Ken The Living Doll
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Ken The Living Doll
Published June 29, 2022 12:26pm EDT
By
Lauryn Overhultz | Fox News
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Eva Mendes has come to Ryan Gosling's defense over his Ken doll style for the upcoming "Barbie" movie.
"People do know he's not playing a real person, right? He's playing a fake person," Mendes said during an appearance on "The Talk."
Warner Bros. released a first look at Gosling and co-star Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ken earlier this month. While fans raved about Robbie as Barbie, not many liked what they saw with Gosling.
Some called his look "horrendous" while others labeled him "not hot."
Ryan Gosling pictured as a Ken doll.
(Warner Bros.)
However, Gosling's longtime partner Mendes had a different opinion.
"Well, first of all, I saw the photo and the 14-year-old in me was like, ‘Ahhh,’" she explained. "But you know, it's a funny photo, and he's trying to be funny. So it worked on all levels."
Gosling and Robbie will be directed by Greta Gerwig and are joined by Will Ferrell, Michael Cera, America Ferrera and Kate McKinnon.
Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling on rollerblades film new scenes for the upcoming "Barbie" film.
The "Hitch" actress continued to gush about her partner of 11 years.
"When I saw it, he sent it to me from work and I said, ‘Can I please have that underwear? Please. I never ask for anything.’"
"So, anyways, I do have it. I'm wearing it right now," Mendes joked, before adding that "there was something about the image that sparked [her] little teenage [self]."
Mendes and Gosling have been together since 2011 and share two daughters.
(Sonia Recchia)
Mendes and Gosling are a private Hollywood couple. The two got together in 2011 and share two daughters, Esmeralda and Amada.
Lauryn Overhultz is an entertainment writer for Fox News Digital.
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This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2022 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset . Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions . Legal Statement . Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper .
*First Published: Jul 6, 2017, 6:00 am CDT
More stories to check out before you go
Photo via Julius Seelbach/Flickr
(CC-BY)
Posted on Jul 6, 2017 Updated on May 23, 2021, 12:50 am CDT
Last month, Ken and his friends received a reality-infused makeover , making the dolls look less like plastic gods and more like the men they’re supposed to emulate. Between three different body types, seven skin colors, and nine hairstyles, Ken is putting down fewer “Come on Barbie, let’s go party” vibes and is instead looking like a guy we might encounter (for better or worse) on Tinder or even at a women’s march.
Ken’s latest evolution might be his most dramatic makeover yet, but it certainly isn’t the most iconic or buzzworthy. Here are some interesting facts about Ken before he got the license to rock a man bun.
The Ken doll was first introduced in 1961 and was named after the son of Ruth and Elliot Handler, the inventors of the Barbie doll (incestuously enough, Barbie was also named after the couple’s daughter :eyes emoji:). According to fansite Keeping Ken , Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. Ken, however, was never given a middle name.
Ken Handler ended up marrying a woman named Suzie. The couple lived in Manhattan together with their three kids, where Ken wrote music and plays for fun. He died at the age of 50 in 1994 on the afternoon of his daughter’s wedding.
Meanwhile, Shaving Fun Ken allowed kids to lather up Ken’s face and “shave” his beard, making it disappear with warm water.
Though Ken has had many professions, “Beach Bum” has been reproduced into 12 different versions between 1962 and 2002. Following in a tie for second are “Escort,” and “Tourist,” with 10 boxed dolls each. And at third is “Prince,” with six boxed dolls.
The Ken doll in question was dressed in a purple tank top with a lace-covered polka-dotted skirt. After Toys “R” Us employees at the Florida store confirmed the box’s seal hadn’t been tampered with, Carina Guillot and her 12-year-old daughter Jocelyn took the doll home. “Cross Dressing Ken,” as the media dubbed the doll, went viral (by ’90s standards) and was featured on The Arsenio Hall Show and The Joan Rivers Show , and in Fortune and Newsweek . Collectors offered Guillot up to $4,000 for the doll, but the family didn’t bite. Meanwhile, Mattel had no explanation for the doll’s dressings other than it being a “production error.”
As it turns out, a Toys “R” Us evening employee admitted to redressing Ken and said he carefully resealed the box as to give the appearance the doll arrived that way; it was a common store prank, the employee explained. The employee was fired four days after confessing.
