Ryan Gosling Keeps Playing Ken: A Critical Comparison of “Only God Forgives” and “Barbie”
At first glance, Nicolas Winding Refn’s elliptical, blood-soaked Oedipal nightmare Only God Forgives and Barbie, Greta Gerwig’s brandname bubblegum feminist parable, have about as much in common as a fight club and a dance party. Apart from sharing an A-list movie star as two mononymic men (Julian and Ken, respectively) and a summer release separated by 10 years nearly to the day, the films occupy completely opposing poles within Ryan Gosling’s filmography and the cultural discourse at large. The box office receipts and critical reception speak for themselves. Refn’s second last feature to date was met with a tepid $10 million in theatres, boos at the Cannes Film Festival, and reviews dismissing the Danish director’s striking neon-lit aesthetic, which originally received praise and over $80 million globally in his previous Gosling-starring hit Drive, as a “middle-of-the-road trash-can of manufactured, polished, execration.” Compare this to Barbie, which Richard Brody for The New Yorker lauded as “Brilliant, Beautiful, and Fun as Hell.”
An Oscar contender boasting the first female director to pass a billion at the global box office, Gerwig’s fourth film as director led countless victory laps at the multiplex this summer as a sweet, vital refresher that jolted audiences from their multiversal superhero cinematic coma. Irrespective of Mattel’s shocking 45 films in pre-production, which they began to announce before we all yelled “Flat feet!”, Barbie stands tall as 2023’s sparkling oddity. Thinkpieced to death, many critics have celebrated and disparaged the feminist (anti-feminist to some) fantasy of life outside the patriarchy, portraying women gracefully holding the majority of the power and merit they are long overdue in government, science, literature, everything.
And then, of course, there’s all the Kens. Despite their wildly different energies, intended audiences, and public reception, both Refn’s Eastern-set Western and Gerwig’s half-set in “the country of California” fantasia critically examine male fragility and performative machismo by depicting emotionally immature men failing to live under patriarchal rule. By comparing each film, notable parallels form through Gosling’s performances and physique, and Julian/Ken’s narrative arcs.
Starting with surface similarities, both directors allude to the surrealist Chilean-French filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky — Refn in spirit and end credits, Gerwig in the set design’s visual splendour. As previously noted, they share a nearly identical release date 10 years apart (July 19, 2013 vs July 21, 2023) with Ryan Gosling starring as the wounded, desperate, highly performative male lead. Comparing Julian and Ken’s shortcomings and desires, we see two men in dire need of acceptance from their blonde matriarchs, Crystal and Stereotypical Barbie.
Looking closer at God, after justice is swiftly dealt onto Julian’s big brother Billy — who early on eagerly commits a reprehensible sex crime — their vengeful, manipulative mother Crystal embarks for the family’s adopted home of Bangkok to see to his burial and to balance the scales in favour of her first born. Why are they situated in Bangkok? Midway through, Crystal reveals Julian killed his father with his bare hands, potentially at her behest, and escaped to Thailand’s shadowy underbelly to run a boxing club with his brother as a front for their real job as drug dealers. Under his mother’s thumb, Julian is induced to avenge his brother by any means necessary, regardless of the sins that led to Billy’s murder, which are initially posed as an ethical challenge by Julian to his mother’s request.
In his performance, Gosling plays Julian as practically catatonic. His psyche shattered from decades of his mother’s abuse, he’s left empty, a subservient shell, a toy to be played with by his vindictive maternal figure. During the dinner scene between Julian, his mother and sex entertainer Mai, who is posing as his girlfriend, Crystal marks her territory by blatantly projecting that Julian was always jealous of the size of his brother’s penis, the archetypal symbol of masculine prowess and supremacy. Julian’s blank stare throughout the scene conveys an iceberg of repression, a mix of shame and obedience as he’s merely left to light his mother’s cigarette after his ongoing humiliation. In this scene, and presumably through much of his life, Julian only acts upon his mother’s command. Here, the hands, the central visual motif for Julian’s fragile masculinity and emasculation, are detached from his body via editing and cinematography, emphasizing his lack of bodily autonomy and her control over it. This visual motif is repeated across the entire film, as seen in a few examples below.
