barbie movie contains scenes depicting a map with a “nine dash line”, a depiction of China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, which Vietnam claims violates its sovereignty.
The bad news came from one of our neighboring countries, Vietnam. The Vietnamese authorities have banned the commercial screening of the film. Barbie Directed by Greta Gerwig.
The films produced by Warner Bros. Starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, this is one of the most anticipated summer movies and will be released in the country on July 21.
Barbie contains scenes depicting a map with a “nine dash line”, a depiction of China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, which Vietnam claims violates its sovereignty.
Vi Kien Thanh, director general of the Vietnam Film Department at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said on Monday that the ban was decided by the National Film Evaluation Council.
Many of China’s neighbors, including Vietnam, have competing and overlapping territorial claims and strongly contest China’s claims. In 2016, the United Nations dispute resolution tribunal in The Hague ruled unanimously against the validity of the ‘nine gray lines’. The South China Sea Arbitration is final and binding, there is no clear mechanism for its implementation, and China says it does not recognize the decision.
“We did not give permission for the American film Barbie to be released in Vietnam because it contains offensive images from nine scripts,” the state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper said, also citing Vi Kien Thanh.
Similar depictions of the “nine-dash line” have previously caused problems for many movies and TV series in Vietnam.
dreamworks animated movie, Abominable banned for the same reason in 2019 and Unexplored Sony met the same fate last year.
The CGV theater chain, the theater operator, was fined for showing Abominable, and Vietnam Film Department staff were disciplined for not immediately viewing the offending picture. The movie was eventually pulled after just over a week in theaters.
In 2020, series put your head on my shoulder AND madam secretary was ordered to remove the scene containing the map, while in 2021, Netflix was ordered to remove the Australian spy drama, pine gap from the Vietnamese market.
