Barbie’s gay Ken Easter egg, explaed - Polygon

Contents:

• KEN HAS ALWAYS BEEN BARBIE’S GAY BT FRIEND—NOT HER BOYIEND
• A SECRET GAY HISTORY OF UK PNAGE: ‘THE SKILL-SET OF HOMOSEXUALS AND SPI OVERLAPPED’
• OUT GAY PRO WRTLER AC MACK LEAV THE RG AS AN SPIRATN
• JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US-BASED PRO LEAGU
• ‘IT’S MY FLORIDA TOO’: PULSE SHOOTG SURVIVOR BRANDON WOLF ON BEG BLACK, GAY AND THE ANTI-RON DESANTIS
• GAY FURRY HACKERS ARE TARGETG US STAT FOR PASSG ANTI-TRANS LEGISLATN

KEN HAS ALWAYS BEEN BARBIE’S GAY BT FRIEND—NOT HER BOYIEND

He’s Barbie’s gay bt iend. 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 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 of the characters were the same—some were tty, others sweet.

A SECRET GAY HISTORY OF UK PNAGE: ‘THE SKILL-SET OF HOMOSEXUALS AND SPI OVERLAPPED’

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

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.

” But Barbie do, and for Ken, that’s are plenty of reasons why the film wouldn’t outrightly state that Ken is homosexual.

OUT GAY PRO WRTLER AC MACK LEAV THE RG AS AN SPIRATN

), and of urse, and earrg the “gay ear”. ) 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. While there is no way to “drs gay, ” there are several dolls that seem to suggt otherwise, such as:Fashnista Ken #193, who looks very exced to tell you about his new obssn, Troye Sivan;Travel Ken Doll, who has a satchel perfect for bathho and a purple overnight bag that lerally proclaims he’s “extra;”Ken Looks Doll, servg “I’m gonna give you a makeover”-type realns while sportg black pleather pants;This Ken, who wears the least heterosexual double nim I have a feelg the new Barbie movie will put the work to nvce that Ken is a hetero du who lov nothg life more than Barbie herself, the wrg’s already on the wall: Ken is, and always will be, Barbie’s gay bt obssg! Sce 2019 the wrer, artist and historian Huw Lemmey has curated and prented a cheeky alt-LGBTQ history wh the podst Bad Gays.

JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US-BASED PRO LEAGU

The seri, which last year was distilled to the thrillg book Bad Gays: A Homosexual History, apprais a sometim roguish gallery that clus the Roman emperor Hadrian, Lawrence of Arabia, Lord Castlereagh, Morrissey, Roger Casement, Freddie Mercury and Francis date, Lemmey and his -prenter Ben Miller are the only historians to properly evaluate the “evil twk energy” of Bosie, aka Lord Aled Douglas, the thor of Osr Wil’s downfall.

“The fil started to e out my teens, and to see that English relatnship wh sexualy om 20 years ago, and this sire to look for a figure who rencil the story of homosexual inty England to the Brish state such a way that acknowledg what the Brish state did to a certa extent – but then also valoris the Brish state by sayg he was a hero for Bra and this is how we treated him and, actually, now he’s on the £50 note.

‘IT’S MY FLORIDA TOO’: PULSE SHOOTG SURVIVOR BRANDON WOLF ON BEG BLACK, GAY AND THE ANTI-RON DESANTIS

Ungentle, which he has directed wh Onyeka Igwe, explor the plited relatnship between Brish pnage and male homosexualy. As Lemmey has noted Utopian Drivel, “the skill-set of homosexuals and spi mid-20th-century Bra had a signifint gree of overlap” Whishaw. Of the known members – Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgs, Anthony Blunt, John Cairncross – Burgs and Blunt were gay, while Maclean was bisexual.

“So was an tertg realisatn for me that my grandparents, who I thought of as an olr, nservative generatn, had a lot of gay male iends the 1940s. ”FBI director J Edgar Hoover, who was himself moured to be gay, directed the agency to vtigate and monor numero gays workg wh the ernmentThat tolerance is amplified by transatlantic parisons.

In 1953 US print Dwight D Eisenhower signed executive orr 10450, iatg the vtigatn, terrogatn and systematic removal of gay men and lbians om the US feral ernment. The policy, which beme known as the Lavenr Sre, was predited on the fear that gay men and lbians “posed a threat to natnal secury bee they were vulnerable to blackmail. FBI director J Edgar Hoover, who was himself moured to be gay, directed the agency to vtigate and monor numero gays workg wh the ernment.

GAY FURRY HACKERS ARE TARGETG US STAT FOR PASSG ANTI-TRANS LEGISLATN

“The relatnship between secury servic and homosexualy the UK is unique, ” Lemmey says, “bee the US was que clear: the people are perverts; get them out. One of the early gay-rights groups wrote to every ernment partment askg if they would sack someone for beg gay.

So the first rponse was: of urse if we found a homosexual the foreign-office they would be expelled. And, fally, a higher-up asks: are we discsg people who are homosexual now or at school?