3 Girls Smash Gender Roles to Smithereens in Toy Company's Glorious Debut Ad

One of the most anti-feminist songs of the 1980s, "Girls" by the Beastie Boys, is recast as an empowering theme for young women in a new toy ad looking to break gender stereotypes.

The spot is a holiday promotion for GoldieBlox, a construction-themed board game that nearly doubled its Kickstarter goal in 2012. Game developer Debbie Sterling designed GoldieBlox to combine young girls' love of reading and characters with the engineering themes of toys typically more popular with boys, like Legos and erector sets. To that end, the ad features a massive Rube Goldberg scenario, designed by OK Go contraption collaborator Brett Doar. As the machine's workings unravel, the girls sing modified Beastie Boys lyrics: "It's time to change/We deserve to see a range/'Cause all our toys look just the same/And we would like to use our brains."

And this is just the start of what could be a crazy few months for GoldieBlox, as the company is one of four finalists angling for a free Super Bowl ad paid for by Intuit as part of a small-business contest.

Hat tip to @rjgnyc on Twitter.