"Barbie always has a good day. Ken only has a good day if Barbie notices him."
In the film Barbie (2023), the main character Ken, played by actor Ryan Gosling and created to be another accessory for Stereotypical Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, is represented in a caricatured way, performing behaviors of emotional dependence on Barbie.
In the movie, this is illustrated in scenes in which it becomes clear that his self-esteem and happiness depend entirely on whether or not Barbie notices him. And when he has the opportunity to become independent, he engages in a plan of revenge rather than seeking self-realization. In his vengeful plan, he aims to inflict the same suffering he felt at Barbie's actions.
When he visits the Real World, he realizes that it is men who hold political and social power, but instead of trying to develop skills to gain a foothold in the real world, since being just a man is no longer enough, he decides to take the easy way out, showing his immaturity, and it is also a way that offers the possibility of revenge. Ken didn't try to emancipate himself, but to manipulate the situation so that the roles were reversed in Barbieland, thus imitating the real world, where control is concentrated in the hands of men. So that Barbie could experience how he felt in Barbieland, where everything is for the Barbies and not the Kens, in the hope that she would develop the same emotional dependence that he experiences for her.
In the film, Ken fulfills the fantasy of many emotional dependents who dream of scenarios in which the roles are reversed! And it's their targets who suffer from their dependency. Not prioritizing your personal content over someone else's due to emotional dependency is a psychological condition that leads to suffering.
If you identified with Ken or know someone who has emotional dependency behaviors, I advise you to seek therapy, because the therapeutic process highlights subjectivity and helps you regain personal power, reducing or even eradicating affective dependency on others.
Issues relating to representation and images
The dynamic between Barbies and Kens reflects, like an inverted mirror, the initial idea of the Judeo-Christian myth. In this myth, the founder of contemporary Western society, the woman is created secondarily to assist the man. In our patriarchal society, women are often represented as complements to men and are expected to fulfill male needs and desires. This macro-social phenomenon is recognized as one of the factors in female emotional dependence on their male counterpart in heterosexual relationships. As such, we can deduce that Ken's emotional dependence may be a manifestation of the gender expectations and stereotypes imposed by Barbieland's social structure.
Furthermore, the film illustrates how the power of images and representation are crucial in spaces of power, communication and influence. It is only after being exposed to images of men in positions of power in the real world that Ken begins to contemplate other forms and dynamics of relationships and being in the world. The book 'The Beauty Myth‘ by Naomi Wolf addresses how women are influenced by beauty norms imposed by patriarchy and the role of images in maintaining the current order. For the author, these norms aim to keep women dependent on male validation and submissive to beauty standards established by men. Therefore, Ken's search for validation through his connection with Barbie highlights how gender images and stereotypes shape our relationships and self-esteem, emphasizing the importance of representation in helping individuals challenge and overcome these gender standards and norms.
Although this is a systemic and structural problem in society, I recommend therapy if you or a woman you know is going through this, because change in society, at a macro level, begins at an individual level in human subjectivity.
So, did it make sense to you?
Here are the books mentioned with the link so you can buy them:
- The Beauty Myth – Naomi Wolf
You can also listen to my podcast A Psyche in Words, where I explored this topic:
