I have just caught up with 2023’s Barbie, a film where there are lots of different Barbies, all called Barbie, and lots of different Kens, all called Ken.

After having a bit of an existential crisis during a dance routine, Stereotypical Barbie leaves Barbieland with Beach Ken, who jumps uninvited into the back of her pink convertible. They head to real Los Angeles, where Ken discovers the patriarchy. He takes this back to Barbieland, where he sets up his own version, important elements of which are riding horses and dressing up like a rock star. The Barbies respond by turning the Kens against each other. They do this by offending the Kens’ egos during their beach serenading of the Barbies with Matchbox Twenty’s song, Push. Barbies listen for a while before moving to another Ken, causing devastating jealousy.

Following this debacle, there is a touching scene as Beach Ken and Stereotypical Barbie talk, Barbie telling Ken that he needs to find his own identity, beyond that of her boyfriend, or some kind of ridiculous bro. And that’s the thing – the unexpected philosophical twist of this charming film. Ken, in all of his incarnations, is Ken. After the beach serenading scene, when the Kens decide to fight each other, they have to decide which Kens are the enemy, and which are allies, a tricky task when they are all Kens. So maybe Ken would learn something by accepting that there is sameness in his variety. Ken’s jealousy is like one branch of a tree having a problem with another branch. Note the wall being built in the desert between Barbieland and the real world. What does that make you think of in the early 2020s? What does that suggest about creating division between people where none need exist?

So Barbie is about both finding identity and overcoming identity’s false limitations. Barbie can be President Barbie or housewife Barbie, black or white, different shapes and sizes Barbie, but she shares in the essential Barbieness. And Ken can be all sorts of Ken, but he can share in the essential Kenness. In the end Ken and Barbie can be themselves, but be with each other.