While the Barbie movie has received an overwhelming response in theatres this past week, the movie’s prolific tagline “She’s everything. He’s just Ken.” has garnered traction from around the world. From memes to celebrities, everyone has something to say about the movie and its popular tagline.
Malala Yousafzai jumped on the Barbie bandwagon by sharing a photo on her Twitter of her posing with her husband, Asser Malik, at a Barbie themed photobooth, with the caption “This Barbie has a Nobel Prize [sparkly heart emoji]. He’s just Ken.”
In a light hearted exchange between the couple, Malik responded saying “I’m Kenough [cry-laugh emoji].” Malik used the word ‘Kenough’ as a play on the Barbie character Ken, played by Ryan Gosling. The Nobel Prize Laureate was seen wearing an all pink shalwar kameez, again conforming to the Barbie trend while Malik wore a blazer over a white t-shirt.
The tagline has now become a phenomenon as Barbie’s matriarchal dreamland challenges the world’s current patterns; we see a plethora of instances where women who are ‘everything’ settle for ‘Kens’. The phrase has taken the internet by storm over the past couple of months in anticipation of the Greta Gerwig film and the subsequent response to it.
This is not the first time Malala and Asser have enjoyed banter over social media. This past May Malala shared a photo on instagram of the two of them in Brazil, to which Asser humorously replied “Where did you find such an amazing husband?”. The activist jokingly deflected by saying “Next question.”
