The Living Barbie

When I was younger, my favorite Barbie was (get ready for this shocker,) the Teresa Barbie. Because we shared a name, she had Caucasian features, the same tan skin complexion, and hazel-eyes, I assumed she must be exactly like me. I'm Italian, so I thought Teresa was obviously Italian too. I was so sure that we were similar that I assumed I would look just like her when I was older. She was the adult version of me. She had my name and my hair and my eyes. I was devasted when I played with her too much and her head accidently popped off her body. That was like MY head popping off my body.

It wasn't until literally a year or two ago that I realized the Teresa Barbie is actually supposed to be the Latina version of Barbie. Teresa Barbie wasn't like me at all. But when I was a kid I thought she was. Her life was what I thought my life would be. She was going to become my reality, I was sure of it. Well, turns out Barbie's perfect life isn't reality, it's not even close. Unfortunately, some people just can't make that disinction though.

This woman's story is admittedly extreme, but it does represent how the deluded reality of Barbie doesn't always end when you're young. Girls' fixation with becoming like her translates into adult life too.

CBS's 48 Hours reported on a woman named Cindy Jackson in 2006 in their segment called "Becoming Barbie: Living Dolls." Cindy had grown up in a small town and admitted as a young girl that she never thought she was good looking. Barbie was the pinacle of perfection, and she had always wanted to look like her. Cindy was recognized as highly intelligent, motivated, and ambitious, but her personality traits never fulfilled her desire to "improve" her outward appearance. At 33 she began to get plastic surgery to become Barbie. "Barbie was the blank canvas I filled in all those years ago. It was still my role model," she said in an interview.
Cindy received 31 operations over the course of 14 years to become Barbie. Her operations included laser surgery on her forehead, upper and lower eye modification, cheek implants, two nose jobs, and eyebrows, eyeliner, lipliner, and full lipstick tattooed to her face.

She spent $100,000 on plastic surgery to become Barbie.

But don't think that just girls are influenced enough to go under the knife to look like the plastic dolls. A man named Tim Whitfield (now named Miles Kendall,) saw Cindy's transformation and decided he wanted to be the male version of her and become Ken. So he dropped $50k on plastic surgery and became Cindy's male counterpart.

The before and after picture proves, at least to me, that the obsession to look like Barbie is insane. Cindy was not ugly to begin with, she looked like a normal human being. In fact, I think her original features made her quite pretty. But her obsession with the perfection of Barbie made her quest to imitate the doll unstoppable. Now being in her 50's, she still does look like Barbie, but she has countless procedures that she will need to have done every year to keep the form of her artificial face. She succeeded in her attempt to look plastic, that's for sure.


Although most little girls would never grow up and go to these extreme measures to change their appearance, the point of Cindy's story is that Barbie's image is extremely powerful and influential. Cindy spent an exorbitant amount of money to make herself look like the doll she aspired to be, but she is a rare case. Most girls just wish they could look like Barbie, with no hopes of actually attaining that image. Barbie is just a reminder, and perpetuator of the dissappointment females have with their body-images.