Quiz master Phanindra Ivatury, an Indian national now residing in the Netherlands, shares his thoughts on the eponymous doll ‘Barbie’ who had worn may hats showing women’s achievements in the 20th century and her success in the silver screen.
UTRECHT (The Netherlands): Ever since her conceptualization and launch in 1959, “Barbie” steadily and arguably became that one iconic fashion doll for many urban girl generations.
Created by an American mother and visionary entrepreneur Ruth Handler and manufactured by toy giant ‘Mattel’, Barbie’s immense popularity had led to a perpetual capture of the global fashion doll market for over six decades now and counting.
Over the years, her fairytale success had also weathered constant criticism from many quarters for being too materialistic for a doll with almost unrealistic body proportions.
Inspiration for ‘Barbie’
Though Ruth Handler’s Barbie was inspired and improvised from German doll ‘Bild Lilli’, it is widely believed that the initial push came through Handler watching her young daughter Barbara guide her dreams and aspirations onto paper dolls.
As the baby doll market in the fifties was only catering to girls as caregivers for dolls, Handler felt the acute need to tap the fashion doll category with a three-dimensional doll that girls could use to imagine their future selves, thereby inspiring them in aspirational roles ranging from a princess to president.
Barbie’s timeline
On March 9, 1959 Barbie debuted in a black and white striped swim suit with her signature pony tail at the New York Toy fair. There was no looking back since, notwithstanding murmurs on her sustainability and success as an unconventional doll of those initial times.
Barbie became a striking symbol for an independent woman having her dream house collection by 1962, turning into an astronaut in 1965, becoming a celebrity doll ‘Twiggy’ in 1967 and a doctor in 1973 when very few women were medicos. She also served in the military by joining the US Army in 1989, also became a Sergeant in the Marine Corps, thereby effortlessly slipping into many dynamic roles so on and so forth, even running for President by 1992. Barbie till date has had more than 250 careers starting with being a fashion model.
Barbie and her outreach
Barbie is all about mind boggling stats. For starters, 100 Barbie dolls are sold every minute. Barbie has appeared in different attires suiting cultures, races and ethnicities around the world.
Barbie underwent major transformation in the 21st century, as Mattel released a new line of diverse Barbies, one with a prosthetic leg or in a wheel chair or even using a hearing aid. However, ‘The Totally Hair Barbie’ with longest tresses still remains the bestselling Barbie till date having sold more than 10 million dolls worldwide.
Other dolls in Barbie world
While Barbie’s family and friends have multiplied over the decades, the most prominent among them who are still around since the sixties are Ken who is Barbie’s boyfriend since 1961, Midge who happens to be her friend since 1963 and Skipper who is Barbie’s sister and Alan who is Ken’s friend since 1964.
Barbie’s tryst with art
American visual artist Late Andy Warhol took fancy to the popular doll by painting a stunning portrait of the stereotypical Barbie with blonde hair and blue eyes.
The Museum of Decorative Arts in the Louvre, Paris hosted an exhibition in 2016 honouring the icon with more than 700 hundred dolls on display beginning with Barbie’s maiden appearance in 1959.
Robbie as Barbie
The idea to make the first ever live action ‘Barbie’ film bore fruit in September 2009. For almost a decade, the process and concept changed many creative hands, heads and studios until Mattel struck a deal with Warner Bros in late 2018.
Mattel was keen on having Margot Robbie on board for the titular role as the “Bombshell” actress suited the part with her closeness in appearance to the conventional Barbie doll. Apart from getting convinced to play the titular role, Robbie with her husband Tom Ackerly also turned producers for the movie through their ‘Lucky Chap Entertainment’ company.
While Academy Award nominee, director Greta Gerwig was signed to helm the film, actor Ryan Gosling agreed to play the part of Barbie’s boyfriend Ken. Gerwig co-wrote the screenplay with her partner Noah Baumbach.
Though making a live action film on the eponymous doll belonging to an artificial pink world came with a lot of baggage, both wanted and unwanted, Robbie saw enormous potential in the project. Speaking about the term ‘Barbie’, in an interview to Vogue Magazine in September 2023, she said ‘The word itself is more globally recognized than practically everything else other than Coco-Cola’.
Barbie at the box office
The opening of the ‘Barbie’ movie in theatres coincided with the simultaneous release of ace director Christopher Nolan’s biographical multi-starrer “Oppenheimer” which even led to the coining of an internet term ‘Barbenheimer’.
Though it looked like an epic clash, Barbie crossed an unbelievable one billion dollar mark at the worldwide Box Office in no time with many families still contemplating on an ideal summer weekend date to book ‘Barbie’ tickets.
En-route the billion dollar milestone, Barbie broke multiple records as Warner Bros Picture’s best-selling film for a Monday ever following its $155 million domestic weekend in America and also as the industry’s biggest opening weekend for a movie directed by a woman.
The Barbie phenomenon
Despite bordering on the debate whether it’s fantastic or plastic, one has to accept the fact that Barbie is a pink phenomenon wrapped with an unmistakable global status. Leading the way for millions of young girls who never owned the coveted doll, ‘Barbie’ movie star Margot Robbie herself said that she was unsure if she ever owned a Barbie doll in her growing up years spent in Australia’s Gold Coast.
In an interview with ‘The Guardian’, ‘Barbie’ director Greta Gerwig said that she was terrified to accept the job. Before writing the script she thought that it felt complicated enough, sticky enough, strange enough, that may be there could be something interesting there to be discovered.
To sum it up in her words further, “It was not like a super hero who already has a story. It felt very much like it was going to be an adaptation. Except what we are adapting is a doll – an icon of the 20th century”. – BERNAMA
