More Than Just A Doll: ‘Black Barbie’ Movie Review
One of Netflix’s new additions this month is 2023’s Black Barbie. The documentary follows Beulah Mae Mitchell who lands a job as a toy tester for Mattel in 1955. Through the framing device of Beulah & 2 of her coworkers fight for a Black Barbie the film has a broader conversation on what it means to be represented by the toys you play with. The documentary not only shows how the first Black Barbie came to be but also utilizes a reflexive, almost personal connection to the subject matter from director Lagueria Davis, the niece of Beulah Mae Mitchell. The films third act utilizes a discussion format that takes a more academic tone that furthers the notions of what it means to have a Black Barbie.
The documentary has a unique structure. Instead of doing a straightforward historical account of how the first Black Barbie came to be Lagueria Davis instead chooses to make a more intimate portrait of her trailblazing aunt. The film uses the full-body shot talking heads format that many contemporary documentaries like Tiger King which shows an almost subliminal influence from reality TV confessionals.
One interesting thing about the structure that was how the director talks about the Doll test done in the 1940s in which children where shown a white baby doll and a black baby doll and the results indicated that the children liked the white doll more than the black doll. The documentary offers a thesis in the first act saying that this study is empirical evidence in supporting why we as a society need a black Barbie. Then, in the third act, she reverses this to the antithesis by having a contemporary recreation of the doll experiment and having mixed results and then discussing those results. It’s an interesting follow up to what the film shows about the past and how it still echoes back to the present day.
The misę en scenę of the film takes a full fledged dive into the Barbie aesthetic which is a symbolic notion that establishes what the film is trying to say. Putting black voices into the Barbie aesthetic as they demolish the structures that have oppressed them. The bright pink aesthetic livens up the talking head segments of the film which make up a large portion of the run time. The inserts and editing also help to break up the monotony of these segments. As for how this documentary looks and feels, this is a fresh take on the new school of documentary.
With that is the strong directorial voice of Lagueria Davis. The documentary utilizes a lot of techniques from documentary cinema of previous generations. The segments with Beulah feel like the fly on the wall direction of direct cinema whereas the segments dedicated to telling the year-by-year tracking of the doll’s inception feels like a more traditional documentary in the sense of its overt narrative. This blending of generational styles is not new by Davis adds a more reflexive intimate tone through putting herself into her own documentary as a spectator on what she’s filming commentating on her own relationships throughout the documentary. That intimate style seems to be entirely unique to this film.
The film’s discussions around the reasons why a Black Barbie is something that is crucial to the culture in general makes this film stand out as well. Davis combines her unique style with a dedication to discussion around where the problems lie in why we aren’t spotlighting black voices in toys. The discussions around the results of the modern day recreation of the doll test makes the film’s point even clearer. When the children talk around race while talking about racism and the different scholars’ voices on why that is is nothing short of enthralling.
Another technical aspect that stood out was the keen editing. The editing, courtesy of Heidi Zimmerman, handled the many shifts of the film perfectly. Going from a portrait of a filmmaker and her aunt, to a straight-documentary about the history of the Barbie brand and its relationship with the black community, to a discussion about the repercussions of that relationship is difficult but the film pulls it off. The direct cinema approach in the first act is blended well with the more traditional second act which shows off a real prowess in the editing room. I sense a lot of influence from Mary Manhardt, who was the editor on Netflix’s Making A Murderer, in the way that Zimmerman handled the overall timeline. Overall, the technical aspects of the documentary are more than sound and offers a unique style that deserves recognition.
Ultimately, I find this to be a compelling documentary. This film stands out amidst a sea of documentaries with shady evidence and a style that borders on lazy. Black Barbie offers a documentary with a lot of heart that tells an amazing story about the fight for the first Black Barbie. With that, is the unique style that portrays the documentarian as a subject in her own documentary and an editing style that combines the very best of today’s documentary cinema with a passion for the format’s storied past. As for opinion, the documentary is a fun look at a piece of Joy and a fruitful struggle that has lead us to a somewhat better place historically. The documentary also has a style and presentation that not only calls back to last summer’s biggest blockbuster but also is unique to its own vision. Go out of your way to see this.
