Ken battles Seacrest for metro title

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the new version of Ken. That’s Ken of “Barbie and… There’s been a lot of talk recently about the new version of Ken. That’s Ken of “Barbie and Ken” fame, the Ken who was notorious for being the blonde, plasticized boyfriend to the blonde, plasticized Barbie. You know, that Ken.

Apparently, the two split up. I’m not really sure why. Was it mutual? Regrettable? Nobody knows. Dolls’ hearts want what they want, apparently, just like Woody Allen. But now, the two have mended ways — or whatever it is that dolls mend — and are back together like Biggie and whomever he’s posthumously dueting with.

Ken, however, has a new look.

His hair is no longer the cheesy blonde lock everyone has in their mind when they think Ken. Instead he has a sort of brown, wavy, highlighted hair thing happening to him. He’s also wearing frayed, distressed jeans, a messenger bag and a graphic T-shirt. His eyes are as blank and vapid as ever. He looks like an idiot.

Everyone lately seems to be pointing this out. The New York Times ran an article on the unveiling of the new, less masculine Ken, and Details, the contrarian style magazine for men, weighed in with a piece on how the new Ken is an “impotent boy toy.” M.G. Lord, author of a book on Barbie, declares in the same article that Ken now resembles “a eunuch priest in a goddess cult,” a sentence so hilarious that it tempts me to pick up the aforementioned author’s book.

However, what all these people seem to be arguing is that Ken is a neutered accessory for Barbie, as independent as her earrings and just about as interesting. My own take on this would be to ask the rousing question of “So what?”

Consider: Barbie for years has presented an anatomically impossible image of femininity. In her talking version, she famously said, “Math is hard!” and “Let’s shop!” Perhaps that was one sentence, actually, divided by a semicolon. I’m not sure, but I bet if you had asked Talking Barbie, she would have said, “What’s a semicolon? I love gauchos!” The point here is that Talking Barbie was dumb.

Ken, as the Details piece argues, wasn’t dumb. Indeed he was successful, plying careers as varied as airline captain, soldier, doctor and Olympic skier all the while having an eternally blonde girlfriend. Now, everyone seems to be bemoaning his transition into non-independent boyfriend status while at the same time never facing up to the simple fact that Ken was never cool.

Now, I never played with Barbie, being more of an action figure guy myself. No, action figures aren’t just dolls for boys; action figures are smaller and, in my formative years at least, would often use nunchucks and/or bo staffs. I don’t really think that Ken had a lot of influence on the fictional lives of Barbies all over the world. In fact, the girls I talked to have always said that Ken was boring and poorly developed. So now he’s boring and emasculated; what’s the big deal?

Girls have been facing cultural pressures for generations from Barbie. If they can take it, can’t we? We boys aren’t even growing up playing with them — again, boys seem to be playing with toys with stronger ninja leanings — so as a culture are we saying us men can’t handle even this insignificant roadblock? That our image is so poorly developed that a doll that we don’t even play with will doom future generations to sexless procreation and androgyny?

That’s what everyone seems to be implying. Camile Paglia says in that Details article, “At this rate, the next (Ken) doll is going to be transgendered.” Oh, really? Being a traditional man is now in such great danger that this idea of masculinity will become extinct? Come on! This is an absurdist, knee-jerk reaction that has happened only because men are scared. They’re terrified that women, once they can make money and take out the trash, won’t need them. Men are living in fear right now instead of acting like men.

A messenger bag does not make you wimpier. Making less than your girlfriend does not make you disposable. And ninjas are always going to be cool, just in case anybody else was getting nervous about that one.

E-mail Kevin at kjs34@pitt.edu.