“I’m Just Ken” might not have won an Oscar, but it did win the hearts and minds of the Oscars audience. Ryan Gosling performed the original song from the Barbie soundtrack in a bedazzled fuchsia suit at the awards ceremony on March 10, making his co-star and producer boss Margot Robbie giggle with the delight at the absurdity of the Broadway-inflected spectacle. Hiding his face behind a cowboy hat and sunnies, Gosling began the performance of Ken’s magnum opus from the audience, “Shallow”-style, before joining a hoard of dancers on the stage as the first contemplative piano notes rung through the Dolby Theatre. The production and costume design was all very Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend,” giving the number a classic musical feel. As the music crescendoed, the other Kens — Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, and Kingsley Ben-Adir — emerged, together with Slash, whose guitar solo explained exactly why he was spotted at the non-music event where he wasn’t a nominee. Massive cutouts of the original Barbie doll’s head floated. As Gosling returned to the audience to give Robbie, a slightly tone-challenged America Ferrera, director Greta Gerwig, and Emma Stone a moment to sing into the live mic, we could see the toothy grins of the titans of today’s film industry. Barbie might have been mostly ignored statue-wise, but no one could look away from this.
