CRAFT ESSAY: The "I'm Just Ken" Oscars Performance
IN THIS ESSAY I WILL...
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“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
This newsletter is dedicated to the haters who doubted Ryan Gosling’s Ken casting.
CRAFT: an occupation, trade, or activity requiring manual dexterity or artistic skill
In this essay I will argue that Ryan Gosling was uniquely qualified to bring down the house with his performance of “I’m Just Ken” at the 2024 Oscars due to his specific blend of experience as a Mouseketeer, band frontman, actor, and person of Canadianess. He merged an uber-specific blend of irony, sincerity, dorkiness, sexiness, rock star energy, and musical theater cringe into a potent mixture that even Martin Scorsese could not resist.
**WARNING: this email will cut off, open in your browser to see all my careful screenshots in their full glory**
If you like, you may review the song lyrics (the “text”) here prior to reading.
We begin in the audience, which not only is an exremely theater kid thing to do, but also allows us to see this beautifully framed shot of Billie Eilish losing her shit as Gosling begins singing (with perfect pitch) under a black cowboy hat. Did he HAVE to start in the audience? No! This requires much more timing and breath control, but it’s already clear that we are watching a pro on many levels.
A delightful little headshake at Margot (Barbie’s) failure to acknowledge him in the moment. This is the type of small musical theater movement meant for the camera, and surely derives from his experience as a child actor and Mouseketeer. Broadway performers would not do a small gesture like this, knowing it wouldn’t translate on stage to the back of the room. We are already getting core engagement of Ryan Gosling’s particular flexing of performance muscles as he heads up the aisle onto the stage (for now) dimly lit stage.
The eye contact here is EXCEPTIONAL, though it does appear from Gosling’s giggle that Mark Ronson missed a small physical cue of some sort (perhaps turned the wrong way?) but all Gosling can do is laugh, because when you’re a pro, can you really blame the amateurs for their bobbles? Sidenote: the costuming choices are exemplary in this entire performance, but the loose, bell-sleeved, pink chiffon, deep v-neck shirts on the musicians is truly inspired.
Must call out that here, Gosling fist bumps the candelabra (Ken-delabra) man and the lighting changes at exact moment their hands make contact. That is simply the kind of theater bullshit that only people who have sat through a twelve-hour tech (I dabbled in theatrical lighting during during my time in Chicago) could appreciate.
He appears to arrive at the risers just a hair late, resulting in a quickened step to get into position. However—he doesn’t panic! He grabs his champagne glass and moves seamlessly into his seated choreo.
There’s a slight muffle on the phrase “blonde fragility,” but we’ll allow it since Gosling is changing positions with his diaphragm, being touched by three men at once, and will instantly spring back to seating to grab his champagne glass (extremely aware of where on the riser he left it) and pantomine stabbing himself in the heart with it.
After this visual homage to “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” we switch from a plantive “I Want” song to a prog-rock men’s rights ballad. But first, we welcome out our featured dancers and Cameo Kens: Simu Liu, Scott Evans, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Ncuti Gatwa. Ryan greets them with magnaminity and grace as he navigates the genre, tone, and beat change seamlessly.
He strides forward, clipping his mic into the stand (with a slight bobble, but again, he doesn’t panic and doesn’t allow his timing to be thrown off, only somone who has performed live in a rock duo called Dead Man’s Bones would be so confident of the beat) and then begins his standing martial arts choreo, a PURE DELIGHT! He easily could have sung these two bars standing still, gathering himself, but instead he hands us yet another visual treat.
Another tempo shift as we head into the “Kenergy” bridge of the song. We are treated to excellent Gosling vibrato on the line, “but I’m no dreamer.” At this point Gosling has such strong theater kid energy that all he can do is smile up at the camera as two strong men lift him up on his back. This is where his screen skills come in—this man is aware at every MICROSECOND of this performance exactly which camera he should be looking at. We’ll discuss the iconic cameraman hand kiss later in this essay, but this is a sublime moment of fourth wall breaking.
When he ducks under the vintage Barbie doll heads, at first it seems as if he’s changing costumes, or perhaps taking a breather. But no! After the Cameo Kens mug to the camera for a moment, we realize Gosling has run out from under the Barbie heads to duet with Slash on the front of the stage!!!!
I highly recommend pasuing and going moment by moment beginning at 2:20 so you can appreciate the Hollywood stars, many of whom come off wooden and less-than-charismatic at live events, experiencing child-like joy. Ryan Gosling, Canadian Mouseketeer, is doing this for them. He has made Paul Giamatti’s heart leap with delight! This is magic that unfortunately, only being indoctrinated into the Disney machine as a young boy can imbue.
On the role of Canadian heritage on this performance, I have to pull a quote from Max Read’s recent newsletter annotating Dune 2. While I know Gosling is from Ontario, not Quebec, Wkipedia tells me that both of his parents are of French-Canadian descent:
This next visual is one of my favorites for the sheer lack of need, yet its charming nature—one of the Cameo Kens spins up to kiss Gosling on the cheek, and he accepts the kiss with a wide amile and happy nod. In this gesture, we get a whole visual language for how the Kens in Barbieland interact with one another, with physical affection and a distinct lack of self-consciousness. I love it!
