Greta Gerwig said she did not expect the right-wing backlash to her newest film Barbie and that she hopes the movie can give people some relief.

Certainly, theres a lot of passion, Gerwig, who wrote and directed Barbie, told The New York Times . My hope for the movie is that its an invitation for everybody to be part of the party and let go of the things that arent necessarily serving us as either women or men. I hope that in all of that passion, if they see it or engage with it, it can give them some of the relief that it gave other people.

Barbie grossed more than $155 million at the box office its opening weekend , and despite its massive success, some right-wing pundits and lawmakers , like Ben Shapiro and Sen. Ted Cruz, werent fond of the movie. Shapiro said the movie, which includes commentary on feminism and the patriarchy, divides men and women. He also called it flaming garbage and woke.

Cruz took issue with a map shown in the movie, and Charlie Kirk, a conservative radio talk show host, said the movie was trans propaganda because Hari Nef, a trans actor, played one of the Barbies in the film.

In Barbie, the teenager character Sasha, played by Ariana Greenblatt, calls Barbie sexist and a fascist. Mattel, which produced the movie, was originally skeptical about the scene, but Gerwig told the Times that it was important to include the arguments against Barbie.

I didnt think there was any way to do this without giving that real estate and having well-articulated, correct arguments from a really smart character given to Barbie against Barbie, Gerwig said. Also, I grew up with a mom who was kind of against Barbie, so thats how I knew all that. If you dont give voice to that, then youre nowheresville.

It wasnt like I ever got the full seal of approval from [Mattel], like, We love it! I got a tentative, Well, OK. I see that you are going to do this, so go ahead and well see how it goes. But thats all you need, and I had faith once it was in there and they saw it that they would embrace it, not fight it. Maybe at the end of the day, my will to have it in was stronger than any other will to take it out.