Even though it’s a candy-colored comedy and a social media sensation, Barbie hasn’t exactly been welcomed with open arms by all corners of the globe, with Vietnam recently announcing it had banned Greta Gerwig’s upcoming blockbuster due to its depiction of a hotly-contested area of the South China Sea.
The notorious “nine-dash line” is one of the most disputed territories on the planet, with various nations including Vietnam, China, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines all laying claims to various parts of the map, with Barbie rubbing people in the former nation the wrong way by virtue of its inclusion.
However, it’s not even the first time a big budget Hollywood production has found itself excised from Vietnamese theaters for the exact same reason, which is so bizarre you wouldn’t have thought it would happen twice in quick succession. Just last year, Tom Holland’s Uncharted featured the exact same map and incited the exact same fury, but clearly nobody at Sony thought it was worthwhile to pass the message onto Warner Bros.
The plus side is that the video game adaptation wasn’t exactly impacted by missing out on revenue, seeing as it cleared $400 million at the box office in the face of its territorial issues. Based entirely on the buzz, you’d imagine Barbie will fly even higher than that, regardless of whether or not Vietnamese audiences get the chance to see it for themselves.