The small girl dresses her doll for the fifth time that day. Astronaut. Teacher. Dentist. Gymnast. Chef. The career options are endless. A great role model for the girl playing make believe with her friends.

Barbie has always been a bold symbol standing for women, but the new “Barbie” movie released this summer still took many by surprise. Debate over what the movie would be about went on for months before the release, yet nobody saw the significance of this movie coming. 

Girls who used to spend their free time playing with Barbies were surprised with the meaningful messages presented by the movie.

“I played with Barbies as a kid. I did not expect the movie to be so deep,” freshman Madison Urbanovsky said. “I thought it would be a fun children’s movie.” 

The seriousness of the movie was just as unexpected for the men in the audience. 

“I expected it to be a silly movie I could make jokes about with my friends, but then we realized it had a message,” sophomore Alex Talkington said. “Why did they make a Barbie movie about equal rights?”

Not only has this movie connected millions of people and touched so many hearts; it has broken several records within just days of being released. 

Abc7ny.com says that the Barbie movie made about $155 million dollars just in its opening weekend, making it the most successful movie debut of a movie directed by a woman. 

Out of all the great things that have come from this movie, the new image it has provided for women on screen is one of the most important.

“It was a switch up from how movies usually treat women,” freshman Bailey Scogins said.

This movie presented all kinds of women in various leadership roles, careers, and showed some of the struggles that women encounter in day to day life; which is unfortunately pretty unusual for movies today. But hopefully, the progressive message of this movie will influence more ideas alike in future projects. 

“It is not targeted for girls,” junior Kamden Frazier said.  “This movie is for everyone.”