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In a plot twist no one saw coming, Margot Robbie & Ryan Gosling’s blockbuster movie Barbie got banned in Vietnam just before its 2023 release. The culprit? The controversial nine-dash line. As per Collider, this U-shaped line, used by China to claim almost 90% of the South China Sea, is a hot topic, primarily since countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia all dispute it.
When Barbie featured the line, Vietnam didn’t have it. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism slammed Greta Gerwig’s film, calling it out for showing the “illicit” line. It wasn’t the first time either—films like Abominable (2019) and Uncharted (2022) had faced a similar fate over the same issue.
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But here’s where it gets interesting: Barbie wasn’t just banned in Vietnam. The Philippines was on the fence about the film, too. Senator Francis Tolentino even hinted at a potential ban, arguing that the depiction of the nine-dash line could “denigrate Philippine sovereignty.” However, after some serious back-and-forth, the Philippines gave the movie a pass.
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Why? After a second round of reviews, they concluded that the scene featuring the contentious map wasn’t a political statement at all—it was part of Weird Barbie’s quirky, fictional journey. As the Philippines’ Movie and Television Review and Classification Board put it, the map was “cartoonish” and didn’t “depict the ‘nine-dash line.’” Instead, it was just Barbie’s route from Barbie Land to the “real world.”
Vietnam wasn’t convinced. Despite this, the Philippines moved forward with the movie’s release, emphasizing that they wouldn’t tolerate any future depictions of the nine-dash line. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, Barbie remained banned. The country wasn’t ready to forgive the map’s appearance, which they saw as an affront to their sovereignty.
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Ultimately, Barbie’s release became a fascinating intersection of entertainment and geopolitics. The film’s map didn’t just show a playful journey; it inadvertently symbolized more significant territorial conflicts in the South China Sea. A movie meant to celebrate pink dreams, and self-discovery found itself at the heart of a diplomatic storm, all because of a fictional map.
This ban was just another chapter in the ongoing struggle for control over the South China Sea, a reminder that even a fun, light-hearted film like Barbie can stir up political waves. So, while Barbie may have finally made it to the Philippines, for Vietnam, the pink dream remained out of reach.
For more such stories, check out Hollywood News.
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