Many people were perplexed by Ryan Gosling’s evangelization of Kenergy in the weeks leading up to the release of “Barbie,” but once you’ve seen the film, it all becomes clear. Kenergy means men acting the way women are expected to act under patriarchal systems in real life. It means serving your partner without questioning them. It means looking your best so you can be arm candy and make them look good by proxy. It means sacrificing your own sense of self to help them develop theirs. It means praising their accomplishments and minimizing your own. Of course, that’s not a very happy existence, but Kenergy also means never complaining about your station in life.
All these things are expected of women every day, and men with patriarchal expectations are often unaware of the imbalance in their relationships, let alone that they’ve relegated their partner to a status symbol. Moreover, women are simply expected to be okay with that arrangement. That’s a message “Barbie” drives home when Ken accompanies Barbie into the real world. Although he erroneously incorporates horses into his conception of patriarchy, he’s intoxicated by a world where he, rather than Barbie, gets to be the center of attention. Thrilled to bring his newfound ideology back to Barbieland, he becomes the film’s main antagonist. However, the matriarchal order of Barbieland is itself rejected by “Barbie.” Had Kenergy not been forced on Ken, he wouldn’t have developed the resentments that led him to install a patriarchy.
And yet, Kenergy’s domination of the zeitgeist might be a good thing for our world. It means stepping away from male privilege and accepting that it’s okay to let women shine instead. In a fair world, though, we wouldn’t need Kenergy at all.
