The doll has a long history as a gay symbol, which stands to reason: minus a handle-bar moustache, he embodies the kind of beauty ideals that in the 70s and 80s would find you atop the sexual hierarchy of Fire Island. Lots of people said that, at 42, Gosling is simply too old to play Ken, while others lambasted this as ageist writing in The Independent, Victoria Richards argued, “ It’s time to do away with ageism and recognise that you don’t have to be below 25 to be beautiful.”Īlready, the image has inspired scores of memes based on the simple premise that Ken looks, well, kind of gay. With his peroxide blonde hair, orange spray tan and washboard abs, he looks like some ageing twink that you’d see at G-A-Y Late on a Wednesday night – and reactions haves been mixed. Yesterday, Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie film set the internet ablaze by releasing the first promotional still of Ken, played by Ryan Gosling.