‘Barbie’ Map Controversy: Warner Bros. Explains the ‘Doodle’ That Got the Film Banned in Vietnam (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comMatt Donnelly Senior Film Writer Of all the impressive skills Barbie has amassed in her 64 years as a working doll, who knew that cartography would be a focal point of her highly anticipated summer movie debut?
But here we are. Trailers for the upcoming “Barbie,” from director Greta Gerwig and Warner Bros. Pictures, have led to the dissemination of a controversial map used in the film – one depicted in a scene with stars Margot Robbie and Kate McKinnon (known in the film as “Weird Barbie”) — and the studio is speaking up after days of international headlines. “The map in Barbie Land is a child-like crayon drawing,” a spokesperson for the Warner Bros.
Film Group told Variety. “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, observably made by a child thanks to its chalk-scribbled dolphins and even a hashtag bobbing around Earth’s vast bodies of water, drew the ire of cinema gatekeepers in Vietnam this week.
The drawing depicts what has been called a representation of the “nine dash line,” which reinforces China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea (there are only 8 lines in the “Barbie” map, and not in the shape dictated by actual global maps).
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