Black Barbie paved the way for Hollywood’s hottest celebrity dolls
NY Post
Beyoncé, Zendaya, Shonda Rhimes and Rosa Parks. These A-listers and more are all dolled up, thanks to this pretty, plastic plaything.
Black Barbie stormed onto the toy scene as the “dynamite” antithesis to her Malibu sun-kissed, pink-obsessed predecessor, Barbie, in 1980.
With richly brown skin and a cutely curly coif, the African-American doll not only became the first figurine of color to bear the blond’s buzzy name, but the unsung heroine also kicked open the door for black powerhouses to be forever immortalized in her haute image.
“I remember when I got the message that Mattel had called and said, ‘We’d like to make Shonda a Barbie — would she like to be made into a Barbie?’” says Rhimes in the Netflix documentary “Black Barbie,” out Wednesday.
“I was like, ‘Absolutely!,” recalls the renowned screenwriter. “It felt magical.”
The mastermind behind hit series such as “Bridgerton” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” Rhimes, 54, serves as executive producer of the doc, which examines Barbie’s indelible impact on identity, imagination and beauty norms in small children.
