Barbie in the Pandemic

California-based Tonya Ruiz is a former model from the 80s and a doting grandmother now. On her Instagram account @gramdmagetsreal you will find Barbie dolls reimagined in real-life situations in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. There’s a Barbie, binge watching at home, a Barbie with unwaxed legs, one in slouchy pyjamas and sauce smeared face and another caught in a quarrel at home with Ken. These are real life situations that most of us are in right now while social distancing. Her posts have gone viral with people from different countries commenting on her feed about how they relate with the Barbies. 

Ruiz has been creating such realistic scenes since 2017 and clicking pictures and sharing on Instagram. Her obsession with Barbie began as a young girl, when she played with the doll along with her sister. Ruiz also followed in Barbie’s footsteps and became a fashion model as she grew up. It was during her modelling days that she realised the warped body image, the doll represented wasn’t right for young girls. In her interview to insider.com, she said, "I saw how my life had been affected by body-image issues, so I kind of lumped Barbie in the category of very unrealistic, unattainable bodies," she said. She in fact, started writing and speaking about body image after her kids were born and she always used Barbie as an example of what one shouldn’t grow up into.

However, her interest in the doll was re-kindled when her grandchildren accidentally discovered her box full of barbies collected from over the years. As they wanted to play with them she got an idea to get Barbie dolls that resembled each member of her family. By this time, Mattel had become more inclusive and had diverse Barbie dolls representing different ethnicities, race and body types.  

How did Pandemic Barbies come about?

When the Covid-19 pandemic spread worldwide, her family was forced to stay indoors. This is when she got the idea to recreate real life situations with her Barbie dolls and put them up on Instagram. She creates the quarantine-inspired scenes using her dolls and numerous miniatures that she has collected over two and half years. She said in her interview that her dolls are a “comedic commentary on quarantine,” that intends to make people smile amidst the gloomy times.