Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling's new 'Barbie' movie was recently banned for distribution in Vietnam after officials said that the film showed a misleading world map where China's nine-dash line extended into the territorial waters of Hanoi.
Vietnam's state media published a report of the situation as the newspaper Vietnam Express and other media outlets said that posters advertising the film were removed from the movie distributor's websites after the decision was announced on Monday.
Vietnam Bans 'Barbie' Movie
Before the incident, Robbie and Gosling's Barbie movie, where they play Barbie and Ken, respectively, was supposed to release in Vietnam on July 21. The recent reports cited the director general of the Vietnam Cinema Department, Vi Kien Thanh.
The official said that the National Film Evaluation Council was the one that decided to ban the Barbie movie from being shown in the country. It argued that the world map depicted in the film was misleading and extended Beijing's territorial claims in the South China Sea far into waters under Vietnam's and other countries control, as per the PBS News Hour.
China's nine-dash line is an arcane but sensitive issue for Beijing and its neighbors, and it shows the Asian superpower's maritime border extending into areas claimed by other governments and encompasses most of the South China Sea.
Furthermore, the issue has brought China into tense standoffs with the ASEAN nations, which include Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. This resulted from Chinese fishing boats and military vessels continuing to be aggressive in the disputed waters.
When asked about the situation during a daily briefing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that Beijing's position on the South China Sea issue has always been clear and consistent.
In 2016, an international tribunal at The Hague ruled that China had no legal basis for its claims regarding the nine-dash line. However, Beijing has yet to concede to the ruling and has since attempted to dominate the waters, conducting aggressive incursions and developing military installations on islands within the area, according to the New York Times.
Offensive World Map
Some moviegoers, including 23-year-old Hoang Xuan Bach, even supported the Vietnam ban on the Barbie movie. He is a university student who said that the film's producers should have known better than to include the map in the movie. He also expressed his hopes for the show to flop its sales.
The decision is not the first time that Vietnam has banned films for including scenes with the nine-dash line. A 2022 action film by Sony, "Uncharted," featured actor Tom Holland and DreamWorks' 2019 animation "Abominable" which were banned from theaters in the country for the same reason.
However, the Barbie movie's depiction of the world map was inaccurate as it depicted some countries being fragmented and looking like giant floating blobs. There were also unrecognizable peninsulas, islands, and doodles that were included. Furthermore, none of the blobs were discernible real-world nations, said Consequence Film.
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