The "Barbie" movie sells itself as having something for everybody. But when it comes
to Ken, that may not be entirely true! From silky smooth chests to the meaning behind a
"beach off," there's a lot about Barbie's sidekick that only adults will get.
In director Greta Gerwig movie, it's quickly established that Barbie has a personal theme
song of sorts — the Indigo Girls classic "Closer to Fine." Ken initially seems
content to sing that song along with her. But when he ventures out into the real world and
discovers a certain version of masculinity, Ken no longer likes the song. At that point,
Ken discovers his own favorite song, and it soon takes over as
the anthem for Barbieland's transition into Kendom: "Push" by the band Matchbox Twenty.
Aside from director Gerwig being a fan, "Push" was likely chosen because it sounds exactly like
the kind of song a dude-bro would be obsessed with and want to sing to a woman he is trying
to woo. But those already familiar with the song from its mid-'90s heyday immediately
realized there was a lot more going on there. With lyrics like "I wanna take you for granted,"
the song gives us insight into Ken's state of mind. After all, he had previously felt taken
advantage of by Barbie, so it makes sense that Ken would like a song like "Push."
"But it's Barbie and Ken. There is no just Ken."
While there seems to be at least a little bit of body diversity among the Barbies in the movie,
the Kens are all pretty stereotypical in that they're uniformly thin, chiseled,
and completely devoid of body hair. It's most apparent with the two main Kens, played by Ryan
Gosling and Simu Liu's, given how often their bare chests are visible. But it can also be seen,
or not seen, on the arms and legs of all the other Kens. There's no visible hair on their bodies,
despite the fact that some of these actors probably have some body hair in real life.
Sure enough, Liu confirmed to Allure that he had to have his body waxed two different times
while filming "Barbie" to ensure that smooth, hairless look. But that's not
all that went into making the actors look like human-sized Ken dolls. Liu explained to Allure:
"We had to look glossy and plastic and there was a lot of body paint applied every single day."
Younger viewers probably wouldn't have thought twice about all that hairless skin. However,
those who have a few more years on them certainly found themselves
wondering how all these adult men could look so smooth and shiny.
Ken and Barbie are only in the real world for about 10 seconds before Barbie starts
to experience what it's like to have men openly gawk at her body and make gross comments about
it. When the pair encounter a group of construction workers, the workers start
making a bunch of inappropriate sexual remarks, all of which are directed at Barbie. It's then
that Barbie explicitly tells them that both she and Ken are lacking in human genitalia.
Before that, however, Ken and Barbie's inability to have sex is hinted at in a
hilariously awkward way that probably flew over the heads of younger audience members.
Barbie is trying to get Ken to go home so she can party with the other Barbies,
and he asks if he can stay the night. She is confused, and inquires as to why
he would want to sleep over. Of course, he doesn't have an answer, and ends up just as
baffled about why he even asked the question in the first place. Later, Weird Barbie remarks,
"I'd like to see what smooth blob [Ken's] packing in those shorts."
Weird Barbie's comment is further evidence that the dolls have a vague sense of sexual
attraction to one another even though they don't really know what to do with it.
"I'm coming with you."
"Okay." Barbie and Ken learn most of the same truths about
the real world, only they absorb the information in almost exactly opposite ways. Barbie is
disappointed to see that she hadn't fixed feminism and that the world is in fact still a patriarchy.
Meanwhile, Ken couldn't be more thrilled to learn that there is a place where men rule instead of
women. While exploring Los Angeles on his own, Ken stumbles into a building where multiple
screens are showing visual representations of masculinity throughout the years. Ken
becomes especially fixated on one recurring figure in that montage — Sylvester Stallone.
After that, Ken bases much of what it means to be a man on both Stallone himself and the
characters he plays. "Rocky" clearly makes a major impression on him, as Ken is seen
wearing boxing gloves at one point when he first arrives back in Barbieland. Ken's obsession with
horses as a sign of masculinity could also be connected to Rocky Balboa's nickname,
"The Italian Stallion." But most obvious is the white fur coat that Ken wears for a long
stretch of the movie, which is modeled after a similar coat that Stallone is seen wearing
in the montage. Stallone was known to don extravagant fur coats in the '80s, helping
to popularize them as a statement of not only hyper-masculinity but also wealth and success.
"Did you bring your rollerblades?"
"I literally go nowhere without them." Throughout some of the film, Barbie is in the
real world, searching for the girl that her doll avatar belongs to. During her journey, she and Ken
end up at a high school. While Barbie confronts Sasha in the school cafeteria, Ken is left on his
own to explore the high school. Before long, he finds his way to the library. It's there that he
comes across several fake but hilariously-titled books about the history of patriarchy and other
guy stuff. The books have names like "The Origins of Patriarchy" and "Man Wars."
