Black Barbie Documentary Gets Trailer and Netflix Release Date

Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, and Scandal creator Shondra Rhimes has been a powerful, black voice in the world of television for almost three decades, and while the founder of Shondaland has been an integral part in creating some of the best scripted TV shows ever made, she hasn’t dabbled in documentary films that often. That’s about to change with the release of Black Barbie, a new Netflix documentary that is set to premiere on the streaming platform June 19, 2024.

As per ComicBook.com, Rhymes is executive producer on Black Barbie via her company, Shondaland, which was founded in 2005. The documentary film aims to tell the story of how the first Black Barbie doll came to be, and the Black women at Mattel who helped make it a reality in 1980. The film was written, directed, and produced by Langueria Davis, the great niece of Beluah Mae Mitchell, one of the first Black women at Mattel who began asking for more representation in the 1960s. Check out the synopsis for Black Barbie below.

“More than just a doll. 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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Black Barbie will feature interviews with Rhimes herself, as well as Kitty Black Perkins and Stacey McBride Irby, the two women who aided in designing the first Black Barbie doll. At the time of the documentary’s acquisition by Netflix in 2023, director Langueria Davis said that telling the story of the first Black Barbie has been a “personal journey” for her.

“Telling
Black Barbie’s story has been such a personal journey
, and it warms my heart to celebrate the legacy of my aunt Beulah Mae Mitchell, Kitty Black Perkins and Stacey McBride Irby in our film. We couldn’t have asked for better collaborators than Shondaland and Netflix to bring this story to the world”

Black Barbie Continues Shonda Rhimes’ Relationship With Netflix

Though Shonda Rhimes was already a successful woman before Netflix came knocking at her door in 2017, the pair entered into a partnership at that time that has since proved fruitful for all parties involved. As the first female to have created four television dramas that have reached the 100 episode mark, Rhimes continued her success with the likes of Bridgerton and Inventing Anna, two Netflix originals that she has had a hand in producing and creating respectively.

Black Barbie continues her already successful deal with Netflix, and for Rhimes, the importance of having representation in an already iconic doll such as Barbie cannot be understated. Appearing on Today on June 4, 2024, the 54-year-old Rhimes spoke about that representation and the women behind it.

“I think it was important because the idea that you are creating this sort of iconic Barbie, this iconic woman, and she’s only one color and everybody else has to be named something else was a very interesting thing, and there was a woman working at Mattel, and they said, ‘Why don’t you make ones that look like us?’”