Piers Morgan Is Furious That the ‘Barbie’ Movie Doesn’t Center Around Ken
He's just "Ken," Piers.
Would it surprise you to know that Piers Morgan is being a big ol’ baby again? This time, he’s on Sky News Australia complaining about how the Kens in the new Barbie movie aren’t as illustrious as the Barbies, calling it “an assault on men.” See for yourself, but try not to strain your eyes rolling them; you need them primed and ready to watch Barbie next weekend:
In case you don’t want to watch and hear Morgan speak (no one blames you), he takes issue with the fact that the film’s many Barbies range in talent and occupation from President to Nobel Prize-winning physicist, while all the male characters are “simply called Ken.” This, Morgan says, “is an assault on not just Ken, but all men.”
OK, before we get into how ludicrous Morgan is, I’d like to share the following from The Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, recapping 2022 movie statistics that were released in theaters:
The percentage of women in speaking roles increased by 3 percentage points, from 34% in 2021 to 37% in 2022.
[…]
80% of films featured more male than female characters. Only 11% of films had more female than male characters, and 9% of films featured equal numbers of female and male characters.
I’d also like to share this fun fact: If you go to the IMDB listing for Oppenheimer, which opens on the same day as Barbie, there is only one woman listed (Emily Blunt) in the “Top Cast” page. One! And she’s playing the wife of the titular character, too! (Florence Pugh is listed two-thirds of the way down the cast list, if you’re wondering, and she’s playing Oppenheimer’s girlfriend.) Where is the outrage that women aren’t being centered in this movie?! By the way, the Barbie movie lists six men in the “Top Cast” page on IMDB, along with 12 women.
So back to Morgan being awful. This pale, male, and stale man cannot handle that a movie doesn’t center its male characters because, like many entitled white guys, he thinks he should be the default for everything. As a result, he thinks anything else is an assault on men. What a baby! LOL. As if literally everyone else who goes to the movies hasn’t had to suck it up for over 100 years because we weren’t represented in the vast majority of movies since movies started. I’m not alone in thinking he’s being a big ol’ crybaby over this, either:
This Tweet summarizes why Barbie is so important:
Piers Morgan truly is thin-skinned, isn’t he?
This is a film based on a toy that has been marketed primarily to girls since 1959. As someone who played with Barbies a lot as a child (my favorite obviously being 1980s Astronaut Barbie because of her hot magenta and silver space suit) I’m thrilled that Barbie has a job and Ken is just there. His job is beach, as it should be. Ken is boring! (Please don’t tell Ryan Gosling I said that.) He never had any fun jobs like Barbie did, or have hair to play with (or cut as evidenced in Kate McKinnon’s Barbie), or fantastic outfits to swap out. I think in my entire Barbie collection as a kid, I maybe had a couple of Kens. There is a reason the entire toy line is called Barbie! Of course the movie would center the character.
Morgan complaining about the various Barbies in the movie—he name checks “President Barbie”, “Doctor Barbie”, “Mermaid Barbie”, “Barbie who has a Nobel Prize in Physics”— allows me to embody every comic book fan who felt superior over superhero movies and point out that Morgan clearly doesn’t know Barbie if he’s whining about that. Barbie has run for President since 1992! (She only sat out the 1996 campaign for reasons only known to her. We must respect her privacy in this matter.) Good grief, there is a STEM kit for Barbie, so you’re telling me with all she’s accomplished she couldn’t win a Nobel prize?! Tell me you know nothing about Barbie with that take!
Honestly, I feel sorry for people like Morgan whose imaginations are so limited and stunted that they need characters that look exactly like them in order to have empathy and immerse themselves in the escapsim that only TV and movies can provide. Regarding Ken and the pearl-clutching Morgan is engaging with, Ryan Gosling put it best in his GQ interview:
If you ever really cared about Ken, you would know that nobody cared about Ken.
Piers Morgan clearly never cared about Ken and is just trying to stir up controversy over Barbie because he cannot handle there are multiple women playing the titular character. Boo hoo. Go cry about it. As for me, I’ll be there opening weekend.
(featured image: Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros..)
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