Matchbox Twenty member admits he 'won't watch' Barbie after controversial use of band's hit song
Ken singing 'Push' to Barbie around the campfire in the hit 2023 movie quickly became one of the film’s most iconic moments, but not everyone approved.
The 1997 hit single by Matchbox Twenty explores emotional manipulation, control, and the strain of a toxic relationship. In the movie, Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, sings the song after returning from the real world, in which he discovered the concept of patriarchy.
He then plays the song at Barbie (Margot Robbie) with a passionate and overexaggerated performance of the song, with lyrics including: “I wanna push you around” and “I wanna take you for granted."
Speaking about the inclusion of his song in the hit movie, Rob Thomas said on the Zach Sang Show podcast: “The way she [Greta Gerwig] wrote and the way it was worded to me, I knew exactly what was happening because it said Kens at in a bonfire. He’s playing ‘Push’ at Barbie. And I thought that was a great description, like playing it at you instead of for you," he said.
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"I immediately said yes. Me and Paul, I wouldn't say we fight about it but we have differing opinions on the whole Barbie moment."
Thomas, who was the writer on the hit song admitted that he approved the use of the song without asking any of the other band members. Although Thomas was excited about the idea, his bandmate, guitarist Paul Doucette, wasn't as keen, saying he 'doesn't think it was something we should have done'.
“I don’t know that everyone got the joke,” he said on the podcast. “I think that, suddenly there was a large amount of people who maybe saw that we were now the voice of the patriarchy, and I was like, I didn’t sign up for that. I don’t view the world that way.”
“By the way, to this day I haven’t seen it,” he said. And it doesn't look like he has any plans to either. “Won’t see it," he added.
However, Thomas compared it to the joke in the movie Bring It On in which the 'douche boyfriend' had a huge Matchbox Twenty Two poster on his wall.
Previously speaking to USA Today, Thomas said he wrote the song about a former girlfriend. “I wrote that song about someone I had been with who I felt was manipulating me and taking advantage of me,” he explained.
“It was just about this idea that it’s so much easier to find someone you can take advantage of than it is to actually put work into a relationship.”
Kiesha Dosanjh
