Barbie’s gay Ken Easter egg, explaed - Polygon

Contents:

• IS BARBIE GAY AND WHY IS THE NEW MOVIE RATED PG-13?
• NOLTE: WOKE LEFTISTS CELEBRATE HOW ‘GLORLY GAY’ THE ‘BARBIE’ MOVIE IS
• IS KEN GAY? EXPLORG RYAN GOSLG’S CHARACTER THE NEW BARBIE MOVIE

IS BARBIE GAY AND WHY IS THE NEW MOVIE RATED PG-13?

In the distant past of 1993, gay marriage wasn’t legal any state the untry. Sodomy laws all over Ameri attempted to outlaw gay sex by crimalizg any oral or anal erotic ntact.

And Dan Savage, a sex-advice lumnist then only known to rears of a few pennt alt-newspapers around the untry, was pable of makg breakout news wh a sndalo revelatn: Mattel’s latt Ken doll, part of the Earrg Magic le of Barbie toys, was openly moled on gay fashn. “For about a year every gay boy at a rave was wearg at least one, ” Savage wrote.

“What the ltle girls were seeg, and tellg Mattel was ol, wasn’t what their relatns were wearg — unls they had hip queer relativ — but the homoerotic fashns and imagery they were seeg on MTV, what they saw Madonna’s dancers wearg her ncerts and films and, as happens, what ACT UP/Queer Natn fags and dyk were wearg to mos and rav, ” Savage wrote. He’s Barbie’s gay bt iend.Dpe Mattel’s sistence that Barbie and Ken are a happy romantic relatnship, there’s plenty of speculatn about Ken’s sexualy.

NOLTE: WOKE LEFTISTS CELEBRATE HOW ‘GLORLY GAY’ THE ‘BARBIE’ MOVIE IS

The film won’t say , but a post-creds punchle about Ken’s handwrg, plete wh hearts and stars surroundg his name, tells what we need to know.The heavily implied nature of Ken’s gayns Toy Story 3 harkens back to Hollywood’s tradnal gay bt iend-type characters. In the Hays Co era, explic referenc to homosexualy weren’t allowed, so characters like Van Buren (Frankl Pangborn) 1937’s Easy Livg, Kip (David Wayne) 1949’s Adam’s Rib, or Addison (Gee Sanrs) 1950’s All About Eve stead were imbued wh effemate characteristics, offerg a glimpse outsi of heteronormativy whout explicly beg queer.None of the characters were the same—some were tty, others sweet.

But each of the gay bt iends was trsilly fed by their relatnships wh their straight iends.

IS KEN GAY? EXPLORG RYAN GOSLG’S CHARACTER THE NEW BARBIE MOVIE

Des later, 2010, the gay bt iend was all the rage; Teen Vogue even went so far as to proclaim the GBF as the summer’s mt-have accsory. But unlike the first half of the 20th century, today’s cema, the GBF is allowed to be openly gay. In movi like Mean Girls (2004), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Easy A (2010), No Strgs Attached (2011), and Isn’t It Romantic (2019), gay iends exist entirely the orb of their female iends.

“No one!” But Barbie do, and for Ken, that’s life-changg.There are plenty of reasons why the film wouldn’t outrightly state that Ken is homosexual. This versn of the doll had bleached blon hair, a purple leather vt (!), a pk-purple mh top (!!), and of urse, and earrg the “gay ear”. But that’s not all: Around Ken’s neck was somethg that any active participant of the queer scene the ’90s regnized stantly—a ck rg (!!!).The Earrg Magic Ken turned Barbie’s boyiend to an out-and-proud homosexual raver.

Mattel, of urse, vehemently nied any claims that Ken was gay, let alone that he had somethg as prepostero as a ck rg around his neck. As a rult, gay men bought the doll drov, and spe Mattel ultimately rellg the doll and wipg away any trace of Earrg Magic Ken, was near-impossible to see Ken as anythg but the glor homosexual he was born to be om then on. Though Mattel don’t seem to be willg to say Ken is actually gay, the Ken dolls of recent years seem to really lean to Ken’s queerns.