Told, Retold, and Continued: Classics with Recent(ish) Follow-Ups

The Cover of Fast & Furious. I think it's movie 6? This franchise has a really confusing naming convention. This isn't one of the franchises I talk about, I just know it's been going on for a while.

Some stories just won’t die. Whether studios or publishers churn out sequel after sequel, or wait a few years to simply reboot the thing, some franchises have been going on for ages in our current media landscape. Then there’s archetypical stories and legends that are so old and well-known that they’ve been adapted into countless versions, sometimes only having a tertiary connection to the source material. And of course, there’s the nostalgia factor; reviving long-dead (or dormant, I suppose) media to serve it up to a new audience, or, more realistically, to recapture the old one and have them get their children into it.

Let’s start with an enduring tale: The Legend of King Arthur. Even if you’ve never read or watched any media that has its basis in this legend (however loosely), you’ve likely at least heard of the guy who pulled a sword out of a stone. Or was it given to him by some watery tart? Apparently, there are different versions of the legend, and even Excalibur wasn’t always Excalibur. Here though, I’d like to highlight a classic retelling of the tale, and a more modern follow-up that plays with the formula in an interesting way.

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Life in Plastic: Barbie and Beyond

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Have you bought your tickets for the Barbie movie yet? Perhaps you’re planning on doing a Barbie-Oppenheimer (“Barbenheimer”) double feature, if you’ve got all the time in the world? I’m just as hyped as everyone else! And all this hoopla around Barbie got me thinking of The Power of the Doll in pop culture. Barbie herself has been kicking around since 1959, so she’s clearly got staying power. And over the decades there has been no shortage of thinkpieces on the iconic doll and her role in the lives of young girls. 

Dolls, being tied to girls or to the experience of being raised female, have always had a place in media and art as a way to explore that experience under various degrees of sexism. Ibsen’s A Doll’s House critiques the suffocating nature of marriage roles in the 19th century. In Valley of the Dolls, “dolls” refers to sedative drugs but also to its main characters who, while not passing any sort of feminism test, understandably operate under patriarchy in the 1960s. Even Scandinavian pop sensation Aqua’s 1997 banger “Barbie Girl” is really about the perception of women as objects. Serious stuff!  

But that all comes from adult artists who, divorced from the simple act of play, see dolls as ripe for metaphor. To kids, Barbie is simply a toy. I remember lots of handwringing about Barbie and her effect on girls’ self-esteem and body image. And recently there’s been some revival of that discourse online. But in practice, I don’t know a single person who had a bad experience with Barbie. The excitement for Barbie the movie just proves the enduring appeal of this particular doll, especially for those of us who grew up playing with her. As one of my favourite tweets on the subject goes, “I simply did not give Barbie this power over me, I controlled HER life.” I can’t speak for everyone’s experiences, but for me, Barbie and all her accoutrements were just toys. Ways to express our weird little imaginations. My Barbies were perpetually getting stuck on rollercoasters or reenacting the sinking of the Titanic. My one Ken doll was a flop whose head kept falling off, so he often had to sit these scenes out. If I coveted anything in real life, it was Barbie’s Dream House and her white Jeep Wrangler. It really was not serious.  

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Taking A Walk Down Short Story Lane

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When I was in creative writing workshops in university, we studied short stories to become better writers. It’s a time-old tradition that encourages fledgling authors to focus on honing bite-sized narratives before they tackle a full-length novel. Writing a really good short story is a very hard thing to do. Trust me. I learned that the hard way. That’s why I wanted to share some short story collections with you all in the hopes that I may entice you to pick one up, instead of the latest hefty tome from your favourite wordsmith.

Short story collections with multiple writers are also a great way to introduce yourself to new authors you might not hear about otherwise. Crafty editors can surprise you with voices, tones, genres, or writing styles that are straight out of left field, but nonetheless compelling. These are some of the voices and collections that have resonated with me so far. The great thing about them is that you can dip in and out, reading a story here and there as your interest ebbs and flows. You don’t have to remember the plot, characters, or anything else. The next story will be waiting when you’re ready to start again.

Cover image for short story collection Stones by Timothy Findley.

Stones by Timothy Findley

Timothy Findley was a quintessentially Canadian author. If memory serves, we studied the story “Dreams” from the collection Stones in one of my workshops. I remember marking up the pages of my copy with my own thoughts, as well as our professor’s insightful analysis, and being taken with the intense atmosphere and dramatic tone of the piece.

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