I first met Barbie, three decades ago, during an inter-school quiz event. My team-mate and I passed on this question: How do we better know Barbara Millicent Rogers?
We froze in horror as the question moved onto an all-girls team and they chimed: Barbie Doll! This must have been 1992 or thereabouts. The quizmaster (someone I knew well) promptly awarded the winning points to the all-girls team and volunteered some more information: Barbie was born on March 9, 1959 (well, the date marks her first appearance and so that makes it her birthday). My team-mate looked at me, eyes smouldering with rage, and in a tone that held both mockery and disgust said: Hey, that’s your birthday!
Holly Molly! So, I share my birthdate with Barbie (and that’s all there is to it!)
My childhood favourites were largely from the DC and the Marvel universe : you know that motley group comprising of Batman, Superman, Flash, Shazam, Wonder Woman, Joker, Penguin, Riddler from DC; and Hulk, Spiderman and Thor from Marvel.
The initial reports around Warner Bros’ and Mattel’s plans to bring Barbie to life on screen puzzled me. Surely, they had to be joking.
But as this weekend showed, the movie is a reality!
While Mattel owns the IP and has taken a risk with this movie, Warner Bros’ has perhaps made its most audacious bet yet in backing the movie (even more so since it comes in the aftermath of box-office duds, Flash and Shazam).
One of the toughest things to do is to jilt an idea that you have fallen in love with.
Warner Bros, after repeatedly flogging the dead horse idea of an ‘expanded DC universe’ (with cringeworthy movies around the Justice League and Batman Vs. Superman to counter Disney’s Avengers), has flipped its movie production playbook with Barbie.
And that’s how, three decades after I first met her ─ thanks to Warner Bros ─ Barbie’s and my world collide again!
