The new ad for "Masterchef Australia" has sparked a sexism row. The "boys versus girls" promo for the upcoming season of the Logie Award-winning cooking game show has been criticised by viewers for apparently promoting outdated gender stereotypes.

The Channel10 promo ad sees the contestants divided into two groups - the boys in blue and the girls in pink - while exchanging barbs.

The lines used include: "If you look at all the top chefs in the world, they have one thing in common: they're all men," "men are more experimental, but women can multi-task," and "men are one-trick pony, they have one dish they're good at, and that's it."

"The world's most loved cooking show is back," restaurateur and show judge Gary Mehigan continued in the advert just before somebody threw a cake at him.

But it looks like the show is losing love from its audience. The promo has attracted criticisms online for perpetuating sexist views.

Feminist group Destroy the Joint isn't at all happy with the show's alleged outdated viewpoint.

"At the end of the video promo on their page a woman throws a cake at Gary Mehigan's face. Frankly, we'd like to do the same to the people who came up with and approved the idea of making sexism the centrepiece of the show," the organisation wrote on their Facebook page, encouraging their supporters to write to the show about their sexist views.

"wow I can literally hear your ratings dropping by hundreds of thousands. Sexism is not cool dude," a comment from username Andreas Miyuki on YouTube reads.

"My skin is crawling. I can't believe I'll be missing a season of Masterchef by choice. In this day and age, when we are still fighting SO HARD for equality, it's not productive at all to be pitting men and women against each other," another commenter named jurassicaaaa said.

Not all fans were furious, though. YouTube commenter triton7654 saw the humour in the ad, saying, "It's just become hilarious now how seriously people are taking this. One promo, no episodes aired yet, and apparently we're all going to descend into 1950s sexism just because of a _good-natured_ (don't forget that part) boys v. girls contest."

Facebook commenter Megan Turner, on the other hand, thought that at least the show doesn't use bullying to advertise, saying, "Love the fact that MC doesn't stoop to casting bullies or mindless nastiness for promotion of their program unlike MKR!!!"

But a Ten spokesman defended their show's promo advert, telling AdNews, "We don't regard it as sexist at all. The show is a celebration of food and amateur cooks competing. It's presented in the promo, which is just one of many to come before the show lands, in a humorous and entertaining way."

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