Black Barbie Documentary Gets Netflix Premiere Date

The documentary tracing how the first Black Barbie came to be in 1980 arrives on Netflix June 19th.

By Nicole Drum

Netflix has released a trailer and release date for Black Barbie, a new documentary from Grey's Anatomy and Bridgerton executive producer Shonda Rhimes' Shondaland. The documentary, which debuts June 19th on the streaming platform, is set to tell the untold story of the first Black Barbie and the Black women at Mattel who helped make the doll a reality in 1980.

Here's how Netflix describes Black Barbie: "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."

"I think there's something really powerful about it. I played with those dolls when I was a kid," Rhimes told Variety earlier this year. "We also had just a very interesting opportunity to add to that documentary, and to provide a lot more content and context. We have added interviews; we've been inside Mattel."

Black Barbie will feature interviews with Shonda Rhimes, as well as the two women who helped design the first Black Barbie, Kitty Black Perkins and Stacey McBride Irby, among others. The documentary is produced, written, and directed by Lagueria Davis, who is the great niece of Black Mattel employee Beluah Mae Mitchell who first began asking for a more representative doll in the 1960s.

"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.," Rhimes told Today. "And there was a woman working at Mattel and they said, 'Why don't you make ones that look like us?'"

Black Barbie is the latest project that falls under Rhimes' overall deal with Netflix. That deal also includes Bridgerton, which recently debuted the first half of Season 3. The second half of Season 3 of Bridgerton arrives on June 13th.

Will There be a Barbie Sequel?

While Black Barbie is coming to Netflix later this month to shine a light on the creation of the first Black Barbie doll in 1980, Barbie fans have also been wondering if there will be a sequel to one of the biggest movies of 2023, Greta Gerwig's Barbie. Presently, a sequel is not in the works, though Gerwig has previously said that she doesn't entirely rule out the idea of a sequel, provided there's a story to tell.

"If I find the undertow, then we get it," Gerwig said previously. If I don't find an undertow, there's no more."

"It's something that I loved making so much," she added. "And I loved the world that we built so much and all of the actors and the idea of getting to be with that group of people again is very exciting."

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"My North Star is 'What do I deeply love? What do I really care about? Like, 'What's the story underneath this story?'" Gerwig wondered aloud. "And I think with 'Barbie,' the story underneath this story was I loved Barbie. I remember going to Toys R Us and looking at Barbies and I loved their hair. And I loved everything about them and my mom was not sure about it. And I find that's the story, that's the generational story…I'm always trying to find those undertows."

Black Barbie arrives on Netflix June 19th.

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