Chinese movie-goers have made a backlash against Wanda Cinema on social media after an audio recording showing Wanda Cinema warned females not to affect men when they are watching "Avengers: Infinitely War."
The recording was posted on Sina Weibo by a net user with a screen name of @dongguliangmiaomiaowu just hours after the new season of Avengers premiered on the Chinese mainland. In the audio, it can be clearly heard that the cinema hoped female audience not to ask too many questions to their male companions by broadcast ahead of the movie playing.
“Please all females do not always ask your male companions who is who in the movie and please every male audience to buy more popcorns for your female companions to block up their mouth,” showed the recording.
According to the user’s Weibo, the audio clip was recorded in a Wanda Cinema in Tongliao City, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Friday while the Wanda Cinema has posted a statement on Weibo later Friday.
In the statement, the cinema said that they will moderate the wording in the broadcast and explains that the broadcast was actually used to build up a relaxing ambiance and recreational effect.
However, the Wanda’s explanation and will to correct their wording did not win agreement from netizens.
“Please do not tarnish the word of ‘recreational.’ It should be described as vulgar,” @Sehnyin_Yvonne commented below the post.
“This is not for recreation. This is obviously a discrimination against females. Your broadcasting script must have been reviewed before it came out for such a trending film. It proves that your company has many narrow-minded employees,” @Jintiansuoluomenshizhuanglema- commented.
“I’m a girl. I just watched the film without my boyfriend company. [The cinema’s broadcasting] is too provincial. You should have booted the females out of the cinema and you don’t need to sell admission tickets to them,” @Jingfan sarcastically expressed her idea on Weibo.
The season three of the blockbuster series premiered on the Chinese mainland on Friday and earned 58.5 million yuan (around 9.2 million US dollars) box-office value, just second to "The Fast and the Furious 8" in the single day box office value on the Chinese mainland. As Maoyan Film shows, "Avengers 3" has taken up 96.6 percent of the total box office by Saturday morning.
