Welcome to Himbo Cinema, a celebration of the best of the worst. This is my ode to male movie characters that may have their heads in the clouds, but always reach for the stars!
If you’ve gotten past that first paragraph, you are in a safe space. If you are still reading despite feeling rage building in your gut after my insinuation that men are the downfall of society, please feel free to see yourself out.
I am creating this newsletter to give myself, and others who “get it,” a place to honour healthy (or at least thoughtful) depictions of masculinity at the movies. It is not a site for “Not All Men” commentary, or an opportunity to uphold problematic protagonists whose hotness supersedes their humanity (see: Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, for example). It is summit for those who appreciate a good old fashioned empty headed gentleman, an idiot boyfriend if you will.
I’ve been a fan of a classic Hollywood himbo for as long as I can remember. From my first crush (Freddie Prinze Jr., of that movie with a “talking dog”) to my high school heartthrob (Zac Efron in Hairspray) to my ongoing allegiance to the Magic Mike Cinematic Universe, I am wholly hot for this silly, sexy subgenre and its sweet, yet stupid heroes.
Of course, the word has been coming up in conversation a lot lately alongside the release of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, which features (among many other visual delights) a fully committed Ryan Gosling as Ken, a bleach blonde hunk whose only real skill is “beach.” And so I thought it was as good a time as ever to start to start the conversation I’ve been trying to have with anyone who will listen since I first saw Dirty Dancing and melted over Johnny Castle.
For my first issue of Himbo Cinema, I would like to focus on the man of the hour. With terms like “Ken-ergy” striking the zeitgeist like lighting over the past few weeks, it’s clear that everyone and their mom is in line to fall for Gosling’s fair-haired fawn. And who can blame them?
Despite being well-known to the Average Joe for some darker roles in movies like Drive and Blade Runner 2049, Gosling has literally been training to play Ken since his earliest days. A natural class clown, he literally embodied the role on the Canadian series Breaker High before going on to embody — wait for it — young Hercules. And of course any Gosling girl knows about his early days as part of the Mickey Mouse Club, along with his scene-stealing turns in Crazy Stupid Love and The Nice Guys.
With Ken, however, the Gos turns the charm on like never before, bringing a characteristically cast off toy to new life. His Ken is essentially Cher Horowitz with a horse obsession. He’s utterly clueless. And we love him for it.
While some are finding Barbie’s politics to be a bit dated, one of the things that rings true to this moment is Ken’s storyline. He is the kind of guy that the Andrew Tates of the world want to shut out, a sensitive sub who simply wants to please his lady love and will do anything — even betray his true nature — to make his dreams of being her everything come true.
Yes, technically Ken starts an incel revolution, reclaiming Barbie Land as Kendom after going to the Real World and seeing that an alternative reality exists where girls don’t run the world. But the fact is, this particular Ken doesn’t really know what he’s doing, admitting in the film’s climax that he “lost interest” after discovering that running things had less to do with horses than he initially thought.
What makes a himbo a himbo is a pureness of intention. There is no harm meant, no ill will towards anyone. But that doesn’t mean a himbo can’t cause havoc, or even hurt someone despite their best intentions.
Ken’s desire to impress Barbie is what starts his journey and his inability to do so is what ends it. After convincing the other Kens to try toxic masculinity on for size and discovering that it doesn’t quite fit, he is tasked making things right again. It is by coming together with his Kens to make sweet, sweet music that he realizes the truth: he, alone, is “more than Kenough.”
Whether you love or hate Barbie, you’ll be hard pressed not to be charmed by Gosling’s musical number in the film. “I’m Just Ken” is a himbo cinema tour-de-force, a soft boy serenade that asks, “Is it my destiny to live and die a life of blonde fragility?” People are already saying it deserves Oscar buzz and, honestly, I couldn’t agree more.
While many are seeing Barbie as part of a Girl Boss Night Out, this movie is actually one that the masc half of the population could use more right now. It dares to suggest that sometimes the girl isn’t going to like you that way and not only is it more than okay, you can and will survive and thrive on your own (hell, single women have done it for centuries). Just as Margot Robbie’s death-obsessed Barbie has to come to terms with no longer fitting inside a pretty pink box, Ken has to do the work so many men refuse to do. He has to feel his feelings and move the fuck on with his little plastic life.
I hope that Ken takes what he learned and finds pleasure in his own company and interests. At the very least, I hope he feels secure in his lack of knowing what’s next because, little did he know, that’s what always made him so special to begin with.