ABU DHABI: Kevin Hart returned to the stage at the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi on Friday with his signature energy and a new show, following his successful performance there in 2023.

“It’s good to be back,” Hart said, kicking off a night of relentless humor and heartfelt honesty.

As part of the Abu Dhabi comedy festival, Hart performed a classic American standup show mixed with a lot of self-deprecating humor. 

Titled “Acting my Age,” the show is themed around understanding old age and realizing that aging is about gaining experience and wisdom. 

With jokes about his endless injuries and health problems, Hart’s signature facial expressions and animated vocals brought the show to life, and left members of the audience in tears of laughter. 

The show was targeted at an older crowd, and Hart was able to capture their attention with his personal anecdotes. 

Crowd work and audience interactions were missing from his performance and some people yelled out to grab his attention, but he mostly ignored these callouts. 

As usual, his line delivery was on point and he was able to easily transition from one story to the next while maintaining running gags throughout the show, which lasted about an hour. 

Opening for Hart were a group of comedians who go by the name of “Plastic Cup Boyz.” The trio, consisting of Joey Wells, Will “Spank” Horton and Na’im Lynn, delivered an entertaining and captivating opener for the show. 

Hart ended his performance with heartfelt sentiment, saying: “The win in life is old age. Old age is not guaranteed.” 

“Black Barbie” is a Netflix documentary released in 2023 that playfully explores the cultural and historical significance of the iconic doll, focusing on her evolution from a white, blonde, blue-eyed fantasy figure into a more inclusive line of dolls with a variety of skin tones, facial features, body types and hair textures.

It is worth noting that the documentary debuted in March, many months before Greta Gerwig’s fictional, pink-tinged, wildly successful blockbuster hit “Barbie” was released in July of that same year.

Regardless, this documentary feels like a necessary continuation to that narrative.

Barbie has always been about style and fashion — dressing-up, accessorizing and imagining different lives for the doll through her wardrobe. But the documentary asks: What happens when only one kind of child — that fits a certain box — gets to live that fantasy?

And, also, is Barbie more harmful than helpful in elevating us as a society? Is it really just about a doll?

Directed by Lagueria Davis and executive produced by Shonda Rhimes, one of the most celebrated Black creators of her generation, the documentary explores the creation of the first truly representative Black Barbie — with distinct lips, hair and nose — and how it marked a clear departure from the earlier, more simplistic iterations, which were often just white dolls painted darker.

They delve into the role of Ruth Handler, Barbie’s creator, and how meaningful it was to the Black Mattel employees when Kitty Black Perkins, Mattel’s first Black designer, was hired.

The documentary also reflects on the infamous Clark doll test, a pivotal 1940s study by Black psychologists and married couple Kenneth and Mamie Clark where Black children were offered identical dolls — one white, one Black — and were tasked with choosing which of the dolls were “nice” and which were “bad.”

The Black children overwhelmingly preferred the white dolls, and appeared hurt — offended even — when asked “which doll is most like you?” The children seemingly felt forced to select the Black doll, which they associated with something “bad.” This illustrated the deeply rooted psychological effects of racial representation — or the lack of it — in something as mundane as toys. This was clearly not just about a doll.

Davis, a Black director and writer, was inspired to create “Black Barbie” after learning about the pivotal role her aunt, Beulah Mae Mitchell, played in advocating for the first Black Barbie while working at Mattel.

Although Davis admitted to never gravitating toward playing with Barbies as a child — she started to wonder why. She used this documentary to find out.

Davis interviewed numerous people, scholars, notable figures on screen, each offering invaluable insights into their connection — or not — to a doll that looked like them, or didn’t, reflecting on the significance of representation in toys and how generations of children had grown up without seeing dolls that accurately resembled them.

Davis pondered on the fact that although her aunt and her came from different generations, the reality was the same: Blackness was not celebrated as much as it should have been then, and arguably, even now.