Moviegoers in Vietnam won’t get to see Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” film on July 21 as scheduled. Vietnam authorities have banned commercial screenings of the movie over a “nine-dash line” map.
A scene in “Barbie” includes a map with the “nine-dash line” showing China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, and Vietnam considers the line a violation of its sovereignty.
Vi Kien Thanh, director general of the Vietnam Cinema Department, said on Monday the National Film Evaluation Council has instituted the “Barbie” ban, per Variety.
“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,” the director general added, according to a state-run newspaper report Variety cites.
A 2016 United Nations tribunal sided with the Philippines in a case against China over the disputed area, saying there was no evidence China had exercised exclusive control over the South China Seas’ waters and resources, but China dismissed the ruling as “ill-founded,” BBC News reported at the time.
Other Hollywood projects have been banned for shots of the nine-dash line. In 2019, Vietnam pulled the animated film “Abominable” from theaters after seeing the line on a map in one scene, while Malaysian censors had the scene cut and politicians in the Philippines threatened a DreamWorks boycott, per BBC News.
And last year, Vietnam banned the action movie “Uncharted” for a shot of the nine-dash line, according to Reuters. Weeks later, the Philippines pulled that film from theaters for the same reason.
“Barbie,” written by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, stars Margot Robbie as a human version of the Mattel doll and Ryan Gosling as Ken.
The cast also includes America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Michael Cera, Ariana Greenblatt, Issa Rae, Rhea Perman, and Will Ferrell. The film hits U.S. theaters on July 21 and is projected to earn $70–80 million in its first weekend, sources told The Hollywood Reporter.