The summer of 2023 will be one of the most memorable in recent times! After reviving the box office, Tom Cruise is coming with ‘Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One.’ But pop culture enthusiasts and cinephiles are excited for the biggest box office clash with Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ and Margot Robbie’s ‘Barbie.’
In the 64 years of its existence, Greta Gerwig’s ‘Barbie’ will be the first mainstream film about the doll. However, recently, it got embroiled in a big controversy, which led to the film’s ban in Vietnam. The gatekeepers of cinema in Vietnam were upset over a map drawn in the film by Margot Robbie and Kate McKinnon. The child-like picture depicts the ‘nine-dash line,’ which represents China’s territorial reign in the country. Now, a French poster has given the tagline of the film an NSFW twist.
Related: Is Margot Robbie’s ‘Barbie’ A Feminist Movie?
‘Ken’ In Barbie’s Tagline Means Sex In French
It will be an interesting spectacle to see Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling’s star power and Greta Gerwig‘s indie sensibilities play out in ‘Barbie.’ It is the story of Barbie coming out of her comfort zone and stepping into the real world for an adventure with her lover, Ken, played by Ryan Gosling.
Out of all the films coming out in July, ‘Barbie’ has the best marketing campaign. Before the trailer launch, they introduced each character with a funky tagline. But one of the taglines stood out in a poster where Barbie is on Ken’s shoulder and the tagline says, “She can do it all. He’s just Ken.”
But a French film poster may or may not have deliberately added a pun and NSFW meaning to the sentence. The French translation of the tagline reads, “Elle peut tout faire. Lui, c’est juste Ken.” In French slang, ‘Ken’ means to f***. So, the translation reads, “She knows how to do everything. He just knows how to f***.”
In Case You Missed: ‘Barbie’ Controversy: Why Margot Robbie’s Film Has Been Banned In Vietnam?
Netizens Are Having Fun With The French Translation Of The Tagline
Barbie has always been at the forefront of the Mattle world. Even the director of ‘Barbie,’ Greta Gerwig, says that Ken was invented to burnish the position of the doll in front of the world. During an interview with Vogue, Greta said, “Barbie was invented first.”
She continued, “Ken was invented after Barbie, to burnish Barbie’s position in our eyes and in the world. That kind of creation myth is the opposite of the creation myth in Genesis.”
Netizens are shocked and cannot stop laughing at the translation.
Also why did nobody tell me about what was happening on French twitter with the new barbie poster because I’m catching up now and ohmygod 😭😭
— Masokissed (@Mystical_Faerie) June 21, 2023
French twitter losing its mind right now because they translated the Barbie poster literally and accidentally made a pun that reads ‘She knows how to do everything. He just knows how to f*ck.’ https://t.co/jGSgJIrr3F
— Mathilde Merouani (@MathildeMerwani) June 16, 2023
French Twitter broke the Barbie poster 🤣 somehow someone has translated the Ken portion incorrectly as "he just knows how to fuck" because Ken in Fremch is slang for "sex/fuck" and "c'est" sounds like "sait" which translates to "knows"
— Ellahjay (@LAJust1ce) June 17, 2023
🤦♀️ internet never fails to amuse me 🤣 https://t.co/ziuVrQRw83
RIP AUX ANGLOPHONES PARCE QUE LE JEU DE MOTS AVEC KEN EST INCROYAAAAABLE pic.twitter.com/a5UmtGNY1Y
— leah (@grammedevanille) June 16, 2023
I'm now definitely watching Barbie first over Oppenheimer… pic.twitter.com/WbwtWg2NPa
— Al Sampson (@asampson21) June 17, 2023
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