In Rio de Janeiro’s Alemão complex of favelas, fans headed to watch the new Barbie movie and encountered a local character known as "Black Barbie of the Complexo do Alemão".
Black Barbie from Rio favela inspires young girls
Anne Beatriz dos Santos de Souza, 11, center, known as "the black Barbie of Complexo do Alemao", walks to participate in a photo session with residents before the screening of
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AP Photo
Anne Beatriz dos Santos, also known as Anne Belize, inspired young girls to dress as Black Barbie, showing them that the famous dolls are not only light-skinned with straight hair.
After a lot of searching, Anne's mother Vanessa found a Black Barbie doll for Anne's birthday and had a dress made for Anne just like her doll's.
“As she was born I saw the need of her to accept herself. When I was younger I wanted to be white, to change my hair because I didn’t see myself represented, I thought that beauty only existed with light skin. So I saw the need to pass this to her so she could love herself the way she is," expressed Vanessa dos Santos, Anne’s mother.
After taking some pictures of her daughter around the favela, Vanessa was so happy with the results that she created a Barbie-themed cover for Anne’s school notebook.
It was an immediate success at school, with friends asking her to create more covers.
Anne has a growing social media following and wants to be a model and an actress to inspire other girls.
“I’m very happy that some mothers send messages to me saying that their children are accepting their hair, are allowing them to be full because they saw me on social media. Some friends of mine are also accepting their full hair, I’m very happy with that,” she said.
The Barbie movie received Brazil's second largest opening day audience since 2014, attracting almost 1.2 million people.