Vietnam has banned commercial screenings of Warner Bros. Barbie over a scene depicting a map of the South China Sea with the “nine-dash line” contested by the Vietnamese government.
The film, directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, was set to hit theaters in Vietnam on July 21.
The disputed “nine-dash line” represents China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, which Vietnam disputes. The U-shaped line was also rejected in an international arbitral award by a court in The Hague in 2016. China refuses to recognize the verdict.
Vi Kien Thanh, director-general of the Vietnamese Cinema Department of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said the ban was decided by Vietnam’s National Film Appraisal Council.
“We do not grant a license for the release of the American film Barbie in Vietnam because it contains the offensive image of the nine-dash line,” he was quoted as saying by the state-run newspaper Tuoi Tre.
Other films depicting this line have been banned in Vietnam in recent years, including DreamWorks animated film Abominable and Sony’s Unchartered, while Netflix has been ordered to pull Australian spy drama Pine Gap from its schedule in Vietnam in 2021.
China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei all have competing claims in the South China Sea.