SEEKING MAVIS BEACON – Review by Lynn Venhaus

An ambitious science fair experiment of a documentary, Seeking Mavis Beacon wanted answers it couldn’t obtain, but raised more questions on representation, privacy, exploitation, racism and sexism that should be addressed.

Imaginative artist Jazmin Jones and assistant Olivia McKayla Ross embarked on a mission to examine the legacy of an influential black woman who became a symbol of success in the early days of cyberspace.

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing was a touch-typing program that was introduced in 1987 by The Software Toolworks, a California-based software company. On the box was the likeness of a smiling, elegant black woman in a professional business suit. She was identified as Mavis Beacon and she became the image of someone who was a steppingstone to this new digital world.

Only the classy-looking Beacon wasn’t real, she was an invention. Ross described her as “the Aunt Jemima of Technology.” This professional image had a major impact on those eager to embrace the new technology.

But the real person who modeled for Mavis was Renee L’Esperance, a Black woman from Haiti who was paid $500 for a photo shoot and never participated beyond that. In 1990, she moved back to the Caribbean, and did not want to be sought after.

By 1999, the typing program had sold more than six million copies. The investigators talk to people, including L’Esperance’s son, by phone, and interview folks on the street – but not L’Esperance, herself.

While writer-director Jones persisted in this futile quest, she and Ross make the documentary more about them and their quest than the woman who now exemplifies how technology can use anyone of any race or gender without having to compensate them.

This indulgent shift in focus turned the film into a messy, choppy, rambling discourse that needed more substance. Unless you find their idiosyncratic choices of tarot readings, seances, incense, candles, and decorating a cute she-shed of a warehouse office to be integral to the process. They spent six years making this documentary feature, which is 1 hour, 42 minutes, and feels scattered.

They also make it clear from the first title card that the film includes “deep fakes and fabulation, deceptiveness and duplicity, appropriation and recontextualization, transformation, manipulation, and conversion.” So, with that disclaimer, advised by legal counsel, comes a feeling of being caught off-guard and overwhelmed. And perhaps, for some, duped. President Obama is not talking about Mavis Beacon when you hear him instead pay tribute to Mavis Staples, the avatar’s namesake. That misrepresentation brings up another set of issues.

However, both women are driven, earnest and tech-savvy. The film is best when they explore black representation and the exploitation of people of color in general, and cultural meanings in rapidly changing times. Jones has a knack for contextualizing material. But, while Jones, who also edited with Yeelen Cohen and Jon Fine, has a flair for archival storytelling, there is no way she could produce the results she wanted. Because she and Ross couldn’t wave a magic wand and have a different outcome other than a dead end when the person they’re seeking doesn’t want to be found.

But the film is an interesting look back at a pivotal time in technology. In 1982, Time magazine selected The Computer its “Man of the Year.” Apple released its Macintosh in 1984, and laptops were mass-marketed soon after. A few years later, the World Wide Web began, and commercial use of HTML ushered the internet into use by 1993. New ways to communicate and to conduct research were here, and eventually found their way into classrooms and offices. The filmmakers recall Mavis Beacon as the first black woman representation in technology and heard from others that they did too. The woman on the box seemed relatable. Both the schoolkids and adults used those games to learn the keyboard, and the real woman, Renee L’Esperance, became a token of success without ever benefitting from it.

Finding the woman behind the avatar seemed attainable, but Jones and Ross couldn’t make it happen. This documentary, which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, reexamines that legacy by capturing a moment in time, brings up issues of consent as AI encroaches in this 21st century, and shows how naïve many of us were about this burgeoning computer. In one scene of going through a storage unit, they find many examples of obsolete technology – floppy discs, compact discs and primitive computers. While well-intentioned, Seeking Mavis Beacon boxes itself into a corner that leaves the filmmakers frustrated and the audience disappointed.