Am a Barbie Girl – Barbie is Highest “Gosling” Movie of 2023 !

Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. In a series of novels published by Random House in the 1960s, her parents’ names are given as George and Margaret Roberts and coincidentally namishly Margot
Robbie Who played Barbie and was also a producer

This “Barbie” is officially the highest-grossing movie of the year in North America.

Greta Gerwig’s fantasy-comedy, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, has generated $575.4 million at the domestic box office, overtaking the previous champion, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which has collected $574 million domestically.

“Barbie” has grossed $1.3 billion globally and will soon surpass “Mario” (with $1.35 billion globally) as the biggest worldwide release of 2023 as well. Only two Hollywood blockbusters this year have crossed the $1 billion mark and, notably, neither were superhero adventures or sequels in popular franchises.

“Barbie” started its record-breaking theatrical run in July with the best debut of the year ($162 million) and remained the No. 1 movie for four consecutive weekends. It also landed the biggest opening weekend for a film directed by a woman and became the highest-grossing movie directed solely by a woman. At this point, “Barbie” is the 14th-biggest domestic release and 20th-biggest global release of all time.

“Barbie” also recently surpassed Christopher Nolan’s superhero epic “The Dark Knight” ($536 million) as the highest-grossing domestic release in Warner Bros. history. It could eventually eclipse 2011’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” ($1.34 billion) as the studio’s highest-grossing worldwide release in 100 years.

Gerwig, the Oscar-nominated director of “Lady Bird” and “Little Women,” co-wrote the screenplay with her partner Noah Baumbach. The cotton candy-colored blockbuster follows the popular doll as she leaves behind the seemingly perfect world of Barbie Land to discover the highs and lows of life in the real world. The cast also includes America Ferrera, Issa Rae, Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon, Simu Liu and Michael Cera.

Ruth Handler watched her daughter Barbara play with paper dolls, and noticed that she often enjoyed giving them adult roles. At the time, most children’s toy dolls were representations of infants. Realizing that there could be a gap in the market, Handler suggested the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband Elliot, a co-founder of the Mattel toy company. He was unenthusiastic about the idea, as were Mattel’s directors

During a trip to Europe in 1956 with her children Barbara and Kenneth, Ruth Handler came across a German toy doll called Bild Lilli.The adult-figured doll was exactly what Handler had in mind, so she purchased three of them. She gave one to her daughter and took the others back to Mattel. The Lilli doll was based on a popular character appearing in a satirical comic strip drawn by Reinhard Beuthin for the newspaper Bild. The Lilli doll was first sold in Germany in 1955, and although it was initially sold to adults, it became popular with children who enjoyed dressing her up in outfits that were available separately.

Upon her return to the United States, Handler redesigned the doll (with help from local inventor-designer Jack Ryan) and the doll was given a new name, Barbie, after Handler’s daughter Barbara. The doll made its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York City on March 9, 1959.This date is also used as Barbie’s official birthday.

The Economist has emphasized the importance of Barbie to children’s imagination:
From her early days as a teenage fashion model, Barbie has appeared as an astronaut, surgeon, Olympic athlete, downhill skier, aerobics instructor, TV news reporter, vet, rock star, doctor, army officer, air force pilot, summit diplomat, rap musician, presidential candidate (party undefined), baseball player, scuba diver, lifeguard, fire-fighter, engineer, dentist, and many more. […] When Barbie first burst into the toy shops, just as the 1960s were breaking, the doll market consisted mostly of babies, designed for girls to cradle, rock and feed. By creating a doll with adult features, Mattel enabled girls to become anything they want

“Colored Francie” made her debut in 1967, and she is sometimes described as the first African-American Barbie doll. However, she was produced using the existing head molds for the white Francie doll and lacked distinct African characteristics other than dark skin. The first African-American doll in the Barbie range is usually regarded as Christie, who made her debut in 1968.

Black Barbie was launched in 1980 but still had Caucasian features. In 1990, Mattel created a focus group with African-American children and parents, early childhood specialists, and clinical psychologist, Darlene Powell Hudson. Instead of using the same molds for the Caucasian Barbies, new ones were created. In addition, facial features, skin tones, hair texture, and names were all altered. The body shapes looked different, but the proportions were the same to ensure clothing and accessories were interchangeable

there are well over 100,000 avid Barbie collectors. Ninety percent are women, at an average age of 40, purchasing more than twenty Barbie dolls each year. Forty-five percent of them spend upwards of $1000 a year. Vintage Barbie dolls from the early years are the most valuable at auction, and while the original Barbie was sold for $3.00 in 1959, a mint boxed Barbie from 1959 sold for $3552.50 on eBay in October 2004. On September 26, 2006, a Barbie doll set a world record at auction of £9,000 sterling (US$17,000) at Christie’s in London. The doll was a Barbie in Midnight Red from 1965 and was part of a private collection of 4,000 Barbie dolls being sold by two Dutch women, Ietje Raebel and her daughter Marina.

Visual Verse of the Day

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” 2 Corin 4:8-9"