- BTS fans took notice that one of Ryan Gosling's Ken outfits resembled one worn by Jimin in the music video for "Permission to Dance"
- Gosling addressed the similar outfits in a video on the Barbie social media channels
- As an "apology," Gosling gifted Jimin Ken's guitar from the film
The marketing blitz for the Barbie movie has been omnipresent, and we're all about it. Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, before the SAG-AFTRA strike, were consistently bringing their characters' energy to the film's promotional material in ways that weren't just good; they were ... dare we say, Ken-tertaining. Ken-genius.
Of course, to some people, it feels a little Ken-trived sometimes, too. And for those people, a recent intersection of Barbie hype and BTS fandom might be their personal breaking point.
You see, the avid fandom known as the BTW Army took notice that an outfit Ken sports in the trailer (specifically a black cowboy shirt with white tassels) was strikingly similar to the one worn by BTS member Jimin in the music video for their hit single "Permission to Dance."
In a newly released (but previously recorded) clip, Gosling appears to appease the BTS Army over this "outfit theft." He begins the video clip by addressing the K-Pop star directly:
"Hi, Jimin. It’s Ryan Gosling here. I noticed that your ‘Permission To Dance’ outfit was the same as my Ken outfit in the upcoming movie Barbie. I have to give it to you: You wore it first. You definitely wore it best."
He continues by offering the "Dynamite" singer an apology gift, as only a Ken can:
"And there’s an unspoken Ken code that if you bite another Ken’s style, you have to give them your most prized possession. I hope you’ll accept Ken’s guitar as my humble offering. And besides, Ken doesn’t really play anyway, so, it’ll be much better in your hands."
Now, here's where those aforementioned exhausted folks online will burst in to complain about the artificiality of all of this, the cynical leveraging of one rabid and intense fanbase of a manufactured pop product to try and generate more interest in a film that wants to have its cake and eat it too in terms of being both subversive auteurist work and mass-market popcorn fun.
But those people are like those guys outside the fast food restaurant yelling about how we should only eat the food we grow ourselves or something. For the rest of us, BTS is fun. Barbie is fun. Let's all sit back and enjoy a big bite of this deliciously engineered marketing.
Michael Natale is the news editor for Best Products, covering a wide range of topics like gifting, lifestyle, pop culture, and more. He has covered pop culture and commerce professionally for over a decade. His past journalistic writing can be found on sites such as Yahoo! and Comic Book Resources, his podcast appearances can be found wherever you get your podcasts, and his fiction can’t be found anywhere, because it’s not particularly good.
