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AS A BONA fide Ken, I have a right to be a little concerned about Barbie. What's all this talk of her going big on classical music? Isn't this the cool chick who, we were told, was "a Barbie girl in a Barbie world"; who begged the boys to "kiss me here, touch me there, hanky panky"; who inhabited a world where "life's all plastic, it's fantastic"; and whose idea of a good time was to "hit the town, fool around, let's go party!"
Well, maybe that was only a passing phase. Her makers, Mattel, recognise that, as with any other iconic doll or comic-book hero, she needs to continuously reflect the times. Aqua's cheeky chart hit Barbie Girl was about girl power 1990s-style, a pink but punchy reflection of the Spice Girls in their heyday. Despite the current cringeworthy comeback of the latter, those days are surely gone. At least in toy town they are. For Barbie, the stainless Princess of the nursery catwalk, the time has now come - just as it famously did for Tony Blair when he turned 50 - to embrace the classics.
The change for Barbie happened around the Millennium, when the first of seven Barbie Princess animated films hit the silver screen. The first...