Warner Bros. Knew Exactly What It Was Doing With That Racy French 'Barbie' Poster -- Here's Why

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Huh, Ken is way hornier in the French poster for Barbie

Huh, Ken is way hornier in the French poster for Barbie

Whether it's a deliberate double-entendre or bad translation, Ken is claiming a very specific skillset in the French posters for Barbie

By William Hughes | Published Yesterday

Warner Bros. has been pushing the “Ken-ergy” angle pretty hard ahead of the upcoming release of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, emphasizing the affable, toned doofus nature of Ryan Gosling’s Ken. But the French marketing for the film has pushed the definition of that nebulous-but-hunky concept even further, it turns out—in what may, or may not, have been a very deliberate direction.

This is per THR—truly, your one-stop shop for all French fornication slang—which reports on an online hubbub surrounding the French posters for Gerwig’s movie, which declare “Elle peut tout faire. Lui, c’est juste Ken.” (Literally, “She can do everything. He’s just Ken.” All well and good, and pretty close to the film’s English tagline. Except, guess what, “ken” has a very specific double-meaning in French slang—which means that the poster also translates to “She can do everything. He just knows how to fuck.”

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