Ulta has released a brand new collaboration with Marvel to celebrate the upcoming film epic, Avengers: Endgame.
Here’s the deal: The colors look pretty boring and standard, there’s very limited actual tie-ins. Ulta probably could have gotten away with naming this “The Superhero Collection” and they wouldn’t have gotten sued.
Here’s why I care: For years, you couldn’t find Black Widow on an Avengers T-Shirt. You couldn’t find an Avengers T-shirt in the girls section of the store. Captain Marvel had such a toxic environment leading up to it that it damaged my experience watching the movie. This collaboration sends a significant message. It proves that Marvel believes in including women, at least as consumers. Spaces that appreciate superheros don’t need to be hypermasculine and exclusionary.
Targeting merchandise to traditionally feminine arenas (obviously men and non-binary people can wear makeup and women don’t have to if they don’t want to) means that Marvel is recognizing a huge chunk of it’s fan base that they have traditionally ignored. I mean, it took Marvel 19 movies to make a female led superhero movie.