Though Julian’s face and body inhabit a separate frame from his mother, siloing his emotional state even further, his disembodied hand enters the frame to perform an act of servitude for Crystal. Repeatedly, Julian’s hands are cut by the frame, which underline not only this obliged detachment but foreshadow a symbolic, phallic sacrifice discussed below. Therein, Gosling’s performance and Julian’s anatomy embody dutiful submission to Crystal whose domineering ways reinforce stereotypical values on masculinity and male strength. Values that both uphold problematic patriarchal structures and prevent Julian from discovering his own sovereignty.
Sexually humiliated and not packing as much as his older brother, Julian’s hands become both weapons of mom’s destruction and phallic symbols tied to Freud’s castration complex. As Justin Vicari writes, “think of [the hands] as a first line of defense […] and as the repository of immense sexual guilt. The hand substitutes for the penis again and again in the film, and Julian’s nightmare is also his most fervent wish: to have it cut off” (196). Throughout, Julian’s hands refer to his total emasculation by his mother and the maternal denial of his virile masculinity. By his own will, he is unable to take much action without his mother’s command. For instance, in one scene, his hands are tied down so as to merely watch Mai’s autoeroticism, denying himself sexual control over a female — a stereotypical textbook example of male dominance. Later, Julian’s hands only take control in his imagination, such as, in the public entertainment room with Mai as he visualizes slowly reaching under her dress and then fighting the curious onlookers.
Interviewed shortly after its release, Refn stated “‘Only God Forgives’ is very much about a man who is chained to the womb of his mother.” His mother Crystal “was conceived as a nightmare hybrid of Donatella Versace and a Barbie doll.” How convenient. This Barbie is Karen, dressed in all pink with a casual ponytail, spitting vitriol as she asks for the manager at a hotel’s front desk. With stiff hands brought together, words are her weapon of choice, the venom constricting her son’s agency who uses his hands to light her cigarette, for instance, or to inflict violence at her command. With cycles of implied incest and psychological abuse comes Julian’s subordinate status and devastating life as a beta male within God’s exaggerated hypermasculine world. A life that can’t be fixed by acting tough.
With a Freudian/Oedipal pissing contest verbally staged by candlelight, Refn crystallizes his villain’s misogynistic worldview — the man who shoots first, the man who’s strongest, the man who’s the most well-endowed wins. Certainly, Refn’s subversion of having a maternal figure as his mouthpiece twists the psychoanalytic narrative enough to completely obviate nuance from the screenplay. Regardless, that Gosling’s cypher is so bottled up and wordless clearly suggests Julian’s tough exterior as performative, constructed and confined by the hegemonic powers of patriarchy inherited through his disturbing upbringing. Of course, this isn’t to discount or negate his character’s kept trauma as a major cause for his visible brooding. However, Refn and Gosling do make Julian’s distant poise a superficial stoic veneer where in a later fight scene with the police chief Chang, an actual figure of dominance and violent strength, Julian’s masculine physique and stiff upper lip do not equate to innate combat skills or rather, practical uses of his physique.
Previous to this fight, Julian stiffly poses in front of an outsized statue bearing Chang’s resemblance. Far from the film’s monolithic man, Julian can only pretend to wield his fists as weapons for his mother, never landing a single punch as Chang administers a brutal beating in front of Crystal and Mai. In looks, Julian appears macho. In reality, his silent, mysterious exterior barely masks ongoing traumas and mental fragility derived from a lifetime of submission under the phallic gun. Flattened by the fight’s end, his masculine mien casts no shadow under the figurative, hollow idol of Chang, the film’s ultimate force of masculine strength.
