ryan gosling as ken in barbie

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

‘Barbie’s Dream House revamp is the movie’s hottest meme

'Welcome to my Mojo Dojo Casa House.'

 

Michelle Jaworski

Internet Culture

Posted on Jul 24, 2023

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Barbie.

If you thought Barbie’s Dream House was the height of luxury, wait until you set your eyes on what Barbie came up with for its makeover—or the memes it’s inspired since.

We see the former iteration for ourselves a good chunk of the way through Barbie. Having found the human fueling her existential crisis, Barbie (Margot Robbie) returns to Barbie Land with Gloria (America Ferrera) and Gloria’s teenage daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt). But instead of everything being turned back to normal, it was almost unrecognizable after Ken (Ryan Gosling) introduced the patriarchy to Barbie Land.

Now, the Kens are in charge of what’s being called the Kendom. They took over all of the Barbie Dream Houses, while the Barbies are dressed in maid outfits and reduced to mooning over their Kens and serving them beer. There are horses everywhere. And in two days’ time, the Kens planned to vote to change the Constitution to take complete control.

And perhaps the biggest insult to Barbie? Her Dream House was no longer hers: Instead, it was Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House. And Ken wanted Barbie to live with him and be his “long-term long-distance low-commitment casual girlfriend.”

No, it does not matter that Ken’s name for his dream house is redundant on multiple levels. He’s rolling with it. And, to the Mattel CEO’s (Will Ferrell) apparent dismay, Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House is selling off shelves faster than Mattel can ship them out.

But with time and enough iterations, Mojo Dojo Casa House starts to roll off the tongue. Enough for viewers, once they left the movie theater, to envision the other Mojo Dojo Casa Houses of cinema.

The meme boils down to a simple act. A character (usually a man) shows off his house. When prompted by someone asking where they are, he responds, “Welcome to my Mojo Dojo Casa House.” The key is that the house is a giant mess or completely uninhabitable for most people, but he absolutely loves it.

Sometimes, another character is introduced to the house, and she’s usually not impressed.

Other times, he’s just reveling in it himself.

Even outside of pop culture, the Mojo Dojo Casa House had a certain aesthetic to it: Either it was entirely Too Much, or it was so threadbare it barely looked like anyone lived in it.

And it wouldn’t be a Mojo Dojo Casa House if we didn’t also have a Barbenheimer crossover.

The Barbies hold off the Kensurrection and return things to normal by turning the Kens against each other and feigning interest in both The Godfather and Matchbox Twenty. But we’ll always have the Mojo Dojo Casa House.

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*First Published: Jul 24, 2023, 2:19 pm CDT