CIFF: “Black Barbie: A Documentary” - Film Review
Whether it’s by sheer chance or an insightful means of marketing, Black Barbie: A Documentary comes at the perfect time as the world buzzes in anticipation of Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie. This documentary acts as a historical primer for those who aren’t experts on the life and times of Barbie and as a scathing look at Barbie’s impact on the psyche of children.
Prior to Mattel’s creation of Julia (Barbie’s Black friend who had the same facial features as white Barbie), most mass-produced dolls were white. Black dolls weren’t made because companies weren’t sure their existence mattered. Did kids care about the skin color of the doll they were playing with? Unsurprisingly, to everyone outside the white, heterosexual, cisgender experience, it mattered that there were no Black dolls. The Clark Doll test in the 1940s was an important part of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the Supreme Court case that ultimately led to integration of schools. In the Doll Test, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark asked a series of questions using Black and white baby dolls to assess how segregation impacted kids’ thoughts on race. Their findings show a clear belief that the white doll exemplified good characteristics and the Black dolls were inferior.
The viewer doesn’t have to accept the doll test as the only example of how representation has a fundamental impact on a child’s psyche. Black Barbie: A Documentary is full of exciting interviews and conversations with Black women who had a hand in creating Black Barbie and with the girls (now adult) who owned them. Director Lagueria Davis was able to get in touch with these women, who fundamentally altered the landscape of dolls, because her aunt is one of them. Beulah Mae Mitchell worked at Mattel for 45 years and became the second Black person to work at the corporate headquarters of Mattel. She started on the assembly line and became a good friend of Ruth Handler. Beulah also befriended Kitty Black Perkins, who created Black Barbie. The love these women have for dolls and each other is palpable. Unfortunately, when the documentary focuses on the director’s journey to understanding why Black Barbie (and dolls in general) has such a fundamental place in society, it loses some steam. The director’s voiceover draws only general conclusions about the social impact of dolls, and it pales in comparison to the stories of the women who lived the revelatory experience of buying Black Barbie firsthand.
Split into three chapters, Black Barbie: A Documentary really hits its stride in the final chapter. Stepping away from the personal angle of the film, the documentary stretches its focus to the modern Barbie. We’ve seen where Mattel began, and now the audience gets a glimpse of where it is today. While the range of individuals represented by Mattel dolls has expanded, the documentary now asks whether this diversity is meaningful. That’s become something of a hot button issue with modern films and the more global world we live in. Unsubstantiated representation means almost as little as no representation. The film chronicles an updated version of the Clark Doll Test with Mattel’s “diverse” Barbies, and the conversations with the kids show how far we’ve come and where we still need to go.
The stories in Black Barbie: A Documentary are supplemented with Barbies acting out various scenes. It’s a charming way of including these objects that have taken on a life and world of their own and show their simple, original purpose: to play.
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