Barbie ken gay

Let's face it: "Barbie" was going to be gay. Maybe not gay enough, according to some gays. Maybe too gay, according to anti-gays.

The fact is, this is a movie about Barbie, and wherever Barbie goes, some inherent queerness will go, too. As a kid, I remember wanting to be Barbie's best gay confidant - I imagined we'd have some pretty enjoyable sleepovers in her Dreamhouse. I also imagined some pretty fun sleepovers with Ken.

So now that "Barbie" is a splashy, pink-soaked blockbuster, director Greta Gerwig serves up a feminist fantasia in which a diverse group of Barbies, including several played by LGBTQ+ actors, reclaim their world from their Ken-ruling counterparts. As a gay boy led into gay adulthood by strong women, I am on board with all that miss power in Gerwig's "Barbie."

I also appreciate that the film, starring Margot Robbie as the leading Barbie and Ryan Gosling as the leading Ken, is full of queer subtext that has sent right-wingers into a anti-queer meltdown because, god forbid, dolls should be for everyone. Fox News reported that a Christian news site "warns" that the fil

OPINION: Can the Barbie movie finally give us the gay Ken we deserve?

* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.

From Earring Magic Ken to his seal “buddy” Allan, there’s no doubt Barbie’s counterpart is an LGBTQ+ icon

Jess Sims is a freelance health, culture and fashion journalist based in New York whose work has appeared in InStyle and Harper's Bazaar, among others.

Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie has been one of the most anticipated films in recent memory. In the campy pink, plastic bonanza, it looks like the world’s favourite plastic teen model, played by Margot Robbie, will finally face mankind’s most relatable rite of passage: Existential dread.

But what about Ken? The film’s trailers portray the chemistry between Barbie and Ryan Gosling’s Ken as more friendly than romantic.

Could it be the LGBTQ+ community are finally about to get the gay Ken we deserve?

“Born” on March 11, 1961, new doll Kenneth Sean “Ken” Carson was closely aligned with the Rock Huds

How Barbie's Boyfriend Ken Became an Accidental Gay Icon

"He's always read gay," said Dan Savage, internationally renowned columnist and podcaster, in an email, "but has he ever read gayer than he did with a gay sex toy around his neck?"

Savage originally wrote about Earring Magic Ken in the summer of 1993, when much of the pop culture world was having a good laugh at Mattel's lack of understanding that while little kids saw what Prince, the members of Right Said Fred or Madonna's backup dancers were wearing simply as "cool," the adult world was clued in to how gay it was.

"It was hilarious that they thought the earring was going to be the headline-making aspect of Ken's new look," said Savage.

The doll flew off the shelves, especially since gay men, including Savage, rushed out to buy a Ken doll. The kitsch factor drove Earring Magic Ken to become the best-selling Ken doll at the time.

We reached out to Mattel for comment multiple times — to find out just how well the doll sold and whether it remains the No. 1 Ken, as well as for the c

Ken has always been gay

Yesterday, Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie film set the internet ablaze by releasing the first promotional still of Ken, played by Ryan Gosling. With his peroxide blonde hair, orange spray tan and washboard abs, he looks like some ageing twink that you’d see at G-A-Y Adv on a Wednesday darkness – and reactions haves been mixed. Lots of people said that, at 42, Gosling is simply too old to perform Ken, while others lambasted this as ageist; writing in The Independent, Victoria Richards argued, “It’s occasion to do away with ageism and recognise that you don’t have to be below 25 to be beautiful.”

Already, the image has inspired scores of memes based on the simple premise that Ken looks, well, kind of gay. This is nothing new. The doll has a long history as a gay symbol, which stands to reason: minus a handle-bar moustache, he embodies the kind of beauty ideals that in the 70s and 80s would find you atop the sexual hierarchy of Fire Island. He is also, of course, extremely kitsch – a vibe which has always been accepted among gay men.

The most striking exam