#and I want the ‘I am Kenough’ sweatshirt

[ckerouac]

So… Barbie? Was ✨excellent✨

[critfailcleric]

it's been a few weeks since I saw the barbie movie and it still has such a hold on my brain, so you know I had to draw my boy in this iconic sweatshirt!

[acanvasofabillionsuns]

[ID: A collection of gifs from the Barbie movie, with tumblr posts about it overlayed transparently on top.

The first gif is of several Kens miming riding horses, Monty Python style. The post is by @sour-patch303 and says, "sorry ur boyfriend got brainwashed by the patriarchy. yeah he thought that it meant horses run everything. sorry."

The second gif is of Margot Robbie's Barbie (all the Barbies in these gifs are Margot Robbie) staring off into the distance. The post is by @postcardorigami and says, "barbie: i'm not pretty anymore

the narrator: this would be a far more effective line if it wasn't coming out of margot robbie's mouth."

The third gif is of Ryan Gosling's Ken singing, with several other Kens dancing in the background. He makes a heart with his hands and then dramatically pumps his fist. The post is by @thebctman and says, "I came out of Barbie with one single thought in my head and that was that I wanted Ken's 'I am Kenough' sweatshirt immediately.'"

The fourth gif is of Barbie dancing, immediately after she has asked, "Do you guys ever think about dying?" Everyone else has stopped to stare at her and she falters, self-conscious. The post is by @thanks-for-the-crabapples and says, "there is nothing that could prepare you for the last line of Barbie movie."

The fifth gif is of Barbie and the old woman on the bench smiling at each other. The post is by @animentality and says, "I also sobbed when I saw barbie appreciating an old woman, sitting beside her on the bench, because that’s what a woman is and that’s what being human is, and that’s what life is and she saw imperfection and age and realized it was beautiful.

She was so scared of being imperfect and having cellulite and aging and dying, and then she saw how beautiful all of those things could be, and she cried, and I cried.

And I understood. And I felt understood."

The sixth gif is of Barbie sitting on the ground and woodenly falling sideways, then rolling to be facedown. The post is by @rottinghaven and says, "barbie called me the fuck out with depressed barbie watching 1995 (nineteen ninety-five) bbc pride and prejudice 7 times."

The seventh and final gif is of Barbie doing a side-to-side twirl and brushing her hands over her gingham pink dress. She's smiling and there are sparkles bursting around her. The post is by @animentality and says, "Barbie was the representative for all things girly and all things pink and what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a she and a her…while also loudly declaring she has no vagina.

Terf L, if I ever saw one." /end ID]

[mimikyufriend]

[Multiple graphics reading, "I am Kenough." The K is hot pink and in the Barbie font while the rest is a serif font. The variations feature black or white text and with or without an outline around the K. End ID]

I'm going to make the sweatshirt with my cricut, feel free to use ^__^ just pls don't sell anything with these (I wouldn't want to deal with the potential legal trouble anyway lol)

[lu-sn]

the theerapanyakuls go to barbenheimer

kinn: the oppenheimer message flies straight over his head. the barbie message, unfortunately, is also totally lost on him.

porsche: in the same boat as kinn, mostly because kinn pulls him aside ten minutes into both films so they can make out and [redacted] and also [redacted redacted redacted].

tankhun: forces everyone at gunpoint (literal) to come to barbenheimer. forces everyone at gunpoint to wear themed outfits. screeches and hollers during the whole barbie movie, and immediately places custom orders for all of barbies's outfits and half of ken's outfits. (none of the outfits from the kendom era, though. bleh.) ends up feeling very thoughtful about oppenheimer -- and makes sure nobody notices.

kim: wants to perish. khun had to handcuff him to the theater seat. at least kim managed to stop khun from stuffing him into a bespoke neon pink leather jacket.

chay: is having a great time! very much enjoyed dressing up with khun for the Event Of The Century. is currently very much enjoying watching kim suffer. cheered at all the right moments during barbie. (oddly quiet during oppenheimer.)

pete: kind of tilted about having to dress up, but finds himself genuinely enjoying both movies. empathizes with every character on screen, which is not what khun wanted him to do.

vegas: identifies way too much with oppenheimer in perhaps the worst possible way. barbie puzzles him on a molecular level.

