The educational computer programming software Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing was pretty revolutionary for its time. It wasn’t the tech that made it revolutionary, it was the fact that the cover model for the software was a Haitian woman named Renee L’Esperance. For many young girls of color, particularly Black girls, seeing Renee’s image branded on this software was quite profound. It most likely launched the careers of many young girls to become coders, engineers, entrepreneurs and feel confident that they too can teach typing.
Many women have likely learned how to start a business because of learning how to type on this software. There’s a reason why this film is one of our must-see films of Sundance. It’s a documentary that tells a story that uncovers a mystery many have wondered about for quite some time.
However, in the documentary by Neon films, Seeking Mavis Beacon — written and directed by Jazmin Renée Jones — the filmmaker takes us on a journey to find the real Mavis Beacon aka Renee L’Esperance. As it turns out Mavis Beacon, who many consumers of the typing software thought was a real person, was completely fictional. She was a woman discovered at a makeup counter at a department store and asked to pose in an advertisement by two white software developers in 1987.
That advertisement would become the face of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. In the film Jones herself along with her colleague and associate producer Olivia McKayla Ross spend time researching and tracking down the real Mavis Beacon for answers as to why she agreed to be a part of this ad campaign and how did she feel about her image being used this way.
Mavis Beacon predates AI fembots like Siri and Alexa, the very tools we take for granted today, and this software for many young students help bridge the gap in the tech industry. In the early ’90s, not many households even owned a computer, so learning how to type for many was a big deal. Mavis Beacon, especially for African-American children, closed that gap and help to create a bridge over that digital divide simply because the face of the woman on the box and the woman teaching the typing within the software was a Black woman.
As e-girl detectives, Jazmin and Olivia continue their journey. The origin story is hazy as to how Renee was discovered by the developers. Between the three developers, Norm Worthington, Walt Bilofsky, and Mike Duffy, it’s not clear who discovered who. And there’s even another party involved, a woman who also may have spotted Renee and told the developers about her. But whoever did, what is clear is that Renee was offered a small fee to pose in a photograph, and that image would indelibly become a part of the educational software brand.
As the software popularized through the late ’80s and throughout the ’90s, more consumers were curious about who Mavis Beacon was and speculated on her whereabouts. The Mandela effect had many believing they saw Mavis on daytime television, winning typing contests, or attending public speaking engagements. And there are still people to this day that still think Mavis Beacon exists as a real person.
These two super sleuths work to set the record straight on revisionist history and get to the bottom of what really happened to Renee L’Esperance, the real Mavis Beacon, and why she disappeared from the public eye. Seeking Mavis Beacon is a documentary that inserts commentary from the developers involved with creating the software and the parties involved with meeting and working with Renee the day of the photo shoot.
Director Jazmin Renée Jones pours her heart and soul into this piece of work, and there are moments when you can see how attached she was to Mavis Beacon, a software she grew up on and that resonated with her for so many years. For anyone who is not familiar with Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, this is an incredibly informative documentary and it shows the power of what an image can do for a young person who rarely sees themselves reflected in the art and tech that they love. When you see yourself reflected, you feel empowered and emboldened, and that’s what Mavis Beacon did for so many girls (and boys) of color.
I personally loved what this documentary stood for and the outcome of its message. You have to find out for yourself what happens with Jazmin and Olivia’s journey, but this is a movie that helps you understand a moment in time we connected to technology that I think we’ve now lost. And it was refreshing to explore that moment in history with this uplifting documentary.
Seeking Mavis Beacon is available to screen in-person and online. Click here for more information.
