LIFE in PLASTIC

For 64 years Barbie has weathered controversies and changing societal attitudes to remain the most popular doll in the toy store. As she is given the Hollywood treatment in Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster film, features editor and former Barbie collector Bree Player pays homage to an icon

When the posters for the Barbie film hit social media, the internet went crazy. In what has to be one of the most successful marketing stunts in years, the official film posters that allowed people to create memes by uploading themselves as a Barbie or Ken turned Instagram into sea of hot pink. It was inescapable.

The film’s tagline is “Barbie is everything” and with every shot of Australia’s own Margot Robbie as Barbie and actor Ryan Gosling as Ken going viral upon release, it would appear that, more than six decades after she was invented, Mattel’s 29cm doll is, in fact, everything.

Mattel and writer/director Greta Gerwig know this: nostalgia is bankable. Few things capture people’s attention and hit them right in the heart than memories of happy childhoods – filtered or real.

Of course, there comes an age when children stop playing with Barbies. One day they pack up their dolls, mini shoes, dream houses and campervans for the last time. When I was a kid, these collections were either ceremoniously passed down to a younger sibling or cousin or sold for a tidy sum at a garage sale.