Ryan Gosling was joined by a plethora of Kens (including Barbie co-stars) to sing “I’m Just Ken” as part of the Best Song celebration at the Academy Awards. And boy, it was just as outrageous and wonderful as I hoped it would be! They even had Slash playing guitar!
Ultimately, the song lost the award to Billie Eilish’s Barbie ballad, “What Was I Made For”. Still, seeing Gosling start the performance by laughing as he is singing at the Oscars truly set the tone. He brought in celebrities, danced with friends, and even took the cameraman’s hand and led him onto the stage. Truly, I have never seen anything more perfect.
The beauty of “I’m Just Ken” in the movie was how seriously Ken (Gosling) took it. Since the film’s release, Gosling has committed completely to several performances of the song. From a Christmas version to the Oscars, Gosling’s Kenergy has been a blast to watch.
Joined by Kingsley Ben-Adir, Simu Liu, Scott Evans, and Ncuti Gatwa, Barbie fans watched as the man anthem (manthem?) came to life. It was chaotic, it was goofy, it was Ken all the way through.
I hope that studio heads take the right message from this performance, which is that Ryan Gosling has always been hilarious. When you let him lean into his comedy, you strike gold. Of course, Gosling is a gifted dramatic actor, as we’ve seen in films like Drive, The Notebook, and La La Land. But give this man more comedies! His next film, The Fall Guy, looks like it will capitalize on his comedic skills.
Now, we will always have Gosling making everyone laugh on his way to the stage and reuniting with Emma Stone as he sang “I’m just Ken and so am I.”
(featured image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