Now we move into our CROWD WORK, again, something only someone who has performed live in a band would do!! Can you imagine any of these actors who are not comedians trying this shit at the OSCARS? Gosling seamlessly lowers himself down off the stage, switches the mic to his dominant hand, and walks right over to the three women responsible for Barbie—director and writer Greta Gerwig, star and producer Margot Robbie, and Supporting Actress nominee America Ferrara. He calls them in to sing the line, “and I’m enough,” and then walks down the front aisle after blowing them a kiss.
Next we have the much bally-hooed moment where Gosling reunites with his LaLaLand co-star Emma Stone who enthusiastically grabs the mic to scream “and so am I!” as Gosling takes yet another chance to look directly at the camera and grin. He is looking at a specific cameraman, his next mark.
P E R F E C T L Y nailing the timing of the lyric, “put that manly hand in mine,” Gosling grabs the cameraman’s hand, KISSES IT, then leads him up onto the stage for the final set of shots, where once we pull out it’s clear the cameraman is also wearing a black cowboy hat to fit in with the other Kens. The level of visual detail!
And then, after THREE PLUS minutes of singing, choreography, crowd work, and camera work, Gosling proceeds to hit the final high note BETTER than at least one of the other Best Song nominees (who I will not name). This, again, can only come from Mouseketeer and band experience—no matter how hard you’re going, you keep a little bit in reserve to make sure that last note, that final pop, is strong and true and clear. A victory!!! Gosling then kisses his “E” necklace to make sure everyone knows he is taken by Eva Mendes, who didn’t come to the Oscars because she was busy hanging out with their two kids.
The crowd goes wild, and even Cillian Murphy unselfconciously beams and applauds like the wee Irish lad he once was, enchanted by this pure nonsense.
Of course, we cannot give all the credit to Ryan Gosling, stage and screen performer. Choreographer Mandy Moore (not that one) and associate choreographer Gillian Myers certainly created something magical with the sheer wrangling of 60+ back-up dancers, musicians, and moving parts to create a clear and coherent visual spectacle. There was a 40 piece live orchestra, and real production expertise. From Variety’s article:
“Ryan Gosling is a true professional, that man — we met with him on Zooms months ago, talking about that performance,” said Molly McNearney, who produced the show with Raj Kapoor, Katy Mullan and Rob Paine. “Greta Gerwig weighed in creatively as well. He was so committed to it. His choreographer, Mandy Moore, is exceptional — she was on all the calls. So was Mark Ronson.”
And yes, consent was involved:
Everything was planned, right down to Gosling’s kiss of the cameraman’s hand.
“We practiced that,” said Moore. “[Gosling] was very sweet he goes, ‘Can we just make sure that Sean the steady is OK if I kiss his hand?'”
The consensual kiss was yet another symbolic gesture of Ken love, thematically calling all Kens to join the stage. “Everyone is a Ken here: We have construction Kens, we’ve got grip Kens, we’ve got camera Kens, we got all of them,” said Moore.
And like all good performers, Gosling immediately needed reassurnce backstage that he hadn’t blown it:
Moore described his mood backstage, after all was said and done. “He just gave me a huge hug,” she said. “And then he got all serious, and asked, ‘Were the shots right? Did I do a good job?’
“I’m like, ‘Yes! Oh, my God, are kidding me? Did you hear those people? They were freaking out!'”
The reason this performance hit so hard for me is that I am normally a somewhat cynical person, but my heart melts in the presence of unabashed sincerity and pure skill—the exact combination of musical theater. When I first saw “Defying Gravity” in Wicked I could only manage a garbled gasp when Elphaba flew. The second I hear the opening notes of “Bring Him Home” from Les Miserabales I’m weeping. These songs ONLY work when the performer is 120% dedicated, willing to fall flat on their face rather than only give 99% with any whiff of self-consciousness or irony.
And at the 2024 Oscars, we were given the performance we deserved—a former Disney Mouseketeer, band frontman, and movie star putting it all out there, in total sincerity, with such charisma and charm that he forced jaded, beautiful people at a work event to forget where they were for three minutes and sing along to deranged lyrics such as these:
I'm just Ken (And I'm enough)
And I'm great at doing stuff
What are your thoughts on why this performance succeeded? Anything else you noticed?
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ABOUT ME: My name is Caitlin Kunkel and I’m a comedy writer, long-time teacher, and creator of The Second City’s Online Satire Writing Program. I currently teach classes and consult on gift book proposals, modern adaptation, satire, and comedic literature. I co-founded The Belladonna Comedy and the Satire and Humor Festival, and I co-wrote the satirical gift book New Erotica for Feminists: Satirical Fantasies of Love, Lust, and Equal Pay, named one of the Top 10 Comedy Books of 2018 by Vulture.
I'm stoned and laughed at every word of this masterpiece about a masterpiece. Brava to all.
All I’ve been thinking about since this performance is “does G z know who Slash is” and how long do we have to still be able to roll slash out for a fun rock moment? (Dad rock and musical theatre are so interconnected to me, same amount of unbridled passion and lack of self consciousness required 💆🏻♀️)