Pretty much throughout his entire existence, Ken has been a supplementary piece to Barbie’s main character energy. Well, in “Just Ken,” the latest drop from the Barbie movie soundtrack, Ryan Gosling proves that men with hot, washboard abs and bleach-blond hair are more than a mere accessory.
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Unlike Barbie’s pink corvette or Barbie dream house, this Ken has feelings, and he isn’t holding them back. “I just don’t know who I am without you,” Gosling’s Ken says in the music video above. After Margot Robbie’s Barbie responds, “You’re Ken,” our muscular protagonist refutes her. “But it’s Barbie and Ken; there is no just Ken,” he retorts. As a melancholy classic-rock piano intro swoops in, Ken sings about his struggles with always being second to the iconic Barbie.
“Doesn’t seem to matter what I do / I’m always No. 2,” Ken sings. “ I have feelings that I can’t explain / They’re drivin’ me insane.” All while the visual supplies a montage of him playing second fiddle, riding in the backseat of the tandem bike, his affections being ignored, and over all just struggling in Barbie’s world.
And, despite assistance from Slash and a legion of Kens rallying around him, Ken (mind you, bare-chested beneath a fur coat), remains manic nonetheless. “Is it my destiny to live and die a life of blond fragility?” he asks as the instruments come in with a roar.
It’s giving giant 80s power ballad mixed with existential crisis Kenergy and we’re absolutely here for it.
By the end of the song, though he still hasn’t figured out how to get Barbie to see it, Ken knows that he’s enough as he is. Singing, “I’m just Ken and I’m enough / And I’m great at doing stuff.” Stuff like singing this song, and of course his job, which we recently learned is not surfer, or lifeguard, but actually just beach.
Good for you Ken, love this for you.
Listen to “Just Ken” below.
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