Join us Dec. 1-3 in Nashville for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit
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: Creators had a big year. Christmas still went to the celebrities
Despite leaning on creators for most of the year, marketers aren’t doing it for the holiday crunch. That job still belongs to celebrities.
In graphic detail: Six thousand brands later, ChatGPT ads still have a conversion problem
OpenAI has ambitious ad revenue targets, which depend on advertiser demand, measurement and monetisation.
Agencies find AI overuse is leading to brief bloat
Agencies and marketers now frequently use AI tools to create media and creative briefs. But the practice could be a canary in the coalmine for AI overuse in advertising.