macau: spends the entire time "subtly" (not subtly) filming both movies on his phone. his camerawork is absolute garbage. his thumb is in the frame the whole time. his flash accidentally goes off halfway through. he immediately uploads both bootlegs to utorrent.

pol: the barbie movie was made for pol. he is THE target audience. it changes the trajectory of his entire life.

arm: absently pats a teary-eyed pol on the back throughout the entire barbie movie. is a little too consumed by thoughts of how relatable some of the oppenheimer scientists are.

and last but not least, big and ken: are standing at the back of the theater. they weren't allowed to sit. ken has been stuffed into the "i am kenough" tie-dye sweatshirt and maintains his i've-stepped-in-dogshit face throughout the entire barbie movie. "i don't sound like that," he keeps hissing at big. big is too busy sobbing under his sunglasses to humor him.

(brought to you in conjunction with the legendary @pomslices)

[junimo-hexed]

The Batfam goes to see Barbie/Oppenheimer

Bruce: Damian refused to see Barbie and Bruce did not like the idea of him going to the theater on his own. He eventually saw Barbie and wasn’t impressed.

Babs: she didn’t originally want to see Barbie because she felt it redundant and that it wasn’t going to offer much, she felt herself pretty much right, but something kept nagging at her. Something about it seemed familiar… Oh shit Batman is Barbie and we’re all the Kens. She explained her wild idea to Dick who responded “but, your my Barbie… oh shit you’re right.”

Dick: he and Babs fought about the order that they saw them in. Eventually he gave into seeing Barbie first and he's glad because he could not get Cillian Murphy's stare out of his mind. Something about it just scared him. He rooted for Ken to become a better person and is hoping that Ken finds happiness. He also adored every Barbie's outfit and dances to all of the songs regularly. He and Babs are going as Barbie and Barbie for next Halloween.

Jason: movie about a bomb? No thanks, he’d rather get glammed up for a movie that he thinks is going to be just a fun time only to leave with an existential crisis.

Tim: he debated with himself for hours over the order before pirating both and watching them at the same time. This was not the best decision.

Damian: he’s not ready to watch Barbie. Very film snobby about Oppenheimer.

Steph: *cough* so that Ken, am i right?

Cass: she didn’t have much interest in either. In the end she didn’t quite understand Barbie and thought Oppenheimer was alright. Cass isn't the most media literate and that's alright.

Jean-Paul: he didn’t originally plan to watch Barbie, but Babs called him and told him he NEEDED to watch Barbie. Like a good little brother he did. He related to Ken on a very deep level and by the end of the movie was balling his eyes out. He felt very called out by Ken in a good way.

Alfred: read two history books instead. And watched them during family movie nights by occasionally checking in on the screening room.

Jason, Jean-Paul, and Steph all related to Ken on a spiritual level, he’s just like me for real. They all feel like they're on the sidelines and like they pay the consequences of Batman's "righteousness". Dick, Babs, and Tim all related as well feeling like they're stuck in Bruce's shadow. Babs was there to help them all cope bought everyone Kenough sweatshirts.

[mallowmelt-down]

I just went to see the Barbie movie for the second time and I’ve been wondering how the KOTLC gang would react to it so here’s my thoughts.

Keefe: He ordered an ‘I am Kenough’ sweatshirt before the credits even finished. He definitely says that Ken is literally him. He memorized Ken’s entire song and of course he used his mimicking skills to do it in Ryan Gosling’s voice. Secretly, it was hard for him as an Empath to watch the movie, especially with Sophie and her strong emotions sitting next to him.

Sophie: She thinks it’s an absolute masterpiece and 100% cried during the Billie Eilish song “What Was I Made For” given her own past with the Black Swan. Since none of her friends truly understands what it means to be human, she called Amy that night and they chatted about it for hours. She would definitely sneak out to the Forbidden Cities to see it again with Amy.

Fitz: He has had some experience with Barbie during his trips as a kid trying to find Sophie so he vaguely understands the importance of the movie. He respects it even though he didn’t relate to it. He pretends he understands the confusing human jokes despite the fact he doesn’t get it at all.

Biana: She totally fell in love with all the different fashions and tried to recreate some of the outfits afterwards. She found the human interpretation of mermaids hilarious when she saw mermaid Barbie. She was shocked by the treatment of women in the real world and had to ask her mom about it later.

