A TikTok Theory Connects Barbie To Greta Gerwig’s 2015 Portlandia Episode

While many fans are looking forward to a potential Barbie sequel, others are looking back to a time before the Greta Gerwig-directed movie was a box office sensation. In the process, one TikToker came across old Portlandia footage that may hint at Barbie’s true origins. Their intriguing theory connects a key part of the movie to a 2015 scene from the quirky IFC comedy starring Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen that featured none other than Gerwig herself.

TikTok user ghostsamantha posted a clip from Portlandia Season 5, Episode 7, “Doug Becomes a Feminist,” on Aug. 9. In it, Gerwig, credited as Mermaid, plays an actor seeking to engage in feminist dialogue while shooting a movie in Portland. She goes to the bookstore Women & Women First, where she encounters Toni (Brownstein) and Candace (Armisen) and discusses her character, “a feminist who’s a mermaid.”

Concerned, Toni and Candace convince Gerwig’s character to show them the script so they can give feedback. When she says the mermaid “does meet a guy” (a surfer), Candace offers an idea that the TikTok user felt was familiar after seeing Barbie: “I think that this surfer should show up, and she looks at him… and says, ‘You don’t mean anything to me. Go back and surf.’ And that’s all we see of him.”

“Did greta gerwig get the idea for barbie from portlandia????” ghostsamantha wrote in their video. Their caption added, “like that’s literally ken????”

Many commenters were sold on the theory that Barbie’s plot essentially came from the Portlandia episode. “Yeah that is the whole entire plot,” one wrote, as another joined in to add, “Wow, full circle.” Another devoted Portlandia fan noted that they had been “wondering the same thing.”

However, there was an important distinction that many Barbie aficionados wanted to point out: Ryan Gosling’s Ken may surf, but it’s not his profession. “Ken’s job is beach, NOT surfing,” one clarified. It led to debate over semantics. “Ken DOES surf y’all,” someone argued. “Surfing just isn’t his job, his job is beach, but surfing [is] one of the duties of his beach job.”

Whatever the origins of Gerwig’s Barbie’s plot, the writer-director helped the Mattel project get back on track with her ideas. She came on board after an earlier version of the script was scrapped because it wasn’t as “smart and provocative” as Mattel had wanted, as Lisa McKnight, global head of dolls and Barbie at Mattel, told Bloomberg in July. Gerwig not only won over Mattel, but her final film is also one Candace and Toni would be more likely to get behind. That said, they’d probably still think there was more than Kenough of the men. In their (fictional) hands, Barbie could have had a character named Militant, left surfers “bound and gagged,” and had extended pauses after the words “my terms.”