Barbie dolls have long been the objects of both adoration and loathing from girls around the world. Due to Barbie’s infamous issues with unrealistic body types, lack of representation, and more, I walked into the movie theater (dressed in all pink) beside my mom feeling unsure about this new movie. I walked out of the theater crying.

The movie begins with a screen full of bright pink, dialogue full of lines poking fun at all of the idiosyncrasies that Barbies deal with – Margot Robbie’s Barbie showers without any water coming down from the shower head, she steps out of her heels and her feet are still perfectly arched on tip-toes. However, the movie quickly pivots to a nuanced depiction of girlhood, and of growing up in the U.S. as a woman.

For all intents and purposes, Barbie’s experience is that of a young girl – someone who experienced the whimsy and sweetness of the world without danger – hitting puberty and suddenly experiencing harassment, anxiety, and impossible standards of how to be. Still, instead of the movie feeling nihilistic and devastating, it brought me and thousands of other women hope, and made us feel less alone. Because as much as it talked about the sometimes insurmountable troubles of girlhood, it also talked about the ineffable joy. At the end of the movie, Barbie speaks with her creator and god. She asks permission to become a person, and is told that she doesn’t need it – she is a person, so long as she wishes to be. She’s shown a montage – women and girls from real life (home videos of the cast and crew’s friends and family), laughing and crying, dancing and jumping and falling down. This is what it means to be a girl, to be a woman, to be a person – we scream and claw and fight to keep this moment, because as much as some moments cut us open, others are so bright and warm that they heal scars that never felt a wound.

Barbie isn’t just a movie about a doll gaining sentience. It’s a movie about the reasons why girlhood, even in its pain, is beautiful. About the fact that we all have the power to create ourselves, and impose ourselves on the world.

Article by May Lafer-Kirtner