The macabre tone behind the Barbie mania sweeping latin America

Latin America is taking Barbie mania to an excessive, with every thing from pink tacos and pastries, industrial planes bearing the Barbie brand, political adverts and even Barbie-themed protests.

But it is not all excessive heels and pom-poms: Barbie mania within the area has taken on a darker, macabre tone.

In Peru, anti-government demonstrators this week dressed up two girls in pink and put them in big Barbie packing containers in the principle sq. of Lima, the capital, to protest present President Dina Boluarte, beneath whose administration police have usually clashed with protesters.

An anti-government protester, dressed as Barbie holding a pretend gun, takes half in an indication demanding that Peruvian President Dina Boluarte name for quick presidential elections in addition to justice for individuals who had been killed throughout protests earlier this 12 months, in Lima, Peru, Saturday, July 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

One actress, whose field was labeled “Barbie Dictator”, held a pink gun. The doll, based on the field legend, “includes tear gas and dum-dum bullets”. Another protester’s field was labeled “Genocidal Barbie”.

Meanwhile, shops, avenue distributors and eating places all through Latin America are providing up all types of Barbie-themed goodies.

In Mexico, there are Barbie tortillas (the corn dough is colored pink with beet juice, with some imprinted with an edible-dye pony-tailed Barbie silhouette); Barbie pastries and Barbie tacos (marinated pork meat served in pink tortillas and accompanied by a strawberry milkshake).

An total Barbie-themed restaurant opened this week in Guayaquil, Ecuador; it’s — after all — constructed to resemble Barbie’s home.

Volaris, a Mexican airline, has painted considered one of its jets with a Barbie brand and, based on a promotional video, the aircraft might be piloted by Barbie, not Ken.

The pink craze within the area is such that Barbie mania has now unfold into politics.

A prepare dinner prepares a taco with a Barbie theme pink tortilla at a restaurant in Mexico City, Thursday, July 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

In Guatemala, presidential candidate Sandra Torres shared a musical TikTok video pitching her as a Barbie who “wants prosperity for all”.

Mexican avenue sellers are peddling a Barbie doll modelled on presidential hopeful Claudia Sheinbaum, a real-life scientist-turned-politician whose personal (actual) ponytail has change into her branding trademark.

The workplace of Colombian President Gustavo Petro not too long ago raised hackles with a Barbie-theme video — together with clips from the movie’s trailer — to advertise an independence day tour of the nation. His workplace rapidly eliminated the poorly made video.

Beyond the ponytails and enjoyable meals, there’s a darker undercurrent.

A lady wears a hat impressed by the film Barbie, at a Barbie-themed restaurant in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Friday, July 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa) (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)

In Mexico, a Barbie homage doll sparked controversy when a sister of considered one of Mexico’s 111,000 lacking individuals started stitching Barbie outfits to costume the doll as a “Searching Mother” — a member of a gaggle of volunteers who fan out throughout Mexico’s dusty plains to seek for gravesites that may include their kids’s stays. Most of the lacking seem to have been kidnapped — and killed — by drug cartels or kidnapping gangs.

This Barbie is clad in a wide-brimmed hat and a solar hood, wears a T-shirt bearing the picture of a lacking man and camouflage pants and comes outfitted with a shovel.

Her creator, volunteer searcher Delia Quiroa, hopes to publicise the plight of moms who’ve to hold out the searches and investigations police will not do, and on the similar time elevate cash to proceed looking.

One group of volunteer searchers within the western state of Jalisco — the state with the very best variety of lacking individuals — questioned whether or not casting Barbie because the sufferer of a horrible crime is acceptable.

Barbie “has evolved into a representation of strong, independent women who can do what they want and chase their dreams”, the volunteer search group Light of Hope wrote in a press release.

“Nobody who is searching for a missing child, spouse or a sibling is doing what they want to do, much less chasing a dream.”

“It seems to us an abomination that girls see being a Searching Mother as something normal,” the group added.

Quiroa, from the northern border state of Tamaulipas, mentioned her creation is sort of an anti-Barbie.

“Barbie is everything a person wants to be, but this is a Barbie who doesn’t want to be,” she mentioned.

“She is what nobody wants to be. Nobody wants to be a searcher, nobody wants to be looking for a family member.”

Quiroa has been searching for her brother Roberto since he was kidnapped by drug cartel gunmen in March 2014. Despite finishing up its personal searches and pressuring authorities to research, the household is aware of nothing about his whereabouts.

“I think of this as a doll more directed to women, to us, not for girls to play with,” Quiroa mentioned.

A household visits a Barbie-themed restaurant in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Friday, July 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)

Vanessa Munguía, broadly considered Latin America’s main Barbie collector — she numbers her assortment within the hundreds — says Barbie is especially fashionable in Latin America as a result of, till a few a long time in the past, most ladies’ toys right here depicted maternal, home-maker roles.

“Barbie was the only toy I found that told me that there were a million other possibilities. I could be an astronaut, I could be a teacher,” mentioned Munguía, who turned a lawyer.

Asked about depicting Barbie as a “Searching Mother” or any of the opposite incarnations of the doll, Munguía says she finds it a really legitimate expression.

“I think that’s exactly what what we like in Barbie, that we can make her out to be whatever we need her to be at that moment,” she mentioned.