“We always did crazy things like that,” Ron Zero told the Associated Press at the time. “We’d hang dolls in the aisle or put Ken and Barbie in the Barbie house with Barbie spanking Ken.”
The Ken doll, which was released in 1993 as an accessory character to Earring Magic Barbie, came with a purple vest, a pink mesh shirt, a pierced left ear, and two “hoop” accessories—one worn as a pendant, and another attached to Ken’s vest. Mattel’s marketing and communication manager explained the company had surveyed young girls to see if Barbie should get a new boyfriend, or stick with Ken. Girls voiced that they wanted Ken to stay, but thought he should be more cool.
So, as columnist Dan Savage put it for Seattle’s Stranger at the time, Mattel went after what’s “cool” and capitalized off gay culture—or the “homoerotic fashions and imagery” girls watched on MTV, from Madonna’s dancers to raves. The most telling detail? Ken’s “necklace charm holder hoops” looked a lot like cock rings.
“On closer inspection, Ken’s entire Earring Magic outfit turns out to be three-year-old rave wear. A purple faux-leather Gaultier vest, a straight-out-of-International Male purple mesh shirt, black jeans, and shoes. It would seem Mattel’s crack Ken-redesign team spent a weekend in LA or New York dashing from rave to rave, taking notes and Polaroids,” Savage wrote at the time.
While Earring Magic Ken became Mattel’s best-selling Ken doll of all time, much thanks to gay customers purchasing the unintentional gay icon, Mattel discontinued the doll and recalled the rest.
All good things must come to an end. After 43 years, Ken and his beloved Barbie parted ways . If that wasn’t a big enough bummer for Barbie fans, mere months later Barbie began dating an Australian surfer doll named Blaine.
To promote their new Cali Girl doll line, Mattel had Barbie stans vote on Barbie’s next suitor in an online poll. Barbie could get back together with Ken, nature boy Steven, adventurous Steven, Blaine the Aussie, or stay single. After more than a million votes, Blaine won the throne as Barbie’s new beau.
This time, Mattel used Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and YouTube to launch an ad campaign for Ken’s efforts to win Barbie back. Social media accounts for the dolls updated fans on Ken’s grand gestures and Barbie’s indecision with getting back with her longtime boyfriend.
Mattel even launched a web series on Hulu called Genuine Ken , where eight men competed to become “the Great American Boyfriend.”
How serendipitous and not totally planned!
The cake was originally thought to be a transgender Ken or a political cake, but someone who attended the party where it was served said the party host was neither transgender nor attempting to make a political statement.
Today, Freeport Bakery frequently pays homage to their original Ken cake.
Quentin Dehar, a 24-year-old France TV personality who aspires to be like Ken, broke up with his Barbie-like girlfriend Anastasia Reskoss in February after she dyed her blonde mane brown. The two allegedly began dating in 2013 over their shared interest in the doll couple and even had matching Ken and Barbie cars .
https://twitter.com/DeharQuentin/status/681486060984102914
Rodrigo Alves, a 33-year-old flight attendant from the U.K., has spent more than $400K to achieve his Ken-like look and has allegedly insured his body for $1 million .
He had his first nose job four days after his 18th birthday and has since spent reported millions on plastic surgery. However, many of his procedures, including custom back implants, shoulder implants, and multiple nose jobs, have been paid for by male fans. Jedlica is a subject in the upcoming, aptly titled documentary The Human Ken Doll .
A post shared by Justin Jedlica (@justinjedlica) on Mar 29, 2017 at 10:49am PDT
Jedlica and Alves are set to star in a plastic surgery reality show called Plastics of Hollywood , where they and 10 other “human dolls” will vie for careers under the world’s first agency for the most body-modified personalities. They’ve also both been featured on E! Entertainment’s Botched .
Fashion shopping site Lyst introduced a series of hip, balding, and dad-bod-esque Ken dolls. Meanwhile, realistic-doll-maker Lammily created a Ken doll equivalent with the average proportions of an IRL male 19-year-old.
