You don’t have to be a Barbie girl to be interested in Black Barbie: A Documentary, the history of the first Black Barbie in 1980 and the doll’s significance for Black girls in a world that still questions their natural beauty. The film is a tribute to the Black women who advocated for and designed the doll and a discourse on representation.
To explain why Black Barbie matters and how a blond-haired, blue-eyed Barbie, the embodiment of an unrealistic white beauty standard, can strike at the self-image of Black children in America, the writer-director Lagueria Davis uses the landmark doll tests from the 1940s.
