'A 5cm step forward & a dozen stair tumbles back.' Barbie goodie bags are going viral, and not for a good reason.

Journalist Antoinette Lattouf and her daughter attended a screening of Barbie this week, but their experience was soured by a promotional goodie bag that included a skin-whitening cream and cleaning products. 

The author of How To Lose Friends and Influence White People shared a tweet and video to social media, sharing what she found in a gift bag after watching Barbie with her eight-year-old daughter. 

"So I just got back from watching a preview screening of Barbie the movie," she said to followers on Instagram. "I went in sceptical [and] unsure if I would like the film."

Watch: How to improve your daughter's body image. Post continues after video. 

Lattouf shared that her thoughts were irrelevant because, in actuality, what she had a gripe with was the gift bag Event Cinemas gave to her as part of their ticketed promotional event called 'Chicks At The Flicks.'

Inside were Chux cleaning wipes and a skin-whitening product. 

"I thought there was interesting messaging [and] interesting gifts including Chux [wipes] because this film is meant to be empowering and [say] Barbie can be anything but kind of really not if you're just telling us to clean," she remarked.

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A post shared by ANTOINETTE • LATTOUF (@antoinette_lattouf)

What added to the disappointment was the whitening lotion also included in the gift bag. 

"My eight-year-old daughter who was with me was like, 'Mummy that's racist,'" Lattouf recalled. 

The journo went on to tell Mamamia she was "already unsure" about watching Barbie due to its "pretty problematic legacy".

"But my girls love their Barbies of all shapes, sizes and abilities and the film trailer had clear satire and seemed willing to address the starving pink elephant in the room and the fact that female President Barbie hasn’t materialised in the real world in the US despite the aspirational plastic version coming out decades ago," she said.

Image: Threads @antoinette_lattouf.

It wasn't the film that caused a kerfuffle though, but rather the promotional material behind it. 

"So we walked out having enjoyed the film and then we opened the gift bags and it was another example of a five-centimetre step forward and a dozen stair tumbles back," she said. 

"I also wanna know how many layers of middle managers the gift bag went through?"

In the goodie bag was also a hand sanitiser and a beauty cream. 

"[Things like those] are what I come to expect," she followed on in her Instagram post. "But I don't know, maybe Events or the HR department or marketing department at Events needs this so they can clean up the tone-deaf mess.

"Just a thought."

Feature Image: Instagram/Threads @antoinette_lattouf.