A post shared by Lammily (@lammilyofficial) on Apr 5, 2016 at 11:37am PDT
In a true testament to modern times, these updated Ken dolls are now the butt of your new favorite ex-boyfriend ( and ex-girlfriend ) memes. Here’s to hoping that Ken will continue to provide us more awkward cultural moments for the next 50 years.
In 2009, Mattel released the doll for pre-order as part of its exclusive Gold Label Collection, a collectible line for adults. For $69.99 collectors (or, you know, iconic-doll fanatics) could be the proud owners of this chic Floridian Ken doll, complete a stunning lime green-decorated sport coat, pastel pink button down, and white pants and loafers. His accessories also featured sandals, sunglasses, and swim trunks.
“At the end of the day, this collection is targeted toward adults,” a spokesperson told ABC News at the time. “While the name of the doll does refer back to the dog, I think people are going to interpret it as they want to interpret it.”
In the 2010 film Toy Story 3, Ken, who is voiced by Michael Keaton, wasn’t just a fictional doll.
“Grab your binoculars and join Ken for a safari! A swinging bachelor who’s always on the lookout for fun, Ken sports the perfect outfit for his eco-adventure: light blue shorts and a leopard-print shirt with short sleeves sure to keep him cool in the hot sun,” boast the doll’s description.
Despite the iconic blue cheetah-print shirt, matching ascot, and shorts, Ken doesn’t shy away from his Dream House closet in the film, and wears 21 different outfits throughout the film.
“ She should care about more than going to the beach…She should care about poverty and suffering in the world. I wish she would work in a soup kitchen, but then she would never sell,” Handler told writer Denise Gellene for People magazine and the Los Angeles Times in 1989.
He never bought his two daughters Barbie or Ken dolls, but not because he was so morally against them—they just never asked for the dolls, and always preferred stuffed animals.
“Ken is Malibu,” Handler said. “He goes to the beach and surfs. He is all these perfect American things. I was the kind of kid who played piano and went to movies with subtitles. I was a nerd—a real nerd. All the girls thought I was a jerk.”
While Ruth and Elliot Handler might have named Ken after their son, Jack Ryan, Mattel’s chief designer and self-described “third-in-charge” through the ‘50s and ‘60s, is credited with designing the Ken doll other famous Mattel toys. Ryan, an engineer who began his career developing missiles for the Pentagon, developed these Mattel toys and built a “sordid” life filled with parties and orgies out of the hundreds of thousands of dollars he earned as a result.
In his 2009 book Toy Monster , which details Mattel’s hidden greed and public controversy, novelist Jerry Oppenheimer refers to Ryan as the “Father of Barbie.” (However, Ryan and Ruth Handler fought over Barbie’s credits for decades, from the doll’s physical creation, to her name—Handler continued to argue Ryan’s role in Barbie’s success even after his death in 1991.)
Oppenheimer’s book expands on the exciting lifestyle led by Ken’s creator, but perhaps the juiciest of descriptions comes from actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, Ryan’s second wife: “My knight in shining armor, the inhabitant of a fairy-tale castle, Jack…was a full-blown seventies-style swinger into wife-swapping and sundry sexual pursuits as a way of life.
Handler’s mother Ruth put aside her shock help her son seek “natural” AIDS treatment, but the syndrome was far too developed to be treatable, according to Ken’s primary doctor, Dr. Pamela Harris.
Oppenheimer also wrote that the real-life Ken Handler grew up “embarrassed and humiliated by having an anatomically incorrect boy doll named after him [with]…no hint of genitalia.”
In her novel Barbie and Ruth , author Robin Gerber repeated these allegations, writing that Handler had once denounced the dolls to his parents in a letter he had written in 1970. Handler argued that the dolls were “cow-towing [sic] to those who can’t accept the issue of their own sexuality.” Gerber wrote that Handler also told Harris, the doctor, that believed he had contracted the disease from another man.
When Ken died, the Handlers allegedly told friends and Mattel associates various stories, never revealing the true cause of death. Gerber wrote that both the New York Times and Los Angeles Times reported that Handler died of encephalitis, or of a brain tumor, in his mother’s obituary eight years later.
“I don’t think any one of us knew what the truth was,” Derek Gable, Mattel’s Director of Preliminary Design for male action figures, told Oppenheimer. “Ruth and Elliot never talked about it.”
