Ken's progression OUT of color
This is kinda a cornplate thought that I had nowhere else to put but I love how in the Barbie movie(SPOILERS), Ryan Gosling's Ken's outfits symbolically showcase his "descent" into full patriarchy mode over time.
At the beginning of the film Ken's beach outfit (his default) has an equal balance of pink and blue. Pink is obviously Barbie's color, and shows Ken as fitting well into the femininity and style of Barbieland, while blue could be argued to be Ken's color (a scene later when he's especially confident features him wearing all denim blue, and the stereotypical gender of these colors, especially when found in kid's toys, supports these basic binaries as associated with these colors).
When Ken decides to leave Barbieland with Barbie to delve into the outside world, his color scheme goes full pink, desperate enough to be with Barbie that his attire reflects how dependent his identity is on hers at this stage.
However, it isn't long before Ken's exploration of the real world leads him to exciting new discoveries about the patriarchy and what it can do for him. Here he is introduced to a newfound sense of self independent from barbie, and while he still carries a pink scarf around his neck, the rest of his outfit has devolved into black and white while hers has remained colorful. As he pursues this new-to-him idea further, his worldview is becoming less unique, pretty, and vibrant(in addition to becoming much more masculine).
It is only his scarf that ties him to Barbie now, and upon making the choice not to follow her to Mattel, he becomes fully independent, losing the scarf and any trace of pink in his attire the next time we see him in his mojo dojo casa house coat and beach off outfit underneath.
In his most masculine moment during "Just Ken", he and the other Kens all wear a uniform of the most traditionally male ben shapiro outfit ever: A T-Shirt, belt, and dress pants. All black(and no white either to contrast like the previous 2 outfits). It's fitting that the Kens, in their destructive warpath, imagine themselves as perfectly cleaned up yet violently masculine dancers in their heads, their outfits devoid of all of the flair and character of Barbieland.
(excuse the shitty picture) After Ken has his little self-growth moment, his new sweatshirt reflects the changed and much more balanced man he has become, much more accepting of himself and a life where he can co-exist with Barbie without being with her. This outfit is again an almost perfect balance of pink and blue, both sides of Ken now a bit more at peace, his colors not pushed out by the LITERALLY black hole of toxic masculinity.
The color scheme also matches the roller blading outfit, so perhaps it shows a somewhat intermediary stage of Ken's development wherein he is still attached to and at peace with Barbieland, but where he is starting to become more independent as well.
anyway these are all fun and i genuinely have no fucking idea why Mattel didn't cash in on literally making dolls of all the characters and their outfits these would be so fun to own
