By this point, there are enough articles about the Barbenheimer phenomenon to populate a small town in New Mexico. Cue your eyeroll. In case you’ve not guessed it, this article will touch on that cultural moment as well. Cue yet another eyeroll. I will say, however, that I am more interested in the tangents that have emerged from the moment than the moment itself. For the sake of disclosure, I've yet to see either film though that will change in due time. My family shares good things about Barbie though, and their reviews speak to its depth. Good signs. Still, the tangent. The phenomenon. I've never seen something like this on this scale, not in my memory at least. Gaming had it with Doom and Animal Crossing but if you're not a gamer, it may not register. Looking back, I'm surprised there wasn’t a national week of mourning planned when Avengers: Endgame and Game or Throne's Battle of Winterfell occurred within the same weekend. Expectations were high for the loss of many a favorite character and at the time, Marvel and Game of Thrones held more sway over the pop culture landscape than just about anything. If there was a moment, that was it. But there wasn’t. I dwell, as you may know. And in that dwelling, the quest and consideration of the moment found its way into my dreams, fertile playgrounds for WTFery. The amalgamation candidates? The Fast and The Furious franchise. The Golden Grits. You've not dreamed till your brain pictures Bea Arthur catching some mad drift against Vin Diesel in a climactic Las Vegas showdown. Picture is you will: Bea Arthur. Betty White. Rue McClanahan. Estelle Getty. All holding court on their thrones high above in their ivory towers. This illuminati like Golden Circle controls and sees much. The Fast & Furious crew must do their bidding, be it stunts, chases or watch The Rock beat somebody into a pulp. Poor, poor Jeff Ross. The infamous roast master serves as the drooling jester, all because of a very off-color joke he made about Ms. Arthur decades ago. I won’t repeat it here because I’d like to maintain at least a PG-13 on this blog. While I don’t think this crossover would ever be a Barbenheimer moment in reality, it is in my head. I felt compelled to see if anyone else made this connection. Afterall, people love The Golden Girls. Turns out, the show was an inspirational point for director Justin Lin (who did 4, 5, 6 and 9). On top of that, Lin wanted to add Betty While into the franchise. I never had seen that connection before learning the factoid, but as they say, some things you can’t unsee. Frankly, I only saw the first Fast & Furious movie and thought it was terrible. But there it was. Fast & Furious and the Golden Girl together one way or the other. It’s not the Barbenheimer I wanted but it was the Barbenheimer that was thrust upon me. We all have our own Barbenheimers that we want to see. Rarely do they live up to the expectations ( Alien vs Predator anyone?) but we may just go see it anyways. It may not be pink, but we’ll still go to the brink.
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