Black Barbie Documentary Showing - St. Louis International Film Festival

Black Barbie Documentary Showing - St. Louis International Film Festival

The African & African American Studies Department is proud to sponsor the film "Black Barbie", as part of the St. Louis International Film Festival. Tickets are free but please register using the link attached. 

Join us and watch the documentary, "Black Barbie", on Saturday November 11th at 7:00 pm. The movie will take place at Washington University in the Brown Hall Auditorium. 

Registration Link: https://2023sliff.eventive.org/schedule/652c7052feb7000026076d22/tickets

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.