“I’m Just Ken” scene may be the most bizarre movie scene ever

Ryan Goaling.

I’m trying to laugh or smile watching that…but it’s not happening. I actually found myself reminiscing for Footloose or even Xanadu or —good lord— even a Mitzi Gaynor TV special.

I loved it

I thought it was too much like an SNL/Lonely Island parody.

R2 I think that is the vibe Gerwig wanted with this random scene.

R4 I agree but I think it’s intentional.

I do like the song on its own though. It’s fun with 80s KEnergy

OP the scene is very WTF. Some people love it though and others are more like “huh?” About it. It’s bizarre, as you stated, and comes out of nowhere.

Gosling is adorable.

He ate my ass out while his mother watched and cried. I came buckets.

R8 wtf

I just saw the movie, and I'm glad I'm not the only one.

I was surprised as well how much I enjoyed it, but the Ken scene/battle was just completely out of left field. I didn't hate it, but I was very much "WTF is this?"

It’s a good song lowkey

Isn't the point that Ken and his buddies are gay? And flamboyantly so.

They aren’t gay. They love Barbie. Literally.

They must have plans to turn this into a neverending B'way musical.

I’d see it as a musical

I would love a Barbie Musical

if you haven't seen the movie, you'd assume the Kens are gay. Gay subtext. Doesn't matter what the storyline is. What does John Waters say?

The joke is Ken reads as gay but isn’t. That’s always been a joke, going back decades. Ken is Barbies boyfriend who is all about clothes and his appearance etc. he’s a gay man who is attracted to women, essentially. Toy Story 3 made that into a joke also.

But he himself is not gay as his love is Barbie.

R12 no that’s not the point. The Kens, and the Barbies, are pointedly not sexual in any way shape or form. We’re you dozing through the first half of the movie?

R19 they aren’t sexual but Ken is designed to be in love with Barbie. He longs for Barbie but she doesn’t for him because he was made as an accessory for her, not the other way around.

He’s not designed to be in love with her. He is an accessory, yes—but as a blank slate for whatever the girl playing with Barbie wants him to be (or not to be)..

The Barbies are all based on various actual or possible iterations of how Barbie is played with or featured. The Kens are not.

R21 no. He’s designed to be in love with her. Barbie is just Barbie. Ken was created as Barbies boyfriend. Literally. That’s why he’s hung up on it. That’s the whole point of “I’m Just Ken”. There is just Barbie, but there isn’t just Ken. It’s Barbie and Ken or just Barbie. Ken is nothing without Barbie.

R21 read the words on the original Ken’s box. He was just Barbie’s boyfriend from his inception in 1961. He’s nothing more or less. Just her boyfriend.

In the film boyfriend is not the same as boy in love.

[quote]Barbies boyfriend who is all about clothes and his appearance etc. he’s a gay man who is attracted to women, essentially.

If only we were as selfless and non-materialistic like all straight men are.

I haven't seen the movie and will not see it until it's streaming. Taken by itself, this sequence celebrates flamboyant gay males. You can place any narrative frame on this you like but that's what the sequence says-men play fight and have make-up cuddling.

And you would be, and are, wrong. Thanks for playing. Your parting gift is a re-issued Allan doll.

My prediction: Barbie! The Musical will open on Broadway in two to three years' time. It will open with a 6-minute version of "Pink" interspersed with narration and expository dialogue. There will be an unfunny song about cellulite. There will be a lame subplot about Allan being in love with Ken. "I'm Just Ken" will be extended to eight minutes, sparking a standing ovation from the plants in the audience.

It will receive mixed reviews. A few years later, Mattel will release a film adaptation, which will bomb at the box office.

R24 but he is in love. His whole purpose is being her boyfriend. Did you watch the movie???

These dolls exist because someone is playing with them. Ken is a little girls idea of what a boyfriend is.

R30 what don’t you get? Ken is her boyfriend since creation. He was created by Mattel to be her boyfriend. That’s his sole purpose. That’s why the living version of him is obsessed with having Barbies love and affection. The narrator even says Ken only had a good day if Barbie acknowledges him.

What you’re seeing in the movie isn’t little girls playing with dolls.

Apostrophe.

Truly bizarre.

I'm not the audience for this movie. It looks ridiculous.

If you looked at the film clip without knowing anything about it, you'd assume it was playfighting and making up, man-on-man action. Why is there so much resistance to this on a gay forum? The whole idea of subtext is that stories encode messages that may contradict and subvert their announced purpose. Ken may love Barbie but none of that is apparent in this excerpt. It's pure gay camp.

Which raises the question: Who are the Barbie cheerleaders who have camped out on Datalounge and who have so much trouble with a gay subtext? We know they're shills. Turns out they're straight shills.

Please don't respond with more Barbie heterodoxy about Ken loving Barbie. That's nowhere visible in this film excerpt.

Barbie is a gay classic.

Who is the big dick daddy Ken in the yellow shorts that shows up ar:17 in the video??

All Kens in the Barbie movie must have shave their armpits. They have no pubes (or genitals), so that's fine. But the armpit hair has to go.