The joke, of course, is on the Kens—the Barbies are setting a trap for their male foils.
What’s the best joke from “Barbie”? That’s easy: it’s when Ken identifies his job as “beach.” Or maybe it’s when Weird Barbie, talking about Ken, says, “I’d like to see what kind of nude blob he’s packing under those jeans.” Or else it’s the commercial for Depression Barbie, with its sweatpants, family-size bag of Starburst, and endless loop of the BBC’s “Pride and Prejudice.” O.K., so it’s not so easy—but, to land somewhere, nothing fits quite as nicely as the sight of Ken, on the beach, aggressively serenading Barbie with Matchbox Twenty’s nineties hit “Push.” The gag gets better when the camera pulls back to show a gaggle of Kens all doing the same thing, as the chorus swells. (“I wanna push you around / Well I will, well I will.”) The joke, of course, is on the Kens—the Barbies are setting a trap for their male foils. But it’s really on any dude who has ever played his guitar at someone.