The Wild Mattel History Behind 'Barbie's Sugar Daddy Ken
Out of all the characters in Greta Gerwig's summer hit, Sugar Daddy Ken is the most unexpected character in Barbieland with a wild Mattel backstory.
Even though it only won one Academy Award, the biggest movie of 2023, Barbie, continues to prove its cultural staying power. And not just because of that Oscar performance from Ryan Gosling, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor alongside co-star America Ferrera for Best Supporting Actress. Aside from Gosling's scene-stealing Ken, Barbie featured several doll creations Mattel really hoped you had scrubbed from your memory. Many of these maligned Mattel fashionistas are delightfully infamous. There's Allan (Michael Cera), the lone outcast among a sea of Kens, and the "Happy Family" version of Midge (Emerald Fennell), whose pregnant belly recalls the chest-buster scene from Alien more than it does a living human woman.
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