Dex: He was forced to take the triplets with him so he spent most of the movie trying to get the three of them to stay in their seats. His favorite character was Allan and he broke into an ATM machine later so he could go buy an Allan doll. He noticed Sophie was sad after the movie so he dyed Iggy the Barbie pink color the next day to cheer her up.

Tam: He insists that he hated it and the pink gave him a headache but truthfully enjoyed the musical numbers and secretly added all the songs to his playlist. He will also put the songs on blast whenever he visits his parents to piss them off. Linh forced him to buy her a Barbie right after the movie.

Linh: She liked it and was very amused by the fake waves on the beach. She was disappointed to hear that the pooping dog Barbie toy was discontinued since she desperately wanted to buy it. She found some Barbie inspired pet outfits to force poor Princess Purrfins into later, with Tam’s reluctant help.

Marella: She loved all of it, especially the cute Kens. Dex helped her hack into the human Internet afterwards so she could read about all the drama behind the scenes. She spends an entire ability lesson with Fintan talking about it, much to Fintan’s disdain.

Wylie: He thought it was very thought provoking and Maruca teases him when he tries to analyze the deep symbolism of the movie with her. He decides to take an intensive human studies class after watching it and sees that there may be more to humans than he thought. Like many others, he cried over the idea of his mom being just a girl at some point in her life.

Maruca: She added a pink streak to her hair for a week afterwards. She really liked the Barbies’ blunt honesty during the Nobel Prize scenes. She later tried to make a smaller version of the pink Barbieland heart border with her Psionipath ability for fun.

Stina: She’ll tell Sophie it was a dumb human movie but genuinely enjoyed the human world scenes the most. She really related to Sasha the most.

Elwin: As the only adult who attended, he got the tickets for everyone, held seats, and made sure everyone had popcorn. His favorite character was weird Barbie and wants to start remodeling his house like hers. He joins Dex and buys as many Barbies as he can hold to take back to the Lost Cities. It was hard for him to watch as a doctor when Ruth said “Humans only have one end.”

Comment your own headcannons, I would love to see them!

[vonlipvig]

barbie was great fun and everyone was having the time of their lives, but it was funny how for most of it i think nobody was thinking about it as a product, just enjoying this movie and its art, consumerism promptly forgotten, until the i am kenough sweatshirt popped up and you could feel people's wallets open up as they went OH MY GOD I WANT THAT.

[warriors-as-shit-ive-said]

sandstorm: i do not want my cause of death to be a guy in an I Am Kenough sweatshirt

[starlightbelle]

Really want Keigo drawn in the "I Am Kenough" sweatshirt for some reason

[busycece]

Mattel is using the Barbie movie to profit with new merchandise. This movie is a huge marketing scheme with a good story in it. I knew they'd try selling stuff to me.

And yet... when I saw that "I am Kenough" sweatshirt, I was angry. I was angry because they got me. I want that sweatshirt. It calls to me but I know what lies beneath the veil of this purchase. The guilt, the shame, the fact that they beat me. With what? A stupid sweatshirt? The nerve.

Anyway, where all my Kens gonna be showing off our new sweatshirts together when they arrive to all our houses? I wanna have us all bussin together like a gaggle of geese in a park.

[fallingsunflower]

Idk who needs to hear this but if you’re as obsessed with the Barbie movie as I am and you really want the “I am Kenough” sweatshirt, Mattel has it on pre-order lol not sure if it ships out of the USA but I’ll drop the link below

[gaypudding]

Okay I just saw Poor Things and oh my god. If that film doesn’t win best picture I’m going to eat my shoes. Please excuse this essay, as I’m not in a class right now that I could write it for and don’t feel like putting more work in than simply typing on my phone.

I saw Barbie earlier this year and I find myself comparing Poor Things to its narrative. Now I would never pit two beautiful women against each other but I think both movies have a similar message for very different audiences.

Barbie is about a woman who has been trapped in the ideal life. She has everything, and one day she questions what it would be like to not have everything (or a life at all). She then is sent on a quest to restore this naivety by traveling to the “real world”. Typical heroes journey stuff. However, she discovers that humanity, specifically fem-presenting folks, need help. She learns about ~feminism~ and being a GirlBoss and Woman Power and all that jazz. I’m not shitting on this either, it’s just how the movie was written.

