The Barbie Movie has been banned in both Vietnam and the Philippines after images of a world map sparked international controversy. The film includes a scene where Barbie (played by Margot Robbie) stands in front of a colorful and crudely drawn world map. The map contains a dashed line off the side of a roughly drawn ‘Asia’ which some have suggested depicts the “nine-dash line.”
The nine-dash line is a line used in Chinese maps to suggest their control over a portion of the South China Sea, a hotly contested area of the Pacific Ocean that China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam claim. In recent years, the People’s Republic of China has stepped up maritime enforcement of the South China Sea, with Chinese naval ships blocking fishing vessels from other claimant states.
Warner Bros. has said in several statements that the map is a “childlike cartoon drawing” and not meant to depict any global-political inclinations. “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 studio says.
As tensions in the South Pacific rise, U.S. military forces continue to build extensive bases off the coasts of Japan and Taiwan and have even begun joint naval operations with Australia to further Western military enforcement of the South China Sea. What territory China occupies has been a contested topic for decades. Taiwan has been governed independently of China since the 1950s; however, the People’s Republic still claims the country as its territory and promises to one day “unify” Taiwan with the mainland, utilizing force if necessary.
Taiwan has established itself as an important partner in trade and industry for the rest of the world, as it is the largest exporter of semiconductors and microchips. Due to the country’s complete supply chain, it has distinguished itself from competitors and has dominated the global marketplace for vital components used in nearly all electronic devices, making Taiwan an extremely profitable territory for both Western and Chinese governments to maintain control over.
Global imperialism aside, the Barbie Movie was never meant to act as a talking point on international relations. That didn’t stop republicans from bashing the film and thrusting the China-Taiwan conflict back into the national news cycle.
“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,” Rep. Mike Gallagher, says, referencing the Chinese Communist Party.
Bethany Stevens, a spokesperson for Sen. Ted Cruz, says in a statement to USA TODAY, “China wants to control what Americans see, hear, and ultimately think, and they leverage their massive film markets to coerce American companies into pushing CCP propaganda—just like the way the Barbie film seems to have done with the map.”
This isn’t the first time Hollywood has been criticized for catering to Chinese censorship. While many foreign films are outright banned in the country, some studios will abide by Chinese censorship in order to reach larger Chinese audiences. American movies accounted for just 12% of China’s box office sales in 2019 but still managed to rake in almost $9 hundred million.
The Barbie Movie reigniting tensions with China and other countries in the South China Sea certainly wasn’t on our 2023 bingo card, but such is the surrealism of modern American politics.
