The Barbie Diaries - Perfect

Complete the sentence: The Barbie doll _________ around since 1959.

• have been

• had been

• will have been

• has been

Since its release, the Barbie doll has had how many occupations?

• 200

• 137

• 53

• 320

Over the years, especially in the 2000s, Barbie was the star of many animated movies, usually portraying princesses, superheroes, ballerinas, fairies, spies... One of the most popular is "The Barbie Diaries", from 2006. Have you watched it?

• Yes!

• No, not yet!

In this movie, Barbie is a regular high school student living the highs and lows of teenage life with her three best friends Tia, Courtney, and Kevin. She wants to be popular and has some kind of feud with the school's queen bee, Raquelle. Barbie also has a crush on Todd, a popular boy from her school, but doesn't have a clue about Kevin's true feelings for her...

• Sounds fun!

• Like every teen romcom movie.

Here's the transcription of a scene in this movie in which Tia's, Courtney's, and Barbie's band is rehearsing for their school's dance. Kevin arrives during their break and Barbie goes to grab some snacks for them. At this moment, the other girls realize Kevin has feelings for Barbie.  Here’s their dialogue:

Kevin (after looking at Barbie with a dreamy look): What?

Courtney: Did you just start liking her or did we just start noticing it?

Kevin: What?

Tia: Oh, I think he’s always liked her. It’s just that this whole Todd thing brought it to the forefront.

Kevin: What?

Courtney: Look at that! We’ve rendered him speechless. We should do this more often!

Kevin: What?! I don’t know what you’re talking about.

• Poor Kevin...

• I ship them!

When Tia states that she thinks Kevin has always liked Barbie, what can we understand from the use of the present perfect?

• That's one of Kevin's habits.

• Kevin liked Barbie sometime in the past (not defined).

• Kevin liked Barbie in the past but it still has an effect in the present.

• Kevin started liking Barbie sometime in the past and continues to do so.

Tia, at some point, says “It’s just that this whole Todd thing brought it to the forefront”. She is talking about Barbie finally getting attention from her long-time crush, popular boy Todd. Could Tia express this idea using the present perfect? If yes, write the sentence she would’ve used.

When Courtney says “We’ve rendered him speechless”, what kind of perfect, according to Comrie (1976), is being used?

• Perfect of recent past: the present relevance of the past situation is simply one of temporal closeness.

• Perfect of Result: a present state is referred to as being the result of some past situation.

• Experiential Perfect: indicates that a given situation has held at least once during some time in the past leading up to the present.

• Perfect of persistent situation: describes a situation that started in the past but continues (persists) into the present.

What can we infer from this situation?

• Courtney and Tia haven't been paying attention to Kevin's feelings.

• Barbie has started going out with Todd.

• Kevin has never talked about his feelings.

• Tia and Courtney have had a crush on Barbie too.