The new girl-power Goldieblox ad is awesomely intense

Remember GoldieBlox? They’re the company that makes engineering toys for girls. It’s the same company that made that viral video last year showing girls breaking out of their princess molds to create an enormous Rube Goldberg machine out of toys. Also the same company that got into some trouble for that ad because of a certain Beastie Boys song. Yeah, their commercials are always worth paying attention to. And their latest ad is no exception. The company has put out another pointed viral video, modeled on that famous Apple ad from 1984 introducing the Macintosh.

In the video, a line of girls in petal-pink dresses and rhinestone-encrusted shoes file down a line in a factory. A machine behind them stamps out Barbie-like dolls, all identically blond and slender, as behind them a cycling clip of a woman says “You are beauty and beauty is perfection.” Then one little girl in sneakers and overalls takes out a hammer and wreaks havoc on the machinery. The girls all kick off their shoes and join in the revolt. In the final scene, the machine reveals a new GoldieBlox doll: a woman in overalls with a hammer.

The message behind the commercial is about breaking away from the cookie-cutter beauty standards that society begins instilling in girls at such a young age. The GoldieBlox commercial (this time, sans Beastie Boys soundtrack) paints a new model for how to engage the creative spirit of young girls: Not just with dress-up and princess books (though those things are totally fine too) but also with tools and activities that promote math and science, toys that, as the GoldieBlox site notes, “give girls confidence in problem solving.” It’s that problem-solving is not just possible, but fun for both genders. In a time when just 11 percent of engineers are women, it’s a valuable message for girls to hear.