Barbie Producers Respond To Vietnam Ban Over Controversial Map: It's A "Child-Like Crayon Drawing"

It’s all a misunderstanding.

The producers of the upcoming Barbie movie have responded to Vietnam’s ban over the depiction of a controversial South China Sea map.

Vietnam banned commercial screenings of the highly-anticipated comedy starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling on Monday (July 3) for showing what they believe is a map with the “nine-dash line”, which highlights China’s maritime territory in the South China Sea, a region where Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan have competing claims.

China’s claims were rejected by an arbitration ruling by a court in The Hague in 2016; China refuses to recognise the ruling.

Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig, was slated to open in Vietnam on July 21.

The seemingly harmless map appears in the scene where Robbie’s titular character seeks advice from Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie for her existential crisis.

Weird Barbie says the answers lie in the “Real World” and this is where she provides Barbie with the supposedly offending map.

Warner Bros said in a statement (via Reuter) said: “The map in Barbie Land is a child-like crayon drawing. 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 map is briefly featured in the trailer here (cue to 1:01):

Look closer…

Can anyone take this map seriously?

“I’m not sure this map, which you’d miss if you blinked at the one-minute mark in the third trailer, is admissible in the International Court of Justice. It’s cartoonishly unrealistic,” Toronto Sun columnist Vinay Menon wrote (via Variety) “Where is continental Europe? New Zealand? What do the sailboats represent? Is that a jester’s crown atop Iceland?”

Shortly after Vietnam pulled Barbie from release, the Philippines are also considering doing the same.

Senator Risa Hontiversos said in a video statement on Tuesday: “The movie is fiction, and so is the nine-dash line.”

And if the movie does get released, she added, “At the minimum, our cinemas should include an explicit disclaimer that the nine-dash line is a figment of China’s imagination.”

Vietnam and the Philippines previously banned the Tom Holland-Mark Wahlberg-starring Uncharted last year over the same issue.

Meanwhile, Barbie, which opens in Singapore on July 20, has been given a clean bill of health by IMDA. It received a PG13 rating, with the consumer advice of ‘Some Sexual References’.

Photo: TPG News/Click Photos