SLIFF: Black Barbie

Black Barbie
Directed by Lagueria Davis
U.S. | 2023 | Documentary
100 minutes

Love her or hate her, almost everyone has a Barbie story. For filmmaker Lagueria Davis, it all started with her 83-year old Aunt Beulah Mae and a seemingly simple question, “Why not make a Barbie that looks like me?” “Black Barbie” is a personal exploration that tells a richly archival, thought-provoking story that gives voice to the insights and experiences of Beulah Mae Mitchell, who spent 45 years working at Mattel. Upon Mattel’s 1980 release of Black Barbie, the film turns to the intergenerational impact the doll had. Discussing how the absence of black images in the “social mirror” left Black girls with little other than white subjects for self-reflection and self-projection. Beulah Mae Mitchell and other Black women in the film talk about their own, complex, varied experience of not seeing themselves represented, and how Black Barbie’s transformative arrival affected them personally.