No one was extra stunned than Ryan Gosling when “I’m Just Ken” — the long-lasting energy ballad from Barbie (2023) that has over 100 million streams on Spotify— gained the Critics Choice Award for Best Song two months in the past. The actor’s incredulous expression (“Kenfused”, as a YouTube commenter put it) when the award was introduced went viral on the web, elevating the expectations surrounding the tune’s stay efficiency on Oscars evening. Well, reader, we awakened at 4am to look at the present stay and we will verify that in a night with few excessive factors, the sheer Kenergy of seeing Ryan Gosling and his platoon of Kens on stage was a delight. “I’m Just Ken” could have misplaced the Oscar for Best Original Song to fellow Barbie nominee “What Was I Made For?” (by Billie Eilish), however it undoubtedly gained everybody’s hearts.
Can You Feel the Kenergy?
For a tune with delightfully unserious lyrics like “Is it my destiny to live and die a life of blond fragility?” and “Am I not hot when I’m in my feelings?”, “I’m Just Ken” has resonated considerably with audiences, and Gosling himself. Written and produced by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, the tune paints Ken as a tragic hero, crooning about his pent-up frustration at all the time being “number two”, and lamenting over his unrequited emotions for Barbie (“Where I see love, she sees a friend”). When director Greta Gerwig first performed the tune to Gosling, the actor mentioned he may relate to Ken’s pathos and expressed his need to sing the tune himself. In the movie, “I’m Just Ken” is an prolonged sequence through which Gosling’s Ken leads an absurd, slow-mo battle in opposition to Simu Liu’s Ken as they vie for the eye of the Barbies.
