Black Barbie

Don’t let the pretty face, sexy body and smile fool you. Black Barbie (or Tonya) can be a venomous creature when you come after someone she loves. In The Professionals, she’s Steve’s current girlfriend who doesn’t take kindly to being treated as number two to Steve’s call center coworker and best friend Tasha. The love triangle is what defines this dramady tale and a character like Black Barbie was made for this story.

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Black Barbie was created based on a my life as a call center agent, specifically on a female worker who I didn’t know too well. The only thing I knew about her was that she was cute, sexy, and walked around the call center like a black Barbie doll, hence why me and my coworkers called her Black Barbie. I swear I never saw her wear the same clothes twice, and why would she with all the men leering at her. She was the top of the food chain when it came to the females at the center, and I always had this story in my head when it came to her.

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What’s funny is after I wrote The Professionals script, I found out she was in a real life love triangle with a male coworker who was also flirting with another female in my group. It was like my work had come to life, and when some of my coworkers read it, they thought I based Tasha off the group member, which I didn’t. It was just a crazy coincidence. I didn’t know the real Black Barbie personally, but I wanted to write her not as a villain, but as someone you could feel sympathy from. Initially, when I wrote the professionals as a feature movie, Black Barbie was clearly written as the antagonist, but when I decided to write the series, I wanted her not to be seen as evil or toxic, but have the readers be more sympathetic to her as her man Steve looks more like the one wrong with the situation. I still kept her viciousness, but that’s what made her such a fun character to write.

 “I don’t want to make love. I want to f*ck. Right now. If you deny me, I’m going to take you right here in this cubicle.” Black Barbie to Steve.