The song’s also been a constant in other popular culture as shorthand for a powerful moment of emoting. It got a shout out from a drunk Jim and Andy in The Office (US) – and who here hasn’t felt something encroaching a spiritual awakening from a couple of glasses of wine, only for it to recede again with the rest of the bottle? – and it’s had previous form as the perfect road-trippin’ tune, as Ali, Sarah and Maura from Transparent sing along to it on the way to a festival; like Barbie, it’s a song of empowerment, and to pump them up for whatever may lie on the road ahead of them. Wang, Jessica (July 19, 2023). "Wolfgang Van Halen and Josh Freese also bring Kenergy to Barbie Land". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved October 14, 2023. IFPI" (in Czech). Hitparáda – Digital Top 100 Oficiální. IFPI Czech Republic. Note: Change the chart to CZ – SINGLES DIGITAL – TOP 100 and insert 202332 into search. Retrieved August 14, 2023.

This song is so good, I want to play my guitar at a woman on the beach with this while staring uncomfortably into her eyes for 4 minutes,” is just one of the many new comments on the YouTube video of this song, which has soared with plays over the weekend, taking it up to 106 million views. He added: “And there is an unspoken Ken code that if you buy another Ken’s style, you have to give them your most prized possession. So, I hope you will accept the Ken guitar as my humble offering. Besides, Ken doesn’t really play anyway. So, it will be much better in your hands.” Producer Mark Ronson described Slash as his “all-time hero” at the film’s premiere, where he told Variety: “I sent him the song and he was like, ‘This is a good song… Cool, I’ll play on it.’ He kills it, he plays the solo at the end and the rhythm parts. It’s wonderful.” Except, when she’s not. Given her intrusive thoughts about dying, her flat foot debacle and some cellulite beginning to peek through her shiny, bronzed limbs: she’s far from fine.

Watch Ryan Gosling's ‘Just Ken’ from the Barbie movie featuring Slash:

To no one’s surprise and everyone’s delight, it seems that Gosling is a multi-talented musician with plenty of strings to his bow. Another thing to say about Barbie is that it is very, very funny. Robbie’s almost C-3PO-ish deadpan delivery provides plenty of laughs, but it’s Gosling who’ll end up as your favourite toy,” it read. Closer To Fine”, written by Emily Saliers, one half of the Indigo Girls, at first glance is a joyful, folksy little ditty. But the lyrics reveal that the person singing is confused about their place in the world, searching all around for a sign to point them in the right direction as to who they really are. This Barbie has a playlist for every road trip! Well, less a playlist and more a signature song that is played – and sung along to, of course – every time she puts pedal to the metal in her pink Corvette. This is her ride-or-die, hype-em-up, mantra of a song to belt out when she wants to remind herself of who she is: she’s Barbie, and she’s just fine! Hi Jimin, it’s Ryan Gosling here,” he said. “I noticed that your Permission To Dance video outfit is the same as my Ken outfit in the upcoming movie Barbie. I have to give it to you, you wore it first and you definitely wore it better.”

I have a lot of textural stuff throughout the film with two major spots where I do some soloing Wolfgang Van HalenAdmittedly, for a moment in the film it seems dubious that Gosling is even holding a real guitar, let alone playing one. For Gerwig, she felt the song from her childhood perfectly aligned with Ken’s troubled state of mind: “It was playing all the time on Quad 106.5 when I was in seventh grade,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “I really loved that song. I listened to it all the time and I was like, ‘I feel it. Something’s in this.’”

a b c d e Jarvey, Natalie (July 11, 2023). "Singing "I'm Just Ken" in 'Barbie' Was Ryan Gosling's Idea". Vanity Fair . Retrieved October 14, 2023. So while this song isn’t the misogynist’s anthem some may have taken it for, it speaks volumes for Ken’s behaviour in the film. He feels undervalued, unloved and always like the lesser partner (after all, he’s just Ken). For all the wrong ways Ken then goes about it (of which there are…many) he just wants to be heard and also is on his own journey, like Barbie, to find his own identity outside of their relationship. Paul, Larisha (August 21, 2023). "Ryan Gosling Fully Leans Into His Kenergy in 'I'm Just Ken' Behind-the-Scenes Footage". Rolling Stone.Would Barbie have received this enlightenment if she hadn’t travelled to the real world, and met people along her path who helped her understand who she was? Possibly, possibly not. But her favourite song was suggesting self-realisation right from the very start. On a musical level, there’s something life affirming about the note jumping up an octave in the last syllable of “fi….ine”, implying that everything’s going to work out just fine in the end. This ties in with the repeated lyrical phrase at the song’s end (along with a “Yeah”): “The less I seek my source for some definitive/the closer I am to fine”, which suggests the truth of what we need to know is hidden deep within ourselves, and we shouldn’t be distracted by outside influences who claim that they know us better. Ryan Gosling's 'I'm Just Ken' song lands on Billboard's Hot 100". TODAY.com. August 4, 2023 . Retrieved August 7, 2023. My buddy Mark Ronson hit me up earlier this year needing my ‘mammoth guitar sound’ and I happily obliged,” he wrote.