Seeking Mavis Beacon
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing from The Software Toolworks was a mainstay in typing edutainment software in the late 1980s and much of the 1990s. The first few releases had Renee L'Esperance as the titular cover model. In Seeking Mavis Beacon, Jazmin Jones’ feature directing debut, director Jazmin Jones and Associate Producer Olivia McKayla Ross go through a highly personal journey to track down the original “Mavis Beacon”.
An immigrant from Haiti who was working at a perfume counter in the United States, Renee L’Esperance was paid a few hundred bucks to be the Mavis Beacon cover model. For legal reasons that surface later in the documentary, Renee was replaced by other models. In fact, many were surprised Mavis Beacon wasn’t a real person but instead a corporate identity along the lines of Aunt Jemima or Uncle Ben who never existed in the first place. Having a person of color on the cover of a 1980s computer game with near annual updates was both a gimmick and rarity, but one that boosted sales and created a representational icon for those looking for a way to learn a skill vital in the modern workplace.
Jazmin and Olivia dig through a lot of disparate leads trying to find the OG Mavis Beacon. Asking everyone from former neighbors to the original developers of the game, they get closer to their target, eventually reaching Renee’s son. Not unlike the documentary Don’t You Forget About Me about a group of fans trying to track down 1980s wunderkind John Hughes, Seeking Mavis Beacon is about the journey and not the destination.
It’s clear Jazmin and Olivia are wrapped up personally in their journey to find and give thanks to Renee. There’s tears, voicemails, and lots of frustration in their often fruitless quest. Helping things along are a unique visual take which presents the documentary in ADHD form presenting interviews, related social media clips, and still images as separate windows on a MacBook Pro desktop. This both shows not only the inspirational reach of the Mavis Beacon games but also the sometimes random, or not-so-random, detours that spring up during the research process.
A thoughtful, if not sometimes frustrating and humbling, look at one of the more influential pieces of software ever made (Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing made typing as gamification into a modern-day genre with titles as disparate as Typing of the Dead and The Textorcist: The Story of Ray Bibbia), Seeking Mavis Beacon is a personal documentary enhanced with its unique approach to the genre.
Seeking Mavis Beacon is available on digital and streaming platforms. In the United States, it’s streaming on Hulu.