''A Girl like Me'' is a 2005 documentary by

Kiri Davis Kiri Laurelle Davis is an American filmmaker based in New York City. Her first documentary, '' A Girl Like Me'' (2005), made while enrolled at Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, received significant news coverage. Kiri Davis' mother, an education consu ...

. The seven-minute documentary examines such things as the importance of color, hair and facial features for young African American women. It won the Diversity Award at the 6th Annual Media That Matters film festival in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, and has received coverage on various American media sources, such as

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

. The documentary has been shown on

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

. The documentary was made as part of Reel Works Teen Filmmaking.

Synopsis

The video begins with interviews with Kiri Davis and her peers about how black features did not conform to society's standards of beauty. The next section was a repeat of an experiment conducted by

Kenneth Clark Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television ...

in the 1940s where African-American children were asked to choose between black or white dolls. In the original experiment(s) the majority of the children choose the white dolls. When Davis repeated the experiment 15 out of 21 children also choose the white dolls over the black, giving similar reasons as the original subjects, associating white with being pretty or good and black with ugly or bad. The dolls used in the documentary were identical except for skin colour.

Awards

*The Diversity Award at the 6th Annual Media That Matters film festival *The SILVERDOCS Audience Award for a Short Documentary.

Screenings

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...

*The 6th Annual Media That Matters. *

Silverdocs The AFI Docs (formerly Silverdocs) documentary film festival is an American international film festival created by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel. It is held every year in Silver Spring, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Starte ...

: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival *HBO

External links

*Edney, Hazel Trice. "New 'Doll Test' Produces Ugly Results", ''Baltimore Times'', August 16, 2006

*Johnson, L. A. (2006). Documentary, Studies Renew Debate about Skin Color's Impact. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Pittsburgh

*''A Girl Like Me'', Entire documentary o
mediathatmattersfest.org
*"A Girl Like Me", Media That Matters
Biography
of Davis *"A Girl Like Me"
Discussion
of the background of making the documentary * "BLACK KIDS’ SELF IMAGE-NO PROGRESS" by Marian Wright Edelma

*"A Girl Like Me", ''Good Morning, America'', ABC, October 11, 2006. *"African-American Images: The New Doll Test", ''Talk of the Nation'', NPR, October 2, 2006

* "A Girl Like Me" appears i
RACE: Are we so different?
a public education program developed by the American Anthropological Association. {{DEFAULTSORT:Girl Like Me, A American independent films Discrimination based on skin color Universal Pictures films Documentary films about African Americans 2005 films American documentary films 2005 documentary films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films