Writing Analysis
“Ken is Me!” — Why Even My Dad Liked “Barbie”
For someone who gave up his dream of becoming a singer to become an engineer, it wasn’t lost on my Dad that Ryan Gosling sang. “He’s so smooth in La La Land, but here he’s rugged,” he practically tittered. My dad gave Gosling’s abs an A+, too. I wasn’t sure if he understood that Gosling’s Matchbox-20 cover was an over-husked parody, or that the fur-coat-on-bare-torso look was supposed to be ironic.
This is the gift of Greta Gerwig and team: they caricatured masculinity while glamorizing it at the same time.
This glamorization-via-caricature was evident in how the movie treated the concepts of stereotypical Barbie and femininity. The former is an ideal to aspire to as well as an unrealistic, unhealthy standard. The latter is empowering (Women can do it all!) while suffocating (Do we have to do it all?).
As a woman, it’s a struggle all-too-familiar, as evidenced in a long history of cinema that explores this feminine conflict. Legally Blonde is, to this day, the best feminist movie. Elle Woods didn’t have to suppress or forego her femininity; she just had to read law books and get some practice. She won not by turning down her bubblegum-pink personality but by integrating it.
Mean Girls explores the dark, ruthless side of femininity. So does Devil Wears Prada. Both movies end up with their protagonists emerging from the depths of the feminine underworld as a more complete individual. Andy returns to her “serious journalism” roots with a sense of fashion that actually fits her, and Cadie reaches senior year enemy-free and a mathletes hero. They’re not as feminine as they were in the depths of girl-hell, but they’re more feminine than where they started off.
These movies are able to pull off this scathing critique-culminating-in-hope because they’re farcical. Satire. Comedy. With any less humor, their social commentary might seem portentous. With a tad more, their parodies would become too self-effacing.
What is the male equivalent?
Movies that glorify masculinity while critiquing it evoke The Godfather, Breaking Bad, and Fight Club. All were (somewhat) intended to warn against the dark side of masculinity — but they might have done the opposite. Maybe Brad Pitt’s Brian was too sexy, Bryan Cranston’s Walter White too badass, and Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone too charismatic. Maybe the target audience was too wishful in their thinking. In any case, it’s undeniable that a large plurality of men, particularly young men, see these horrific figures as aspirational role models.
Consider the flipside: movies that critique masculinity with humor. We have the bumbling father archetype (Simpsons, Everybody Loves Raymond, Family Guy, Modern Family). We have the obnoxious bro archetype (Channinig Tatum in 21st Jumpstreet, the American in Ronny Chieng’s International Student). The fact that examples become a bit more esoteric is a sign that there just aren’t a lot of these type of parody characters. There’s the “relatable superhero” we see with the dad-bodification of Thor, or the dancing-to-the-80s StarLord.
Ryan Gosling just… does it better.
It probably helps that he wore a suit vest and tie pretty much all throughout La La Land. (I don’t know if my dad saw the high collar trench coat in Blade Runner 2049, or the pick-up-artist swag in Crazy, Stupid, Love, but they serve the same effect.) This history gives Ryan Gosling the man, the actor, a certain image. That smooth gentleman image serves as a backdrop to Ken, who gallops around in a giant fur coat and a headband reminiscent of 80s rockers and also ninjas.
In his dance-off with Simu Liu’s Ken, Gosling dons a black t-shirt and slacks that are so form-fitting they almost seem ironic. My dad only noticed the similarities to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” music video (we had been rewatching MJ performances over dinner). He geeked out over how Gosling can dance, too.
Ryan Gosling is a metrosexual that inspires both men and women.
It was a relief because about halfway through the movie, I was worried. My mom and I got the obvious jabs at the patriarchy. Was it a step too far for my conservative Korean dad from a bygone era? I wasn’t sure. This was the same man who raised me and my brother with stern lectures on gender roles. But he also hopped on a plane to walk me down the aisle to another woman.
[Feminist] movies are able to pull off this scathing critique-culminating-in-hope because they’re farcical. Satire. Comedy…What is the male equivalent?
My dad had been so excited to watch the movie on his last day in America, saying that he hadn’t been to a theater in years. He wanted to be up-to-speed given all the buzz. He packed early so that we could have one last family event.
Not long into the bubblegum-pink world of Barbieland, he fell silent, leaning against his hand. I couldn’t tell if he was pushing a fist into his mouth, struggling to keep up with the jokes, or just bored.
But as he left the theater, my dad was all smiles. “Ken is me!”
I liked how Barbie apologized to Ken for taking him for granted. As others have noted, it’s unfair that Ken doesn’t take the same level of accountability for terrorizing Barbie’s world due to rejection-driven resentment. At the same time, I thought Barbie’s apology was well-done because so many men need to hear it, according to the signs (increased school drop-out and suicide rates, for example). With women increasingly independent, financially and otherwise, is it any wonder so many men feel threatened enough to revert to hyper-masculinized roles as protectors and providers, the way Ken did? The movie lets Ken know that he is forgiven, loved, and appreciated.
I’m seeing a lot of buzz on Instagram and Buzzfeed: men — Ken’s — are expressing self-love. They’re wearing hand-made shirts with “I am Kenough” scrawled across them. In a now-deleted Reddit post, a man confessed he broke up with his girlfriend after the movie helped him realize he really is enough without her. No hard feelings. They just grew apart, and thanks to Gosling’s speech, he was less scared to lose her and the identity he built around her.
I was — and still am — so ecstatic for a fun, feminine movie that’s good. As much as I want to support representation, and as awful as I find this, “Go woke, go broke” taunt, I have to admit, I’ve found myself staring at a screen more than a few times wondering how the hell something got produced. In the publishing industry, a friend of a friend spilled the beans that, in their haste to correct for historic biases, publishers were sometimes rushing publication of books by writers of color. Without the same level of editing and support, would it be any wonder if the quality of those books didn’t live up to the quality of books that came before them, namely those written by White authors? I don’t have the same “in” to Hollywood, but I can think of more than a few shows and movies that seriously disappointed me when I was so excited for the diverse representation they had promised.
As laughable as this might sound, I found myself melting with relief as the Barbie movie progressed. This wasn’t the woke pile of garbage some pundits had been touting it to be. And it didn’t feel man-hatey — because it was obviously all jokes in good fun, ribbing at genuine concerns regarding how women are undervalued and underestimated in our world.
At the same time, I couldn’t help but think of my dad. I understand it’s ironic that I, a woman, was there to enjoy a movie about women and yet couldn’t help but worry if the movie was hurting my dad’s feelings. I didn’t want him to regret spending the last couple hours with his daughter at the movies before jumping on a 20-hour flight (including a layover).
But I underestimated Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie. As promised in the trailer, they made the movie for lovers and haters of Barbie, and by extension for both men and women, for Ken and Barbie. And they did it by making the movie fun and stylish.
In Aesop’s fables, there’s a story about how the elements of nature compete to make a man take off his coat. Wind blows, and blows harder when the man clutches his jacket closer. Rain pours, and pours harder when the man does the same. But sun just shines, and the man ends up taking off his jacket willingly.
Gerwig and Robbie delivered the most feminist movie of the year — in the original sense of the word, caring for both women and men — through sunshine.
