New Explanation for Banning One of 2023’s Most Anticipated Movies: Was the Excitement for Nothing?

Because the movie “Barbie” shows the so-called nine-dash line, it is already banned in Vietnam and possibly other countries. With the nine-dash line, China lays claim to parts of the South China Sea that are disputed by other countries. The alleged display of a map with the officially unrecognized line in “Barbie” was considered a sacrifice by China. Even a Hollywood production like “Uncharted” but also the Netflix series “Pine Gap” finally showed the line that was not accepted by most of the rest of the world and accepted bans in smaller countries from shooting in China.

But with “Barbie” things are probably more complicated.

No nine-dash line in “Barbie”: Is it all just a misunderstanding?

Because Warner makes it clear now that the nine-dash line does not appear in the movie at all. The disputed scene takes place before Barbie (Margot Robbie) embarks on a journey from the pink dream world to the real world. Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) encourages her to embark on this journey and in return gives her a map drawn with crayons.

This map resembles a naive child’s drawing: the location of all the continents is not really correct; Sailboats, dolphins and a hashtag are of course part of it. A still shows the map in the movie:

There is a dotted line on the far right of the image. But it soon becomes clear that this has absolutely nothing to do with the nine-dash line. The disputed nine-dash line begins on the southeast coast of China, passes east of Vietnam, curves north through Malaysia, and then continues west past the Philippines. In the shape of a U, she claims virtually the entire sea between all these countries for China.

As a good comparison on Twitter shows, the lines on the “child’s drawing chart” have no relation to the real nine-line line – except that they are lines.

Besides, it’s probably not even an allusion to the nine-dash line. Because there are eight rules. But why are they actually on the map in “Barbie”? Like the magazine reported, they were the lines of the main character’s journey, so-called “travel lines”. Similar lines can also be seen in other places on the map. A Warner spokesperson also clarified that the card was never intended to make a statement.

It now remains to be seen whether Vietnam reverses the ban it imposed on “Barbie”. In Germany comes the bright pink film with of course Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken. On July 20, 2023 comes “Barbiein cinemas in Germany.