Save 50% on a 3-month Digiday+ membership. Ends Dec 5.
Perhaps it’s only appropriate that after nearly a 20 year hiatus, the first battle the rebooted Power Rangers are facing is with the internet.
Yesterday, fans received their first official look at the fighters’ new suits, ditching the stretchy spandex for a “translucent extraterrestrial armor that crystallizes around their bodies,” according to Entertainment Weekly.
The movie is set to be released next spring, but the suits are all ready being pelted from a barrage of complaints online about how ugly they are.
Here’s a sampling:
@EW @PowerRangers keep it, I didn’t sign up for this level of disrespect against my childhood, ya’ll need to chill pic.twitter.com/LT8SBvsi3o
— tateyana.♕ (@alyciadobreva) May 5, 2016
@EW @PowerRangers Looks like Daft Punk is about to release its next album.
— Gabe (@shimrra) May 5, 2016
@EW @PowerRangers Those look pretty heavy to be doing…ANYTHING
— Kaiju Ninja (@OfficeSquatch) May 5, 2016
But, as pointed out by model Chrissy Teigen, it’s the two female fighters’ footwear that is problematic because they’re wearing wedges. (The original cast all wear the same shoes.)
go go power….WEDGES????? pic.twitter.com/Lam5s8X9NJ
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) May 5, 2016
That was followed up with dozens of complaints blasting the outfits for being sexist:
@chrissyteigen I’m so irritated by this. What the fuck.
— Missy Q. (@chibi_missy) May 5, 2016
@chrissyteigen Because costume-makers still think “female” = “heels”. {sigh}
— Charles Lewis III (@simonpatt) May 5, 2016
@chrissyteigen MY EXACT THOUGHTS. and the fucking molded breasts? Get the fuck outttt
— padge (@paigehint0n) May 5, 2016
On the Huffington Post, a writer also took issue with 20th Century Fox’s decision, writing “if the men’s costumes don’t include wedges, why do the women need them? Because they obviously care about how they look when fighting alien invaders. Le duh.”
And a Forbes headline rips it, writing the new suits “fail the gender neutral test,” adding that it’s an “eye-rolling call, one that plays right into certain gender tropes and would-be stereotypes, precisely because it was avoidable.”
Go, go outrage!
More in Marketing
Future of Marketing Briefing: The tells and flops that will define Omnicom-IPG mega holdco
The real story will sit in how this newly fused entity behaves — whether it breaks from the patterns that defined both parents or simply scales them.
In Graphic Detail: CMOs at a crossroads of power and proof
CMOs are closing out another year defined by churn and shifting ground.
As Black Friday nears, fake apologies from brands are all over Instagram
Brands have taken to social media in advance of Bliack Friday to ask followers for forgiveness. The catch: They’re apologizing for their products being too good.