'Barbie' director Greta Gerwig had to fight the studio to keep Ryan Gosling's 'I'm Just Ken.' Here's the story behind the instant-classic song.

Summer may be long gone, but Barbie is forever.

Warner Bros. struck gold with its megahit Barbie — directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie in the title role opposite Ryan Gosling as her tagalong boy toy, Ken — raking in more than $1 billion at the box office. And it wasn’t just Robbie and Gosling's onscreen chemistry and killer wardrobes that captivated audiences: Gosling's catchy tune "I'm Just Ken" also stole the show.

However, as Gerwig revealed over the weekend at a London film festival, the studio bosses didn't quite get what she was going for. "There was a big meeting that was like, 'Do you need this?' And I was like, 'Everything in me needs this.'" After some back and forth, Gerwig — and, frankly, everyone who saw Barbie — won.

Eventually, the studio embraced the moment, teasing audiences by releasing a snippet of the music video showcasing Gosling's singing ahead of the movie's July 21 premiere. Before long, Ken climbed his way onto the Billboard charts, leaving fans clamoring for more.

By the time Barbie hit theaters, the song was slowly becoming a cultural phenomenon — specifically around the idea of "Kenergy," first uttered by Gosling in an interview with Entertainment Tonight in 2022 and later reclaimed by men online stating that the term represents healthier views around masculinity.

After releasing a behind-the-scenes music video in August, it was clear that Gosling fully committed to the role as the dancing, singing (and somewhat lovable) doll. But as the creative team behind the song explains, there's more to Ken than meets the eye.

The making of Gosling as Ken

Written and produced by Mark Ronson and Miike Snow’s Andrew Wyatt (co-composers of Lady Gaga's Oscar-winning hit, "Shallow"), "I'm Just Ken" was a vehicle to showcase Gosling's musical chops. Still, nailing Ken's shining moment wasn't easy, Wyatt says.

"The amount of labor in the months preceding the final mix of the 'locked' edit of the film are, how should I say, buck wild?" he tells Yahoo Entertainment.

Ronson echoed those sentiments in an interview with Variety, during which he said Gosling had only three hours to record the vocals before the producer sent the track to Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash, who agreed to play guitar alongside guitarist Wolfgang Van Halen and Foo Fighters drummer Josh Freese.

Wyatt says Gosling was destined to sing and dance for the masses, having charted once before with "City of Stars" from 2016's La La Land, opposite Emma Stone. The song spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Jazz Digital Song Sales chart, according to Billboard, while Gosling and Stone's duet version topped at No. 8 on the Hot 100's Bubbling Under ranking. It also won an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Gosling has shown he's unafraid of experimentation, as evidenced by his short-lived gothic band era, circa 2007, as the lead singer of Dead Man’s Bones alongside his pal screenwriter Zach Shields — and nearly a decade before, as a teen star on the Disney Channel's Mickey Mouse Club, where Gosling performed with other future hitmakers like Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake.

A little help from Freddie Mercury

Gosling's fearless attitude was a perfect vessel to create the world of Ken. As Wyatt explains, it also inspired the writers to channel influence from other fearless performers — such as the late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury.

"I think whenever you're writing things that need to have obvious pomp and bravado, things that go full-tilt-to-the-hilt and then some, the ghost of Freddie Mercury is never far away," he says.

"I think 'Kenergy' is about claiming your basic space, meaning the right to feel reasonably good about you as you exist within the confines of your own body," Wyatt says of Gosling's Ken. "It's a simple appreciation that being you is 'Kenough.'"

The lasting impact of 'Kenergy'

Since seeing the film, audiences have found catharsis in Ken's journey, using terms like "Kenergy" and "Kenough" to help define what masculinity can look like.

Nicholas Balaisis, a psychotherapist in Toronto who wrote about the terms for Psychology Today after seeing Gosling's performance, says "I'm Just Ken" strikes a chord on the "various crises of masculinity in the culture right now," which is evident in lyrics like:

"Most men know that the older models of masculinity are no longer available or desirable," Balaisis tells Yahoo Entertainment, "but there is not a new model ready-made to step into."

That's where Ken steps in, explains Sally Spencer-Thomas, a suicide-prevention advocate and co-founder of the campaign Man Therapy, who says the dance sequence featuring the various Kens in the film, choreographed by Jennifer White and Lisa Welham, offers a compelling exploration of societal norms.

"The choreography acts as a portal to an alternate realm, and the dance transcends mere physical movement; it escalates into an emotional catharsis," she tells Yahoo Entertainment. "The very essence of the dance aims to liberate the Kens from the constricting boundaries of traditional masculinity. It's a profound notion that these individuals, previously embroiled in emotional turmoil and frustrated by their own masculinity, find their emancipation through the language of dance."

The song's bigger theme, say Balaisis and Spencer-Thomas, is the freedom of expression, which is articulated through Gosling's unapologetic performance as well as the song's lyrics.

Indeed, Balaisis adds, being unafraid of "letting go" is a gift Wyatt, Ronson and Gosling may have unknowingly bestowed on younger generations of men.

"Men often experience really high levels of shame in relation to their personal appearances of feeling judged and scrutinized on their looks or for standing out," he says. "The capacity to risk expression in fashion or clothing can be a sign of inner esteem, of being 'Kenough,' and thus able to withstand the judging glares we perceive from others."

But Ken's big number was almost canned

Appearing during a "Screen Talk" segment at the London Film Festival on Oct. 8, Gerwig surprised the audience when she explained just how close the "I'm Just Ken" scene came to be cut from the film.

"It just said in the script, 'And then it becomes a dream ballet and they work it out through dance,'" Gerwig said, per Variety. "There was a big meeting that was like, 'Do you need this?' And I was like, 'Everything in me needs this.' They were like, 'What do you even mean? What is a dream ballet?' And I was like, 'A dream ballet? Where do I begin!'"

Gerwig drew on a classic Warner Bros. musical — featuring "a dream ballet inside of a dream ballet" — to explain what she was trying to accomplish.

"I was like, if people could follow that in Singin' in the Rain, I think we'll be fine. I think people will know what this is. So that was the big reference point," she said.

"Even though everything felt right to me and was giving me so much joy in the way we were doing it, it was also like, 'Oh no, this could be just terrible, but now I’m committed.'"

This story was originally published on Sept. 6, 2023.