‘Barbie’ movie hit with political controversy

Gitanjali Poonia
·3 min read
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Ryan Gosling, left, and Margot Robbie arrive at a photo call for “Barbie” on Sunday, June 25, 2023, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles.
Ryan Gosling, left, and Margot Robbie arrive at a photo call for “Barbie” on Sunday, June 25, 2023, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles. | Jordan Strauss, Invision via Associated Press
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In the “Barbie” world, facts may be inconsequential, but that isn’t the case in real life. The upcoming film has received criticism from U.S. lawmakers and countries for including a hand-drawn map of the world containing a disputed border line.

The map features a dotted line, similar to the “nine-dash line” that China used to draw a border in the South China Sea after World War II.

According to The Los Angeles Times, the Chinese government claims everything within the U-shaped border is theirs because of “historical rights.” Other countries in the region say they also have a claim over the area.

As a result, Vietnam banned the film while the Philippines is contemplating the same.

“We do not grant license for the American movie ‘Barbie’ to release in Vietnam because it contains the offending image of the nine-dash line,” said Vi Kien Thanh, head of the Department of Cinema, a government body in charge of licensing and censoring foreign films, as reported by a state-run newspaper.

In response to the ban, some GOP lawmakers spoke out about curbing China’s influence on Hollywood.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas tweeted: “I guess Barbie is made in China….”

A spokesperson for Cruz told The Daily Mail that the senator “has been fighting for years to prevent American companies, especially Hollywood studios, from altering and censoring their content to appease the Chinese Communist Party.”

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chairman of the select committee on the Chinese Communist Party, also took a jab at the movie’s choice to showcase a dashed line.

“While it may just be a Barbie map in a Barbie world, the fact that a cartoonish map seems to go out of its way to depict unlawful territorial claims illustrates the pressure that Hollywood is under to please CCP censors,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said on Twitter that Hollywood is “more concerned with selling films in Communist China.”

“The ‘Barbie’ movie’s depiction of a map endorsing Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea is legally & morally wrong and must be taken seriously.”

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A spokesperson for Warner Bros. told Variety that the dashed line isn’t “intended to make any type of statement.”

“The map in Barbie Land is a child-like crayon drawing,” the spokesperson 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.”

The map appeared in the movie when Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, faces an existential crisis — stay in the Barbie world or go to the real world, as seen in the trailer. All the continents on the map are wobbly drawn.

This isn’t the first time a film has faced censorship over the nine-dashed line. The 2022 film “Uncharted,” starring Tom Holland, was also banned in Vietnam, and the Philippines followed suit.

Filipino Sen. Francis Tolentino told CNN Philippines that the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board of the Philippines will ban “Barbie” if the “invalidated nine-dash line was indeed depicted in the movie.”

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