It's more than likely that those books are meant to poke fun at Jordan Peterson
and other figures like him. Peterson's most famous book — "12 Rules of Life" — has been
seen as pro-patriarchy, and he's been known to complain about how masculinity is under
attack in modern society. Peterson has also claimed that people are afraid to admit that
men hold the power because, in his view, men are simply better at being in charge.
There's little doubt that Peterson would see the changeover from Barbieland to Kendom as a
step in the right direction. It wouldn't be the first time that a film takes Peterson's ideals
and mines them for villainy. For one, Olivia Wilde was very upfront about the fact that
Peterson inspired Chris Pine's wretchedly evil character in "Don't Worry Darling."
The opening scenes of "Barbie" show how all of the Barbies in Barbieland are BFFs. They
all love each other, respect each other, and celebrate each other's success. While that
mostly seems true for the Kens as well, Beach Ken and Tourist Ken seem to have a
pretty bitter rivalry. Much of it stems from them competing for the attention of
Stereotypical Barbie. But it also seems like they simply don't like each other very much.
How do you settle a dispute in Barbieland? Well, it's later established that weapons
don't exist there. Moreover, the Kens don't exactly seem like the type to
get into vicious physical altercations. So it's suggested that they have a beach-off,
which sounds innocent enough — until phrases like this start getting thrown around:
"I would beach you off right now, Ken."
"I'll beach off with you anyday, Ken."
Sounds a little like they are saying something else, doesn't it? There are only a few gags in
"Barbie" that are meant to elicit chuckles from the adults while going over the heads of children,
and the whole concept of getting "beached off" is perhaps the dirtiest of them all. That said,
having a snippet of it included in some of the trailers was definitely an indication
that a little bit of grown-up naughtiness was going to be snuck into this PG-13 movie.
In order to take Barbieland back from the Kens,
the Barbies have to be reprogrammed back to their original selves. This way,
they're no longer the meek, subservient women that they've been turned into.
"Okay, ladies! Let's do this."
In one of the movie's funniest sequences, some of the reprogrammed Barbies pretend to need
reassurance about their looks or have something mansplained to them. The point is so that no Ken
doll can resist giving his full attention to them. There are some obvious ploys, like the Barbie
that pretends she never saw "The Godfather" and needs a Ken to explain the entire movie to her.
"Leave the gun. Take the cannolis."
But one of the more obscure ones has a Ken explaining the role that Stephen Malkmus played
in the evolution of rock 'n' roll in relation to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. Most
know Reed and his former band, but only those with a love of '90s indie music will recognize
Malkmus as the frontman for celebrated rock group Pavement. Pavement's biggest mainstream
success occurred in the early-to-mid-'90s — and even then, they never exactly lit up the charts.
Malkmus responded to the shout-out in an Instagram story, initially
teasing that he was going to get his lawyers involved but saying the band is "pro-Greta"
Gerwig. So he seemed to appreciate the mentioning of his name in the movie.
"Barbie" is absolutely jam-packed with references to pop culture,
especially films. The films mentioned range from timeless classics like "The Wizard of Oz" all the
way down to obscure films from the French New Wave. But there is one scene in particular that
is almost entirely based on another sequence from a different movie. It's far beyond a mere Easter
egg or background reference and instead is an outright love letter to the film that inspired it.
Though the big song and dance battle between the Kens initially starts on the beach, they
are all soon magically transported to a dream-like space of blues and pinks, with everyone dressed in
black. While some have suggested that the outfits recall what Danny Zuko wears in much of "Grease,"
the whole scene is a much more obvious tribute to the iconic dream ballet sequence from "Singin' in
the Rain." Released in 1952, the legendary musical predates both Ken and Barbie by a few years,
and is certainly one of the oldest pieces of pop culture history that "Barbie" pays homage to.
There have been a lot of different variations of Barbie and Ken dolls
over the years. Longtime Barbie fans had a blast trying to see how many different
dolls they recognized as characters in the movie, especially those that only
had a quick line or two, or only appeared in the background and said nothing at all.
"And Alan!"
With few exceptions, almost every Barbie and Ken mentioned in the movie was a real
doll at some point. Remarkably, this also includes the canceled doll Sugar's Daddy Ken.
Also referenced and standing alongside Ken in the movie is Earring Magic Ken, who has an even wilder
history that older viewers surely remember. Upon his release in 1993, many were quick to
identify that Earring Magic Ken's clothing was clearly inspired by the fashions popular in the
gay club scene at the time. As for the ring the doll wore around its neck, let's just say that
in addition to "Gay Ken," Earring Magic Ken was also sometimes referred to as "C--- Ring Ken."