Ken Will Never Die

Before Ryan Gosling played Ken in Barbie, he had a varied career. He was the romantic heart of The Notebook, the moody center of Drive, the slapstick king of The Nice Guys. But now it seems like he might always live in the shadow of a tanned, bleach-blond doll whose job is “beach.”

See, for example, Gosling’s Saturday Night Live monologue, in which he proudly announced that he was there to promote his new movie, The Fall Guy, and explained that he and Ken have broken up. Except he then launched into a Ken-themed rendition of Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well,” for which he donned his character’s signature fur coat. “Oh, that sweet definition of my washboard abs, singing Indigo Girls in the car with Babs,” he sang. “If I said that I was doing fine then you know I’d be lyin’, because I was just Ken and now I’m just Ryan.”

Eventually his Fall Guy co-star, Emily Blunt, arrived to guide him back on track but instead got sucked into the song too, crooning about playing an alcoholic wife in the Academy Award–winning Oppenheimer. But despite the fact that Oppenheimer was the bigger critical success, nabbing that Best Picture Oscar, the two versions of the Swift parody weren’t in alignment. Blunt’s career will likely not be defined by her work as Kitty Oppenheimer; Ken might be the first line in Gosling’s obituary.

His work as Ken was one of those performances that has the power to glom onto an actor for the rest of his life. This isn’t to say that Gosling was great before Barbie or that he won’t be great again. In fact, he’s an absolute delight in The Fall Guy, playing a stuntman roped into a mission to locate a missing movie star, with both physical prowess and hilarious exhaustion. (Meanwhile, I’m now itching for Gosling to return to his moody, indie days and give us another Blue Valentine or something similar.)

[Read: Barbie is everything. Ken is everything else.]

Still, Gosling may be now more Ken than Margot Robbie is Barbie. There appears to be a collective desire to see him embody that empty-brained machismo again and again. The fervor inspired by his Oscars performance of “I’m Just Ken” was proof of that, as was this SNL monologue, which ended with him attempting to blow out a Ken candle only for the flame to remain ignited. “Because Ken will never die!” Gosling exclaimed.

After the monologue, however, the SNL writers set the Ken jokes aside, offering Gosling plenty of opportunities to serve up his natural charm. Gosling isn’t the kind of transformative SNL host who disappears into different characters like his La La Land co-star Emma Stone, for instance, but he is a game one, and the pleasure of watching him is how delighted he seems to be in every sketch.

In one, he played a recently engaged man who started to confess his doubts to his new pal (played by Andrew Dismukes) every time his fiancée (Chloe Fineman) left the room. But Gosling slipped. After he threw a wine glass in anger he amusedly stifled a laugh, and his case of the giggles infected much of the cast for the rest of the episode. Heidi Gardner fully broke while trying to perform as a NewsNation host asking questions about AI; her town hall was interrupted by Gosling and Mikey Day dressed exactly like Beavis and Butt-Head. Bowen Yang suppressed laughter playing a dramatic doctor who was joined by his “associate,” portrayed by Gosling with long blond hair, asymmetrical bangs, and scrubs covered in blood.

The effusive joy that Gosling brought to everyone else on SNL served as a good metaphor for why Ken is such a towering creation. Gosling played him with committed seriousness, embracing his plights, but also made it impossible not to smile when he was on-screen—or even at the mere memory of him breaking into a plaintive ballad about his insecurity or discovering that the patriarchy is not just about horses. So yes, though Gosling will leave Ken behind as he pursues new roles, Ken will never die. But we’re okay with that, and it looks like Gosling is too.