My point is that this form of feminism is extremely digestible to the general public (maybe not dude bros with a podcast or has-been comedians but that’s beside the point). It was marketable (Mattel backing the project is an example of that), it was able to be shown to a diverse audience of children, adults, and the elderly. Even religious people couldn’t have too much of a problem with it. There were trends and TikTok filters and the whole Oppenheimer thing. It was extremely successful.

Visually, it was a good movie too. The sets were awesome, the costume design was perfect (albeit for a Chanel ad that rubbed me the wrong way), and it had both hilarious and emotionally gripping moments. I still have the Ken song on loop in my head sometimes and I bought an overpriced ‘I am Kenough’ sweatshirt so it worked on me.

What frustrated me about Barbie and I think what frustrated some other people, was how digestible it was. The movie pushed boundaries for the realm of Hollywood and for people who had only watched Avengers movies up to that point, but it felt too soft. “But GayPudding! You say. It’s a kids movie!” And to that I say yes. You’re correct. I still feel like it could have done something better than include 10 different product placements and an insanely long monologue that is accurate but in a way that doesn’t addresses the problem, it only identifies it.

Now, Poor Things. Decidedly not a movie for children under 13. It’s gory and filled with sex and cursing, but honestly it’s nothing I hadn’t seen by the time I was that age (maybe the brain parts). That’s an entirely different conversation though. It, however, was NOT marketable. It is sacrilegious so that audience is out, I saw at least four people walk out at different points all of various demographics (a mother and her two daughters to name 3) and its audience was mostly queer or alternative film majors and cool old people. (I work at a movie theater so I feel like this data is relatively accurate but it’s also a small theater so who knows).

But this film had all the same points as Barbie! It stars a woman who begins the movie with childlike naivety (more literally here), she leaves her world behind in search of something that will satisfy her personal world, finds that the world needs saving, then returns with confidence and self agency. Although she is not met with a Mojo Dojo Casa House, she’s met with wild objection and physical violence. In the end, much like Barbie, she gets what she wants while leaving her mentor behind and creates a world that is safe for herself and for her peers. She even has goals! Her studying for a medical exam is similar to Barbie’s… medical exam (aren’t I funny?).

The set and costuming is stunning. Like I actually had my mouth open at how beautiful and symbolic it was. Barbie was impressive but oh my god this film was one of the most visually gorgeous movies I’ve ever seen. Saltburn was pretty good too but the story didn’t hit me as hard.

Each phase of life that Bella entered was accompanied by a change in color palette, dress, and environment. She begins in infancy and toddlerhood with the dark and underdeveloped streets of London. She wears baby blues and white flowy dresses. Then she leaves for Lisbon and enters childhood. Her clothes are stiffer but still movable and are pastel and primary colors. Then the boat and Alexandria. She’s discovering that the world is full of horrors and complexities, her costumes increase in how stifling they are and become jewel toned. This was the teenage period. Then there’s Paris, her twenties. She’s found her liberty and her clothes are more revealing with a variety of styles and colors. She’s inventing herself. Finally, she reaches full adulthood. She’s realized who she is, what she wants, and makes a plan to get it and she does. She comes across challenges, but is able to rely on herself and those she knows to trust and she’s able to care for them in the same way they’ve cared for her.

Max’s character I have some different thoughts on, idk how I feel about his love for her in her infancy, but it’s a psychologically confusing situation and he felt weird about it so I’ll give him a temporary pass.

Anyway, this is all to say that the feminism of Barbie and of Poor Things is saying very similar things and executes that message in a very different way. I hope that in the future, more films like Poor Things can be made with nuanced takes and intelligent messages and less fucking advertisements.

[thirstghosting]

the "i am kenough" sweater is literally just an augmented version of the "want" by 3oh!3 half sweatshirt that i got at their fuckint live show at fucking. emo night tour!!!!!!!+ and that Bitch who Fucked me Over stole it and gave it to her Hoe Friend!!!! and I want it back. so badly

[scrambledd3ggss]

Now listen to me, I completely understood the message of Barbie and I totally agree with it! It was awesome and I believe that every person in the world sound sit down and take notes from it! However, I still want the I am Kenough sweatshirt <3

[carolinahope]

I know I'm not the first nor will I be the last person to say this but I really fucking want that tie-dye I am Kenough sweatshirt.