‘Abuse her’ Marvel game ad slammed for breaching ad standards
A social media advertisement for Disney’s Marvel Rivals video game has breached the Ad Standards Code of Ethics for sexual violence and nudity, but has not been modified or discontinued by the entertainment giant.
The Tiktok advertisement promoted the third-person hero shooter video game, with the visual of an ambiguously-positioned cartoon woman wearing a bodysuit, boots, and gloves.
It featured text that read: ‘Abuse her this season’. According to the complainant, the voiceover doubled down on the line, saying: “So abuse ‘Invisible Woman’ while you can…”
Marvel Rivals was released in December last year by Marvel Games and NetEase Games. Marvel Games is owned by Disney Interactive, a division of The Walt Disney Company.
The ad received a complaint earlier this month for encouraging sexual violence towards woman, and was found by the Ad Standards Community Panel to be in breach of Section 2.3 – violence, and Section 2.4 – sex, sexuality and nudity, of the AANA Code of Ethics.
The Panel found that the text, along with the positioning of the cartoon woman, created a “strong impression” of sexualised violence, which was “not appropriate in advertising this, or any, product”.
The Community Panel said in the case report: “Although the depiction of violence in an advertisement may be relevant to the story being told in the advertisement, any violence must also be justifiable in the context of the product being advertised, or else will be in breach of this section of the Code.
“…sexual violence is not acceptable under any circumstances.”
Disney and Marvel Rivals did not respond to the final determinations made by Ad Standards, and did not modify or discontinue the advertisement.
Typically, an advertiser is given 5 days to respond to the Ad Standards decision. The case report is then published within 10 days of the Community Panel decision.
If the advertiser does not comply, Ad Standards may choose to pursue other enforcement options.
Mumbrella has contacted Disney and Ad Standards for comment.
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Lauren McNamara was the associate editor at Mumbrella. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS. She left Mumbrella in August 2025.
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The text at the top is being used completely out of context to justify this complaint.
It refers to ‘abusing’ the character’s STRENGTH (typically new characters come out and are very strong or have exploitable advantages) before the developers make gameplay balance changes to reduce the power of the Invisible Woman character in the game..
The only people associating this with sexual violence are the people complaining about it.
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What a joke Disney are for allowing this. Walt would be rolling in his grave. The companies involved should take this abhorent ad off line immediately. And we wonder why violence against women is so prevalent.
https://www.ourwatch.org.au/quick-facts
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‘Abuse’ in gaming circles means to exploit an overpowered character or weapon before the developers balance (nerf) it.
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