Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty/Warner Bros.
Despite all the ways the film pokes fun at the male Mattel doll’s supposed unimportance, the star of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, by all accounts, seems to be Ken. Or maybe, more accurately, it’s Ryan Gosling, who the internet has rediscovered their affinity—and namely, horniness—for after his five-year break from movies. (We don’t acknowledge The Gray Man.)
Thanks to several musical sequences in Barbie, including an ’80s-style power ballad called “I’m Just Ken” and a hysterical rendition of Matchbox Twenty’s “Push,” fans of the Canadian heartthrob get to fall in love with his musical talents all over again too. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime role that feels decades in the making, given all the ways singing (and even dancing) has been woven throughout his career.
[Light spoilers for Barbie follow.]