Gay barbie ken
A Short History of Barbie’s Earring Magic Ken and His Not-A-Cock-Ring Necklace
Photo: Yvonne Hemsey/Getty Images
Weird Barbie’s house in Barbie was dwelling to more than just the ragged-looking and splits-serving doll played by Kate McKinnon. We gather a slew of discontinued dolls there, including Video Girl Barbie, played by Mette Narrative, Growing Up Skipper (Hannah Khalique-Brown), and Earring Magic Ken (Tom Stourton) — basically a bunch of li’l freaks from the archives. Earring Magic Ken in particular has been the stuff of urban legend for decades, thanks to his totally-not-a-cock-ring necklace. Though his most famous accessory is nowhere to be found in the Barbie movie (instead, this Ken wears a “Barbie” nameplate necklace), it’s worth looking help at the surprise controversy that greeted Mattel’s most rave-ready doll in the early ’90s.
Earring Magic Ken was, of course, created as an accessory to Earring Magic Barbie. It was the year , and this modern Ken tried to make things feel modern. He wore a lavender mesh shirt, a purple pleather vest, baggy jeans, and black loafers
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 innate queerness will proceed, too. As a kid, I recall wanting to be Barbie's best lgbtq+ friend - I imagined we'd include some pretty amusing sleepovers in her Dreamhouse. I also imagined some cute 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 earth from their Ken-ruling counterparts. As a gay boy led into gay adulthood by strong women, I am on board with all that girl might in Gerwig's "Barbie."
I also appreciate that the film, starring Margot Robbie as the leading Barbie and Ryan Gosling as the principal Ken, is packed 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
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 Overdue on a Wednesday bedtime – and reactions haves been mixed. Lots of people said that, at 42, Gosling is simply too old to engage Ken, while others lambasted this as ageist; writing in The Independent, Victoria Richards argued, “It’s moment 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 trendy among gay men.
The most striking exam
How Barbie's Boyfriend Ken Became an Accidental Gay Icon
"He's always read gay," said Dan Savage, internationally famous 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 , when much of the pop customs 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 planet 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 queer 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 curre