As mentioned by Vicari, Julian is haunted by images of Chang striking violent justice down upon obliging, bloodied hands, echoing a scene near the beginning where Chang chops off the sinful hands of the young woman’s father who killed Billy at the invitation of Chang himself. Here, Refn circles around motifs of suggestion, violent admission and moral cleansing all pointing to the hands. As noted by the director, Julian is chained to his mother. His hands (and the rest of his anatomy) remain her dominion by way of cyclical abuse and manipulation that weaponize patriarchal stereotypes of hypermasculinity. To break the chain, Julian realizes he must betray his mother. He kills a fellow hired gun in order to save Chang’s daughter — a violent but protective act. In return, at least symbolically, Chang frees Julian, first by killing Crystal, and then, in a lyrical coda surrounded by lush greenery, Chang fulfills Julian’s castration dream. Contrary to Crystal’s worldview that promotes patriarchal stereotypes as the way to succeed, it is by Julian’s repudiation of his masculinity, in offering his hands as sacrifice that he truly becomes the victor, or at least the freed slave. Unlike every other adult male, or alpha character like Crystal that’s within Chang’s line of sight, Julian does not meet a shocking, bloody end.
Vicari asserts, “Julian is a man who discovers his own soul in relation to the pain that he feels for and because of other people; he is made to learn that his ego is not sovereign but exists in reciprocal relations with other egos” (205). Over time, Julian’s masculine traits and behaviour arguably became a form of self-preservation, clearly leading to emotional isolation by preventing him from engaging in any conventional relationships with others, especially women. Only when Julian betrays his mother, refusing a form of patriarchal authority, does he reclaim his humanity, liberating the umbilical chain from the womb.
Now swap Julian for Ken. Bangkok for Barbieland. Under their matriarchal rule, Barbies lead through harmony, kindness, and, most pointedly, acknowledgment. A lengthy introduction finds countless Barbies cheerfully greeting each other, President Barbie encouraging her oval office to compliment an adjacent Barbie, and a Nobel Prize ceremony awarding Barbies for journalism and literature with each recipient playfully recognizing their achievements — “I work very hard. So, I deserve it.” Kens, on the other hand, live leisurely without much accomplishment or fanfare. Gosling’s Ken is introduced as “only [having] a great day if [Stereotypical] Barbie looks at him.” Indeed, Barbie and her acknowledgement is the sun with which Ken’s entire sense of self orbits. Similar to Julian, Ken is emotionally remote from others and himself due to his obsessive attachment to a blonde alpha, sharing a distracted, half-hearted greeting with Kingsley Ben-Adir’s Ken and exasperated hostility towards Simu Liu’s Ken.
Ken’s narrow existential axis chains him to Barbie, the same as Julian to Crystal, here in a high-key comedic manner, of course, but one of similar cataclysmic consequences for Ken and Barbieland itself once Gosling’s mandoll discovers patriarchy and hypermasculine iconography. Before this, however, Ken, like Julian, humiliates himself by attempting a feat of strength to impress his blonde alpha. Captured in parallel compositions, both men lie defeated in the foreground having failed to fulfill a pseudo-heroic promise hinted at by their muscular physique, as a dominant idol (the fighter statue resembling Chang and Barbie) looms in the background. Further extending his posturing machismo, Ken too engages in a ritualistic test of male dominance, threatening to “beachoff” rival Ken. From sordid sibling trauma to aped schoolyard taunting, Gosling’s men submit their egos to phallic-laden competitions of manhood.
Once in the real world, Barbie dismisses Ken, his leash loosened to not “go too far,” but unfortunately far Kenough to observe elevated, naturalized social patterns of patriarchal rule. First, Ken is acknowledged, next he notices male bonding, mimes dismissive hand gestures (more hands!) and lastly arrives at the monolith of man — a colossal flat screen projecting sports, beer, finance and 70s Stallone. Just as Julian does, Ken goes on to mimic his film’s larger-than-life almighty male. Returning home as a hippophilic zealot, his Rocky-esque minx coat adorned like ecclesiastical regalia, Ken indoctrinates all Barbies and Kens into the cult of patriarchy. Barbieland and the male body become gendered battlegrounds with Ken’s clothes as a byproduct of a hypermasculine world thematically mirroring Julian’s hands. Two mannequins who use their bodies as tools to artificially perpetuate stereotypical masculine values such as, strength, composure and ruggedness, all for and under the gaze of their towering blonde Barbie dolls. Initially excited to share his discovery with Barbie, once she disapproves, Ken in turn uses his own accessories — his mojo dojo casa house, his sunglasses — to reject and dismiss Barbie. In contrast to Julian, by displacing Barbie and wearing toxic masculinity as figurative fashion, Ken imbues his clothes with a false sense of rebellion, believing the powers of patriarchy will unchain him from the womb.
