A British man who has spent $12,000 a year on cosmetic surgery designed to make him look like Ken, the boyfriend of Mattel’s Barbie, has criticized filmmakers behind the new Barbie movie for casting actor Ryan Gosling in the role and making the character heterosexual.
Jimmy Featherstone, a 23-year-old mini-celebrity and tabloid fixation who was offered the chance to star in a proposed reality TV show, has become known for his addictions to cosmetic surgery and tanning, which he undertakes to look like the Mattel figurine, leading the media to dub him the “real-life Ken doll.”
Featherstone believes that Barbie would be more “realistic” if the character played by Gosling was attracted to men, as Featherstone is in real life.
“I do think Ken being gay would suit the character more. I think gay men like to take pride in themselves,” Featherstone told the website JOE. “He’s a good-looking guy, and I think that’s what Ken is all about. So I think that would be great.
“If the character was gay, it shows people are equal, times have changed. At the end of the day, we are all human, and it doesn’t matter what you are. With everything going on in the world, with gay rights and LGBT and all that, I think that would get a lot more interest in the movie as well – so why not?”
Featherstone also believes that casting directors should have looked elsewhere for a Ken.
“I think they could have chosen someone a bit better looking on the eyes. I don’t think he’s very attractive. He doesn’t look anything like Ken,” he said. “I think it would be better if they chose me rather than Ryan.
“They could have chosen someone like Harry Styles — a young icon — or Joey Essex, for example, he’d be a good one, or maybe Rylan [Clark], I like him… But I can see why they’ve gone for a U.S. cast because that’s where Barbie and Ken originally came from — it’s an American company.”
Jimmy Featherstone, Photo: Instagram
Directed by Greta Gerwig, Barbie is scheduled for a July 21 release and features several A-list stars, including Gosling, Margot Robbie — who plays the titular character — Helen Mirren, John Cena, Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon, Rhea Perlman, America Ferrara, and Dua Lipa.
The film follows Barbie after being expelled from “Barbieland” for looking less-than-perfect before she sets off for the human world to search for “true happiness.”
In a trailer released last week, Gosling’s “Ken” tells Barbie, “I thought I might stay over tonight…because we’re girlfriend, boyfriend,” implying he’s heterosexual — although Ken doesn’t seem to know what they’ll be doing when he stays over Barbie’s house.
Referencing the trailer, Featherstone notes that several of the male characters in “Barbieland” are referred to as “Ken.”
“There seem to be a few Kens about. I think they’re trying to make it equal for everyone, showing there’s no such thing as ‘the one’ Ken,” he told JOE, seeking to justify his assertions that Ken should be gay. “I think that’s important because they’re trying to target everyone and make it look equal.”
Featherstone has previously made many media appearances in the United Kingdom showing off his Ken-doll looks, which he obtained by pursuing facial procedures, including a butterfly lip procedure, a fox brow lift, and work on his cheeks and jaw, starting five years ago.
He still has regular cosmetic treatments and enjoys being recognized as the “real-life Ken doll” on the street.
Despite his quibbles with casting, Featherstone says he’d love to be invited to the movie’s premiere in London. “I wouldn’t turn down the offer,” he says.
Col. Edward Thomas Ryan died on June 1, the first day of Pride Month, at the age of 85 from complications related to intestinal cancer.
The decorated Army veteran's obituary, which ran in the June 8 edition of the Albany Times-Union, included a message he wrote ahead of his death.
"I must tell you one more thing," the message begins. "I was Gay all my life: thru grade school, thru High School, thru College, thru Life."
The message then reveals Ryan "was in a loving and caring relationship with Paul Cavagnaro of North Greenbush. He was the love of my life. We had 25 great years together. Paul died in 1994 from a medical procedure gone wrong. I'll be buried next to Paul.
A federal judge issued a ruling blocking the Biden administration's guidance for schools, under which LGBTQ students discriminated against because of their sexual orientation or gender identity can file complaints of sex discrimination.
U.S. District Court Judge Danny Reeves opened his 93-page opinion with the declaration, "There are two sexes: male and female."
The Biden administration's Title IX guidance expands the definition of "sex" beyond just a person's biological anatomy.
The guidance is meant to protect LGBTQ students from incidents of unequal treatment, harassment, or sex stereotyping, which are usually based, in part, on a person's assigned sex at birth and how they present, in terms of gender norms, to the outside world.
Robert Davis pleaded guilty earlier this week to the murder of gay journalist Josh Kruger. He has been sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison.
Prosecutors claim Davis entered the 39-year-old Kruger's home in Philadelphia's Point Breeze neighborhood last October and shot him seven times before fleeing.
Kruger managed to call for help before stumbling outside his house and collapsing on the sidewalk. He was taken by police to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Earlier this year, Davis waived his right to a preliminary hearing and indicated that he intended to plead guilty to charges related to Kruger's death, as well as to charges of aggravated assault and illegal gun possession for an unrelated incident in which he fired a gun at someone at a SEPTA train platform last September. No one was injured in that incident.
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