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Black Barbie: A Documentary, which details Mattel’s introduction of a Black doll to its Barbie collection and the women that brought it to life, has landed at Netflix and Shonda Rhimes‘ Shondaland.
Lagueria Davis directs the doc and produces alongside Aaliyah Williams.
The logline for the project reads: “Black Barbie celebrates the momentous impact three Black women at Mattel had on the evolution of the Barbie brand as we know it. Through these charismatic insiders’ stories, the documentary tells the story of how the first Black Barbie came to be in 1980, examining the importance of representation and how dolls can be crucial to the formation of identity and imagination.”
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The film premiered at SXSW 2023. The Hollywood Reporter‘s review out of that festival reads: “Topics of conversation include the Barbie vlogs on racism during the height of the 2020 protests and feeble attempts to give Black Barbie her own stories. Interesting as these subjects are, there’s a breathless quality to their unfolding here — an understandable effort to say as much as possible within a limited running time.”
Rhimes and Betsy Beers act as executive producers on the doc, which was acquired under Shondaland’s deal with Netflix.
Grace Lay and Sumalee Montano for LinLay Productions, Camilla Hall for Lady & Bird Films, Milan Chakraborty, and Jyoti Sarda also executive produce.
Josh Braun and Matthew Burke of Submarine handled the deal on behalf of the filmmakers.
Netflix and Shondaland have landed Black Barbie as the iconic toy brand remains in the zeitgeist with the release of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. That movie, which stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, is the highest-grossing film of the year, earning over $1.4 billion at the box office.
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