Near the film’s end, as the Barbies succeed in their plot against the Kens and pass their constitutional safeguard, the two warring Kens are duped into battle and ballad with a climactic musical number revealing Ken’s insecurities and motivations for his misguided efforts. This integrated musical number doubles as a loving nod to Gerwig’s classical Hollywood inspirations and a thematically rich setup for Ken’s acceptance of himself and his Kenship with the ultimate goal of self-acknowledgement — “I’m just Ken (and I’m enough)” — the same love thyself tendency the Barbies exhibited at the film’s start. Here, Vicari’s take on Julian’s redemptive arc as “a man who discovers his own soul […] [and] is made to learn that his ego is not sovereign” almost exactly describes Ken’s revelation evidenced by the song’s lyrics and compositional elements with a united chorus of Kens proudly proclaiming selfdom. Stretching this even further, Chang, God’s ultimate totem of male dominance and force, ritualistically sings at a karaoke bar after enacting bloody dismemberment or murder. These performances might be a desperate attempt to reclaim a sense of order or peace within himself and others. Curiously, this is where Chang finds Julian — in a booth with Mai intently watching the film’s strongman crooning on stage. Both Julian and Ken gather around musical performance to trigger profound change, to break from their existential chains.
Rather than relying on a third party, Barbie finally appeals to Ken to “discover who Ken is” beyond “exist[ing] within the warmth of [her] gaze.” Once Barbie convinces Ken he is not what he owns or where he lives, Ken sheds his faux fur armor and gifts it to his closest Ken, akin to Julian offering his hands to another man. Detaching their literal and figurative symbols of patriarchy and stereotypical masculinity, Julian and Ken become free agents to discover a life apart from the oppressive demands and perpetual competition consistent within a hypermasculine state. A state erected in Barbieland that only further confined and distanced Ken from the object of his desire: that sweet acceptance and acknowledgement from his brandname queen. Ken, like Julian before him, must disavow his adopted patriarchal strictures in order to thrive as an individual, well beyond the restrictive and reductive gendered confines chaining him to masculine stereotypes. While Julian’s fragile masculinity is informed by his mother and her patriarchal beliefs, Ken believes patriarchy will lead to salvation, only to discover more infighting, competition and ego crisis.
Writing for MSNBC, Noor Noman likens Barbie’s critical treatment of patriarchy to the literature of bell hooks. Noman quotes hooks: “[T]he underlying message boys receive about sexual acts is that they will be destroyed if they are not in control, exercising power. […] To take the inherent positive sexuality of males and turn it into violence is the patriarchal crime that is perpetuated against the male body.” Phallic bullfighting among brothers, hands made for killing, a fur coat to cosplay Rocky. In Only God Forgives and Barbie, Ryan Gosling’s fragile, wounded men struggle with their masculinity when placed in the literal and figurative ring of patriarchy, forced to battle for dominion over an imposed claim to their manhood. In the end, Julian and Ken’s two towering overlords, Chang and Barbie, provide an escape from the pressures of performative masculinity, leading the men towards reconciling with their souls and bodies, and a future hopefully without fists, violence, isolation and horses.
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Vicari, Justin. Nicolas Winding Refn and the Violence of Art: A Critical Study of the Films. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2014.
In Canada, Only God Forgives is currently streaming on Netflix. Barbie is available on Crave and Amazon Prime.
