Seeking Mavis Beacon
Until i came across this I didn't know she wasn't a real person
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Before bashing out emails and text messages by thumb became an accepted form of communication, typing was a fully manual skill. In the 80s, “the office” was an exclusive preserve for freaks who could type 40 words per minute at least. Those too modest or miserly to sign up for brick-and-mortar classes could pick up a software program called Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing for $50. At my Catholic high school, the application was the typing class. The priests just switched on the computers.
Launched in late 1987, Mavis Beacon quickly assumed pride of place on home PC desks amid floppy disks for SimCity and After Dark. Among other features, Mavis gamified typing drills and tracked typing progress in explicit detail. Its defining feature was the elegant Black woman with a cream suit and slicked-back bob marching proudly off to her high-rise job on the cover of the software package. But it would take a few more decades for the bigger lesson in the pitfalls of relinquishing control over your image and likeness to corporate interests.
A new documentary, Seeking Mavis Beacon, not only throws that lesson into sharp relief, it has left the film-makers to wrestle with the irony of even pursuing it. “Now that the movie’s finished,” says the feature director debutante Jazmin Renée Jones, “I’m trying to protect her and her privacy.”
Premiering at Sundance, Seeking Mavis Beacon plays out like another classic PC game – Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Jones and the producer Olivia McKayla Ross set out on a journey to find the woman behind Mavis Beacon, a Haitian-born model named Renée L’Espérance.
Back when app stores were still physical spaces, retailers were convinced a software program featuring not just any Black woman, but a dark-skinned Black woman, would turn off potential buyers. But Beacon went on to sell more than 6m copies over the next 11 years, a staggering result at a time when barely a third of American households owned a personal computer. It’s since gone on to become one of the most successful education products of all time..............
https://www.theguardian.com/film/ar...con-documentary-review?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Until i came across this I didn't know she wasn't a real person
==========================================
Before bashing out emails and text messages by thumb became an accepted form of communication, typing was a fully manual skill. In the 80s, “the office” was an exclusive preserve for freaks who could type 40 words per minute at least. Those too modest or miserly to sign up for brick-and-mortar classes could pick up a software program called Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing for $50. At my Catholic high school, the application was the typing class. The priests just switched on the computers.
Launched in late 1987, Mavis Beacon quickly assumed pride of place on home PC desks amid floppy disks for SimCity and After Dark. Among other features, Mavis gamified typing drills and tracked typing progress in explicit detail. Its defining feature was the elegant Black woman with a cream suit and slicked-back bob marching proudly off to her high-rise job on the cover of the software package. But it would take a few more decades for the bigger lesson in the pitfalls of relinquishing control over your image and likeness to corporate interests.
A new documentary, Seeking Mavis Beacon, not only throws that lesson into sharp relief, it has left the film-makers to wrestle with the irony of even pursuing it. “Now that the movie’s finished,” says the feature director debutante Jazmin Renée Jones, “I’m trying to protect her and her privacy.”
Premiering at Sundance, Seeking Mavis Beacon plays out like another classic PC game – Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Jones and the producer Olivia McKayla Ross set out on a journey to find the woman behind Mavis Beacon, a Haitian-born model named Renée L’Espérance.
Back when app stores were still physical spaces, retailers were convinced a software program featuring not just any Black woman, but a dark-skinned Black woman, would turn off potential buyers. But Beacon went on to sell more than 6m copies over the next 11 years, a staggering result at a time when barely a third of American households owned a personal computer. It’s since gone on to become one of the most successful education products of all time..............
https://www.theguardian.com/film/ar...con-documentary-review?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other