Due to what appears to be the presence of a contentious notation on a South China Sea map, the Barbie movie won’t be released there.
Everybody is talking about the upcoming Barbie movie. The ultra-feminine doll’s unique design, vibrant pink dwellings, and peppy pop music burst out of its viral video.
Pink paint became scarce due to the movie’s buzz, and the “Barbiecore” fad on social media became global.
Despite all the excitement, it is already causing unexpected political controversy before its July 21 release date in the United States: Barbie and Ken will not be on the big screen in Vietnam due to a sequence in the movie that portrays a map of a disputed area of the South China Sea. As a result, Vietnam has banned Barbie.
Due to the restriction, “Barbie” has been taken from movie theaters listings of impending releases in Vietnam. The movie was scheduled to open in Vietnamese theaters on July 21, the same day as its American premiere.
Vi Kien Thanh, chief of the Vietnam Cinema Department, confirmed the ban on the publication.
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Vietnam Has Already Banned The Barbie Movie Due To A South China Sea Map.
According to Vi Kien Thanh, director general of the Vietnam Cinema Department, the National Film Evaluation Council imposed the ban. On Monday, he announced that.
Chinese maps show territories that China has claimed as its territory by a U-shaped line.
The nine-dash line, first depicted on a map in 1947, is contentious since a sizeable portion of what China claims to be its territory is considered part of Vietnam’s continental shelf.
Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, China, and Vietnam are all disputing different portions of the sea, and China and Vietnam have been at odds over the area for a long time.
The Vietnamese government has already decided to prohibit the publication of a movie because it has a nine-dash line. The DreamWorks cartoon feature Abominable was canceled in 2019 because Sony’s action thriller Uncharted was yanked from theaters last year.
In 2021, Netflix also discontinued streaming the Australian spy-thriller Pine Gap. Companies usually give in to Chinese demands out of fear of losing access to the sizable, profitable Chinese market.
This includes Hollywood productions that change or add sequences in reaction to what the ruling Communist Party and the fervently nationalistic audience are expected to say.
A complex but contentious subject for China and its neighbors, the “nine-dash line” depicts Beijing’s maritime boundary extending into territories claimed by other nations and covering most of the South China Sea.
Due to this, Chinese fishing boats and military vessels have been increasingly active in the disputed waters, leading to tense standoffs with the ASEAN countries of Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines.
