Barbie: What Is Ryan Gosling's 'Kenergy' - And How Can You Get Some?
We have officially entered the Ken era of Ryan Gosling's career. The "Blade Runner 2049" star has long been hailed as one of the greatest actors of his generation, but no one knew just how much deeper into a role he could dive until he took on the plastic persona of Barbie's boy accessory, Ken, in Greta Gerwig's massively successful "Barbie."
Gosling has even partially upstaged Margot Robbie, who plays the titular Barbie. Yes, everyone agrees Robbie is perfect as the iconic doll, but Ken dominates discussions of the film. Gosling fully embodied his character, even giving interviews as Ken, and people can't seem to get enough. We've already lost count of the Ken-themed think pieces popping up. But what is it about Gosling's performance as Ken that so resonates with people? Is it that he's gone full himbo? Are his ludicrously bright, neon outfits simply irresistible to the human eye? Or is it simply that Gosling's long-underappreciated comedic talents have finally been brought into the limelight?
According to Gosling himself, the secret is something called "Kenergy," which he describes as a sort of aimless lifestyle. "Ken's got no money, he's got no job, he's got no car, he's got no house," Gosling told Entertainment Weekly. "He's going through some stuff." And yet, that pitiful explanation feels totally out of alignment with the image Gosling projects as Ken. So what precisely is Kenergy, and how can you add some of it to your own life? Let's examine both the movie and Gosling's own statements to see what we can learn.
Kenergy means being there for Barbie
One useful way to define Kenergy is to examine the text of "Barbie" and Ken's character arc therein. Ken's job in Barbieland is beach. Just beach. He beaches with other Kens and beaches them off when things get confrontational. Mostly, though, he's focused on Barbie, who sees him as nothing more than an accessory like her Dream House or drop-top Corvette. In the flipped gender hierarchy of Barbieland, Ken becomes what many women in real life, unfortunately, are to the men they date: an object.
And yet, this objectification — this minimization of the self — isn't what bothers Ken. Rather, he laments that Barbie ignores his attempts to worship her. But he masks that pain with a veneer of enthusiasm, the sort of personality that might be termed "golden retriever boyfriend energy" by kids on TikTok. "Dark [sunglasses] are great because they can hide your sadness," Gosling told GQ. "You never want to risk bumming Barbie out. That's also why you have a second pair, matte or mirrored. So you can reflect Barbie's greatness."
So is Kenergy about loyally, albeit slavishly, worshipping your partner and wearing multiple pairs of shades? That's certainly part of it, but Ken's clinginess isn't what makes him so endearing.
Kenergy is about knowing you are Kenough
Harnessing the immense power of Kenergy is a lot like quantum physics in that the more you understand Kenergy, the less Kenergy you have. According to Ryan Gosling, Kenergy is about accepting your own simplicity. He told GQ, "Ken's No. 1 personality trait is just to look interested in things. Not be interesting — don't make that mistake." So, what is a Ken to do in lieu of developing an actual personality? Accessorize, obviously! "If you can't define yourself by your thoughts or experience or accomplishments, a faux mink can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you," Gosling said. "You don't need any of that because you're the Ken in the faux mink."
In other words, the secret to Kenergy is to look good while doing very little. It is to suggest a personality by way of your appearance without actually developing one. Moreover, you need to be fine with that lack of agency. You are there to be seen, not heard.
Look, Kenergy is ultimately about looking good even if you feel bad, and perhaps that's the point. It's a mindset you adapt to fit your own circumstances, an earnestness and self-acceptance, profound in its simplicity. But there's a deeper message behind the concept of Kenergy, a painful truth that "Barbie" renders with such clarity that Gosling's Ken led to anti-"Barbie" backlash in real life.
What Kenergy really means in Barbie
Many people were perplexed by Ryan Gosling's evangelization of Kenergy in the weeks leading up to the release of "Barbie," but once you've seen the film, it all becomes clear. Kenergy means men acting the way women are expected to act under patriarchal systems in real life. It means serving your partner without questioning them. It means looking your best so you can be arm candy and make them look good by proxy. It means sacrificing your own sense of self to help them develop theirs. It means praising their accomplishments and minimizing your own. Of course, that's not a very happy existence, but Kenergy also means never complaining about your station in life.
All these things are expected of women every day, and men with patriarchal expectations are often unaware of the imbalance in their relationships, let alone that they've relegated their partner to a status symbol. Moreover, women are simply expected to be okay with that arrangement. That's a message "Barbie" drives home when Ken accompanies Barbie into the real world. Although he erroneously incorporates horses into his conception of patriarchy, he's intoxicated by a world where he, rather than Barbie, gets to be the center of attention. Thrilled to bring his newfound ideology back to Barbieland, he becomes the film's main antagonist. However, the matriarchal order of Barbieland is itself rejected by "Barbie." Had Kenergy not been forced on Ken, he wouldn't have developed the resentments that led him to install a patriarchy.
And yet, Kenergy's domination of the zeitgeist might be a good thing for our world. It means stepping away from male privilege and accepting that it's okay to let women shine instead. In a fair world, though, we wouldn't need Kenergy at all.