oscars 2024

ā€˜Iā€™m Just Kenā€™ Brings Oscars Audience to Their Feet

Kenergy off the charts. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

ā€œIā€™m Just Kenā€ might not have won an Oscar, but it did win the hearts and minds of the Oscars audience. Ryan Gosling performed the original song from the Barbie soundtrack in a bedazzled fuchsia suit at the awards ceremony on March 10, making his co-star and producer boss Margot Robbie giggle with the delight at the absurdity of the Broadway-inflected spectacle. Hiding his face behind a cowboy hat and sunnies, Gosling began the performance of Kenā€™s magnum opus from the audience, ā€œShallowā€-style, before joining a hoard of dancers on the stage as the first contemplative piano notes rung through the Dolby Theatre. The production and costume design was all very Marilyn Monroeā€™s ā€œDiamonds Are a Girls Best Friend,ā€ giving the number a classic musical feel. As the music crescendoed, the other Kens ā€” Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, and Kingsley Ben-Adir ā€” emerged, together with Slash, whose guitar solo explained exactly why he was spotted at the non-music event where he wasnā€™t a nominee. Massive cutouts of the original Barbie dollā€™s head floated. As Gosling returned to the audience to give Robbie, a slightly tone-challenged America Ferrera, director Greta Gerwig, and Emma Stone a moment to sing into the live mic, we could see the toothy grins of the titans of todayā€™s film industry. Barbie might have been mostly ignored statue-wise, but no one could look away from this.

ā€˜Iā€™m Just Kenā€™ Brings Oscars Audience to Their Feet