‘Offensive’: Wild reason Vietnam banned new Barbie movie

An Asian nation has banned Barbie ahead of its release, citing an “offensive image” that has left moviegoers baffled.

Vietnam has banned the new Barbie movie ahead of its release, citing an “offensive image” that’s raised questions about what the viral film has in store.

The country announced that the hot pink production, which was set to arrive in cinemas later this month, won’t now be shown due to a scene that featured a map of the highly contested South China Sea.

A Vietnamese senior official said the movie contained an “offensive image” of the so-called “nine-dash line”, a U-shaped boundary used in Chinese maps to illustrate China’s very contentious claim over almost all of the vital body of water.

Vietnam has banned the new Barbie movie. Picture: Jung Yeon-je / AFP

China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei all have competing claims of where national boundaries lie in the South China Sea. In 2016, an international tribunal ruled against China’s claim, but Beijing did not recognise the judgment.

China has continued to build military installations in the South China Sea including on islands claimed by other countries.

“We do not grant license for the American movie Barbie to release in Vietnam because it contains the offensive image of the nine-dash line,” Vi Kien Thanh, head of the Department of Cinema, a government body in charge of licensing and censoring foreign films, told Vietnam’s state newspaper, Tuoi Tre.

It’s unclear which scene contains the image, or why a map of the South China Sea appears in a movie about a famous doll in the first place.

The ban is due to a scene that reportedly features the highly contested “nine-dash line” shown in red above. Picture: UNCLOS/CIA.

Barbie is not the first film to be banned in Vietnam for featuring the nine-dash line.

In 2019, the DreamWorks animated film Abominable was pulled for the same reason. Three years later, the Sony action movie Uncharted also fell foul.

Two years ago, Australian spy drama Pine Gap was removed from the Vietnamese market by Netflix, following a complaint from authorities.

Directed by Greta Gerwig, Barbie will be released in Australia on July 20. The family-friendly film will be just under two hours long.

Originally published as ‘Offensive’: Wild reason Vietnam banned new Barbie movie