the benchmark. This raises the critical question: Does society need Black versions of white cultural icons, or should it create entirely new products centered around Blackness? The documentary features a diverse array of Mattel employees, scholars, cultural critics, and women who have had Barbies modeled after them, such as Shondaland founder Shonda Rhimes, ballerina Misty Copeland, and fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad. The film enriches our understanding of Black Barbie by celebrating her existence while acknowledging her limitations. In addition to highlighting the Black Barbie dolls, the documentary also sheds light on representation and the biases entrenched in an industry that long ignored the idea that Black children might want a doll like Barbie. These biases persist today as people continue to question how a product like Barbie can captivate such a broad and diverse audience. The documentary would have been further enriched by exploring the successes and failures of a Black toy company that produced multiracial dolls and a Mattel line focused on standalone Black characters created by Stacey McBride-Irby, a protégé of Perkins. Expanding upon these scenes and dissecting what worked and what did not would have deepened the film’s discussions and illuminated the inherent challenges in transforming a white doll into a Black one.
OUR RATING – A MULTI-FACETED 7