We wanted Barbie to Look like us
Making history was child’s play for inspirational women in Netflix doc
Ruth Handler walked across the factory floor of Mattel, the toy company she founded with her husband, and watched the workers producing her most famous creation.
A couple of years earlier, in 1959, the world had been introduced to Barbie. Named after Ruth’s daughter, she would go on to become the best-selling doll of all time.
Today, thanks to the work of four trailblazing women, there is a Barbie for everyone. She is available in 35 skin tones, with 97 hairstyles and nine body types.
But in the early 60s, she was still all blonde hair and blue eyes.
That changed when Ruth took her stroll across the factory floor, and met Beulah Mae Mitchell.
Beulah had one request: “We want a Black Barbie!”
Against the powderkeg background of the Civil Rights Movement, this was “a little act of revolution”, according to Dr Patricia Turner, an African American studies professor.
But in Ruth, Beulah had an ally. “Good,” she replied. “We’ll see.”
By 1968, Barbie had a black friend, Christie. But the path to the first true Black Barbie was a long one.
But thanks to Ruth, Beulah and two more influential women – designers Kitty Black Perkins, 76, and Stacey Mcbride-irby, 50 – the dream came true.
Beulah and Kitty gave me the chance to make dolls look like my daughter
STACEY MCBRIDE-IRBY ON HER WORK AT MATTEL
Stacey says: “It all started with Beulah. She passed on the baton to Kitty, who passed it to me – and gave me a chance to design dolls that looked like my daughter.”
For Beulah, the impact of that first conversation is obvious and she is now proud of her doll collection for one reason: “I have more black dolls than white dolls.”
It’s still a happy surprise for Beulah to see how far America has moved on from when she was growing up, as she reveals in a new Netflix documentary, Black Barbie, out today.
Growing up in Fort Worth, Texas, Beulah had always loved dolls. But the idea of a black doll had never occurred to her.
Born in 1938, Beulah was a child of segregation – she attended black schools and was forbidden to sit at the front of the bus that would take her to school because of the colour of her skin.
At the age of 13, she was working as a cook for a white family. In 1953, she moved to Los Angeles with her mother and sister and got a job at Mattel two years later.
By the time Barbie made her first appearance – inspired by a German doll Ruth saw on a trip to Europe – Beulah had been promoted to the first line in the factory and “lead girl”. Christie was soon joined by another black doll, Julia – named after a TV sitcom featuring Diahann Carroll, who went on to star in Dynasty.
By 1970, Beulah’s career at Mattel had progressed to the company’s shiny offices in LA.
Kitty arrived soon after, having studied at design school and keen to spearhead further changes.
On her second day at Mattel, Kitty met Beulah, who recalls: “Kitty drove a sports car. We thought she was a real Black Barbie.”
It was Kitty who inspired the first Black Barbie, with authentic African-american features, rather than just darker skin.
She was modelled on one of Kitty’s favourite singers, Diana Ross, and was released in 1980. Kitty says: “We made her lips a little bit fuller; we made her nose a little
bit wider. I gave her jewellery, short hair a could actually show sk
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Perkins and dolls in 1991 r bold colours, bold and a wrap skirt that kin.” ing red gown, Black to the world as: “She’s She’s dynamite!” opularity, she was not s and many black girls white Barbies. acey, who says: “Mine sehold but Barbie was house, had a fancy car, fancy clothes and different jobs. It was a fantasy world that I loved escaping into but it also made me ambitious.
“Barbie taught me to dream.”
Later, at college, her father gave her a newspaper article about Kitty.
“Dad gave the cutting to me… he wanted me to be inspired because Kitty looked like me,” says Stacey. “After graduating, I was jobless and struggling. I remembered the article and decided to cold-call Kitty.”
It worked. Soon after starting, she met Beulah who was by now Mattel’s receptionist. “I wanted to create dolls that represented my daughter and girls in my community,” Stacey recalls.
She went on to create the ‘So in Style’ Barbie dolls, featuring dolls with several different skin tones, in 2010.
By the time last year’s blockbuster movie made Barbie more famous than ever, Mattel had sold more than a billion of her. Ruth, played by Rhea Perlman in the movie, died in 2002 aged 85.
For Stacey, Beulah and Kitty, Barbie embodies how dreams really can come true.
Stacey, who now works as a diversity consultant for other toy brands, adds: “Barbie was an inspiration for so many little girls – black, white, brown – [she] inspired us to live a fun, fabulous, exciting life.”
Black Barbie is released on Netflix today.