Rob Thomas Reacts to Ryan Gosling’s Matchbox Twenty Cover in ‘Barbie’: ‘I’m Pretty Thick-Skinned’
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Warning: This post contains spoilers to Barbie, specifically in regards to its hilarious scene featuring Ryan Gosling’s Ken covering “Push” by Matchbox Twenty. Which, by the way, Rob Thomas thinks is hilarious.
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In a recent interview, the singer recalled just how his band’s 1997 hit not only became part of the film, but turned into one of Barbie‘s biggest musical moments — toward the storyline’s climax, Ken sits down Margot Robbie’s Barbie in front of a campfire and attempts to impress her with his guitar-playing skills, singing “Push” for several hours straight. This all comes after Gosling’s character, feeling scorned by Barbie’s disinterest in him, has convinced the other Kens to embrace ideals of patriarchy and toxic masculinity — such as cornering women and expecting them to applaud the men’s mediocre acoustic performances of ’90s cool guy music and reward them with romantic or sexual favors, for instance.
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“I want to preface this by saying that I thought it was hilarious,” Thomas told USA Today in a Sunday (July 23) interview. “But in Bring It On, [Kirsten Dunst’s character] has this douchey boyfriend. And there’s a scene where he was in his dorm room with a Matchbox Twenty poster in the background. There was a whole period during the ‘90s where the more successful we got, the bigger target we were. We were an easy takedown.”
“When I got the call for Barbie, they told me, ‘Ken’s by the fireside, he’s playing the song and it’s his favorite band.’ So I did this thinking I’d be the butt of the joke, and I was fine with that. I’m pretty thick-skinned. But Julie Greenwald [from Atlantic Records] came to the Hollywood Bowl a month or two ago. She had just seen the movie and was like, ‘You come out of it loving Ken and loving ‘Push.’’ And I was like, ‘Aww. All right, really good!'”
The film’s treatment of “Push” — which topped the Alternative Airplay chart in July 1997 — felt even better considering that Barbie director Greta Gerwig has been, as Thomas put it, “one of my crushes forever.” “The fact that it didn’t diminish my crush of Greta, that’s even better,” Thomas told the paper.
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Gerwig herself also spoke about her decision to spotlight Matchbox Twenty’s music, revealing she’s been a fan of “Push” since childhood. “Growing up, I loved that song,” she said. “I was like, ‘This is my rock n’ roll, Dad. Enjoy The Who, but these are my guys.’ And it wasn’t until college that I actually thought, ‘What is that song about?’”
The Barbie soundtrack also showcases dozens of other songs, many of which are originals lended by Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Dua Lipa, Ice Spice, Nicki Minaj and more. Plus, the Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine” is featured as Barbie’s favorite car-ride tune.
Another dude-rock band championed by the Kens during their takeover is Pavement, with one Ken man-splaining the group’s influence and ties to the Velvet Underground to a disinterested Barbie. Pavement reacted to the namedrop on Instagram Stories, writing that “as a rule we are pro-Greta” and joking, “Not a sponsored post but CAN BE @barbiethemovie just DM us for Venmo.”
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