Seeking Mavis Beacon charts the search for a lost Black software icon

“We were treating our conspiracy theories as intuition,” says Jazmin Jones, the director of Seeking Mavis Beacon, a documentary about a Black digital icon who didn’t exist. “Olivia and I, in our bodies, understand microaggressions, and we could tell from reading interviews with the [white male] software developers that there was something more. From the lack of information on Wikipedia, we were like, ‘This seems like a Black woman being exploited.’ And that was the conclusion: this Black woman’s image was used in ways she didn’t consent to.”

Released in 1987, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing was a piece of educational software that taught a generation how to master the keyboard. On the box’s cover was Mavis Beacon, a smiling Black woman in a suit who symbolised the height of technical expertise. For Jones and the film’s co-host, Olivia McKayla Ross, both of whom are Black, Mavis Beacon meant everything to them – and to many others, considering how the software went on to sell ten million copies and was widely used at schools.

However, Mavis Beacon is fictional. Like an early version of Siri or Alexa, Mavis Beacon is a Black digital avatar created by three white men, and the model who lent her image to the software went uncredited. What’s more, the mysterious woman has no online presence and has never done an interview. What if she doesn’t want to be found?

In the film, Jones and Ross start their search for the real Mavis Beacon in 2018, learning that the model was a Haitian-born woman named Renée L’Espérance who was spotted behind the counter of a perfume shop in New York. After being invited for a photography session in exchange for $500 and no royalties, L’Espérance later sued the software developers for misusing her image. When Jones and Ross get in contact with L’Espérance’s son about a filmed conversation with his mother, they’re met with resistance.

Jones notes that L’Espérance’s absence on social media protects her from, for example, AI software using facial recognition. “At the beginning of the film, I was like, ‘Representation matters,’” says the director. “But, also, sometimes refusing to participate is the most powerful response you can have.” I thank Jones for accepting my interview request. “You’re the first person in a long release to have made that joke.”

Halfway through the doc, Jones and Ross use scissors and paper to construct their own guide to Mavis Beacon. When Jones remarks that they don’t look like they’re in a traditional detective movie, Ross quips that they might be making a stalker movie. “It wasn’t really a joke,” says Ross, who refers to herself as a ‘cyber doula’. “When we call ourselves detectives, we’re adding a sheen of positive morality, even though we’re trying to think of ways to divest from cop language. Ostensibly they’re doing the same task.”

Ross asks what I think the difference is. I theorise that the separation is to do with likeability: by the end of Seeking Mavis Beacon, you truly understand and appreciate Jones, Ross, and their friendship. On screen, the detective duo – or stalker duo – share their personal lives, phone calls, and even desktops. We witness them cry, grow, and come to terms with L’Espérance turning them down. “There’s simple things that change like age,” says Ross. “But then there’s also our feelings about the content, AI, and representation.”

In 2018, Jones and Ross tinker with deepfake technology to generate fun, false videos of modern icons such as Barack Obama praising Mavis Beacon. “When we pitched the film, we were like, ‘Mavis Beacon is a placeholder for the unseen Black femmes who have contributed to our technological landscape, and their stories were not archived,’” says Jones, who identifies as non-binary. “It’s like, sure, she’s a problematised fave, and there’s definitely some model minority stuff happening. But we could use all the role models we can get.” The plan was for deepfake videos to create the backstory that Mavis Beacon deserved. “And then we were like, ‘Without Renée as a participant, we’re falling into the same issues that we’re critiquing.’”

Everyone’s like, ‘We’re using AI to find tumours.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, some of us. But when the Amazon rainforest burns down because of how much fuel we’re using, it’s going to be because of porn’

The film touches on other ways tech has let down society. “The three biggest uses of AI are autonomous weapons, personal assistants, and porn,” says Ross. “Everyone’s like, ‘We’re using AI to find tumours.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, some of us. But when the Amazon rainforest burns down because of how much fuel we’re using, it’s going to be because of porn.’”

Whether intentional or not, Seeking Mavis Beacon might have a profound effect when Black viewers – especially women or anyone non-binary – take inspiration from Jones and Ross being Louis Theroux-type figures in front of the camera. In other words, Seeking Mavis Beacon is a Mavis Beacon for a new generation. “In theatres, my eyes are glued to the Black femmes in the audience,” says Jones. “They’re pulling out their Notes app, being like, ‘What’s this book by Suleyman Rahimov?’” She adds: “The true end of the cycle will be a couple of decades from now when some queers dust off the film and are like, ‘Can you believe what they were wearing?’”

Ross refers to the regularly tweeted Always Sunny meme with Charlie Day in front of paper diagrams. “It’s a white dude who has permission to be fucking crazy and point at shit,” says Ross. “I want that space to be inhabited by queer femmes who, by the nature of experiences that we have in our bodies, recognise patterns before we know what to call them. Because oppression feels familiar.” She compares it to the “Math Lady” meme. “That’s the closest thing women have to the Charlie Day meme, and she looks like a fucking idiot.” Ross corrects herself. “Our movie is the closest thing we have to it.”

The duo are speaking to me in May 2025, a few days before the UK cinema release. However, the film premiered at Sundance in January 2024. In the ensuing 16 months, has L’Espérance or anyone in her circle seen the film? “At every stage of production, Renée was made aware of where we were at, and we were like, ‘We would love to have you join us,’” says Jones. “We’ve done our best to share the materials. Lord knows if she’s actually seen the movie.”

“[The son] has been sent the links,” says Ross. “But who knows?”

“I would assume they’ve seen the film,” says Jones. “We edited the film through the lens of: ‘What is everything we would want to convey to a person we’ve been trying to get in touch with, who has no idea who we are?’”

Can’t they check if L’Espérance or her relatives are on Letterboxd? “If they were, within the first six months of this film being out in the world, I might have read the review,” says Jones. “But in terms of my growth with parasocial relationships, I haven’t read a Letterboxd review for maybe two months. I’m not mimicking Mavis Beacon, I’m mimicking Renée. The trade-off of making a feature-length documentary with Neon is that people will see it and have opinions. The things that cut [on Letterboxd] are probably because they’re true. When people say it could be five minutes shorter – that stings. But when people are like, ‘Why do you think you and Olivia are interesting?’ – I don’t agree with that, because Olivia and I are interesting.

Jones continues: “We’re trying to push closer to a place where other filmmakers like John Wilson and Nathan Fielder, who I adore, do things that delight them just for the fuck of it. I’m like, ‘Hey, Black femmes should also be able to do things that delight them for the fuck of it.’ This film is a testament to that.”

Seeking Mavis Beacon is out in UK cinemas on May 9