Malaika Aman
The release of the new Barbie film has been eagerly anticipated by fans. And, while there have been numerous animated Barbie films, this is the first time we will see a live-action film that subverts the genre and appears to be more of a dark comedy than anything else. And we can see from the trailer that something is wrong in Barbie Land, and things don’t appear to be going well in the real world either. Only a week ago, it was announced that Vietnam will prohibit the release of this film in their country.
That may surprise you because it doesn’t appear to contain anything inappropriate and is clearly not an adult comedy, so what could be the reason?
Because of the appearance of the nine-dash line, Vietnam will prohibit the release of Barbie.
The nine-dash line essentially represents China’s territorial claims within South Asia. Vietnam has always stated that they do not believe this claim is valid, and even though the line was struck down in 2016, China refused to recognize it, and the two countries have yet to reach an agreement on this.
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.
Vi Kien Thanh
So the reason this film has been banned in the country is that there is a short scene in which people can see the hotly debated nine-dash line on a map of South Asia China. This is also not the first time a film has been banned for this reason. Because of this, films like ‘Abominable,’ ‘Uncharted,’ and even ‘John Wick: Chapter 4’ were banned. This ban, however, may not be as significant as it appears because the film is expected to gross between $70 and $80 million in its first week, with much more coming in subsequent weeks.
Barbie will release on July 21st.