Vietnam bans 'Barbie,' the most anticipated film of the year, over map showing Chinese territorial claim

After two days of scary climate change news, I'm in another "I can't be all DOOM all the time" mood, so I'm posting the Sunday entertainment feature a day early because Souther is tomorrow. That written, today's topic seems silly but has a serious component, as Inside Edition reports Margot Robbie’s ‘Barbie’ Movie Banned in Vietnam.

The “Barbie” movie is one of the summer's most highly anticipated movies but it's sparking an unexpected controversy. A map, seen in the film, shows a jagged line off the coast of China that allegedly represents the country's disputed claim to the South China Sea. China claims that everything inside that jagged line is theirs but every other nation that borders the South China Sea disputes that. Now, Vietnam is banning the movie and the Philippines may follow suit. The movie’s producer says the map is only make-believe and was not intended to make any statement about the real world. Inside Edition's Alison Hall has more.

This seems like a tempest in a teapot, but the dispute between China and its neighbors, particularly Vietnam and the Philippines, is deadly serious, as DW News explains in Vietnam bans 'Barbie' movie over map of South China Sea.

Vietnam has banned the movie 'Barbie'. The Margot Robbie starrer was due to be released there on July 21, but won't be released now. State media reported this was because the film included a map showing unilateral Chinese claims in the South China Sea.

Yikes! This explains why the U.S. and Philippines announced four new bases in the country this April. That's quite the reversal of policy after the U.S. abandoned Clark Air Base in 1991 and Naval Base Subic Bay in 1992. That happened because the end of the Cold War and the Philippines' people and government's irritation at the bases becoming attractive nuisances because of the American servicemen's appetite for vice. The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, a story I tell my students, sped the process along. It looks like the rise of China as a world power and regional threat made the Philippines reconsider the advantages of a U.S. military presence. I don't know if that would ever happen in Vietnam, but stranger things have happened.

Speaking of stranger things, but unfortunately not the Netflix series, this has spilled over into domestic politics, as the Politico article shown in the "Inside Edition" video reported in GOP declares war on ... Barbie.

GOP lawmakers accuse filmmakers of pandering to Chinese censors. But Warner Bros. Film Group, which produced the movie, said Thursday the map is not intended to “make any type of statement.”

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), who leads a select House panel aimed at countering the influence of China, said the map “illustrates the pressure that Hollywood is under to please CCP censors.”

“While it may just be a Barbie map in a Barbie world, the fact that a cartoonish, crayon-scribbled map seems to go out of its way to depict the PRC’s unlawful territorial claims illustrates the pressure that Hollywood is under to please CCP censors,” Gallagher said in a statement to POLITICO. “I hope Warner Brothers clarifies that the map was not intended to endorse any territorial claims and was in fact, the work of a formerly plastic anthropomorphic doll.”

Warner Bros., in its own statement to POLITICO, said there were no geopolitics intended in “Barbie.”

“The map in Barbie Land is a child-like crayon drawing,” a spokesperson for the Warner Bros. Film Group said. “The doodles depict Barbie’s make-believe journey from Barbie Land to the ‘real world.’ It was not intended to make any type of statement.”

Oh, dear dog. Anything to generate outrage along with anti-China and anti-Hollywood sentiment.

This controversy began just after "Barbie" won its first award, even before its release, for Most Anticipated Film at the Hollywood Critics Association Midseason Awards.


"Barbie" beat "Oppenheimer," the runner-up, which it shares a release date with, along with "Dune: Part Two," "Killers of the Flower Moon," and "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One." That's a list of potentially great movies, all of which I expect to see nominated in future awards shows, including the Saturn Awards, which I vote for.

I'm ending this post with an appropriate musical palate cleanser, Barbie Girl - Vintage Beach Boys - Style Aqua Cover ft. Morgan James.


Stay tuned for Souther.