According to Gerber, Ruth Handler said the design team lacked “the guts” to give Ken even a “suggestion” of a penis, though she argued there should have at least been a bulge to suggest realism. The research and design team, however, made the decision in respect to whether Ken’s “physique” would help or hurt the company.
“They decided it was better for Mattel if he was neutered, and that was the end of it,” Marvin Barab, Mattel’s manager of packaging and graphics at the time, told Gerber.
While Mattel has attempted to make Barbie somewhat of a feminist hero with her myriad occupations, some of her Ken companions seem to solidify the gendered double standards impressed upon children.
In the Good, the Bad, and the Barbie: a Doll’s History and Her Impact on Us by Tanya Lee Stone, Stone’s points to 1965’s Slumber Party Barbie. The doll included a miniature scale set to 110 pounds (um, holy s**t) and a book titled How to Lose Weight that advised, “Don’t eat!” Slumber Party Ken, however, came with a glass of milk and a bedtime snack. The doll’s 1966 reissue came without the scale. In the 2006 reissue, the title of the book was removed, as was a silhouette of Barbie stepping onto a scale.
Of all 247, the rarest and most valuable of the Ken Dolls are the collectible Dressed Box Kens. According to Collectors Week , the Dressed Box Kens were released between 1963 and 1965, with 14 different dolls in the series. (One of them, Ken Arabian Nights, came with a turban and an oil lamp.) However, the first collector-targeted Ken doll was the Hollywood Legends Ken from 1994, featuring Ken as Rhett Butler from Gone With the Wind . Other collectible Kens include those from the Wizard of Oz series, and Barbie’s Coca-Cola series.
Samantha Grasso is a former IRL staff writer for the Daily Dot with a reporting emphasis on immigration. Her work has appeared on AJ+, Vox, Splinter, Los Angeles Magazine, and Austin Monthly.
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*First Published: Jul 6, 2017, 6:00 am CDT
More stories to check out before you go
Photo via Julius Seelbach/Flickr
(CC-BY)
Posted on Jul 6, 2017 Updated on May 23, 2021, 12:50 am CDT
Last month, Ken and his friends received a reality-infused makeover , making the dolls look less like plastic gods and more like the men they’re supposed to emulate. Between three different body types, seven skin colors, and nine hairstyles, Ken is putting down fewer “Come on Barbie, let’s go party” vibes and is instead looking like a guy we might encounter (for better or worse) on Tinder or even at a women’s march.
Ken’s latest evolution might be his most dramatic makeover yet, but it certainly isn’t the most iconic or buzzworthy. Here are some interesting facts about Ken before he got the license to rock a man bun.
The Ken doll was first introduced in 1961 and was named after the son of Ruth and Elliot Handler, the inventors of the Barbie doll (incestuously enough, Barbie was also named after the couple’s daughter :eyes emoji:). According to fansite Keeping Ken , Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. Ken, however, was never given a middle name.
Ken Handler ended up marrying a woman named Suzie. The couple lived in Manhattan together with their three kids, where Ken wrote music and plays for fun. He died at the age of 50 in 1994 on the afternoon of his daughter’s wedding.
Meanwhile, Shaving Fun Ken allowed kids to lather up Ken’s face and “shave” his beard, making it disappear with warm water.
Though Ken has had many professions, “Beach Bum” has been reproduced into 12 different versions between 1962 and 2002. Following in a tie for second are “Escort,” and “Tourist,” with 10 boxed dolls each. And at third is “Prince,” with six boxed dolls.
The Ken doll in question was dressed in a purple tank top with a lace-covered polka-dotted skirt. After Toys “R” Us employees at the Florida store confirmed the box’s seal hadn’t been tampered with, Carina Guillot and her 12-year-old daughter Jocelyn took the doll home. “Cross Dressing Ken,” as the media dubbed the doll, went viral (by ’90s standards) and was featured on The Arsenio Hall Show and The Joan Rivers Show , and in Fortune and Newsweek . Collectors offered Guillot up to $4,000 for the doll, but the family didn’t bite. Meanwhile, Mattel had no explanation for the doll’s dressings othe
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