Vietnam bans Barbie film over disputed map of China’s South China Sea claims

journalism_died, 10 months ago

Why would it be newsworthy for any of the Guardian's readers to know that Vietnam bAnNeD a Barbie movie? this is an ad, it's not journalism.

StopMassDownvotingYouIdiot, 10 months ago

Because fuck you. It's amazing that whenever a post has multiple downvotes, I see the same bunch of accounts. They're all yours. Fuck you

sab, 10 months ago

Why would a movie about Barbie recognize disputed Chinese territorial borders in the first place?

If this was an ad for the movie, it would probably (hopefully) been more efficient on a western audience had it not recognized illegal borders.

We already know China is obsessed with representations like this - hence the huge fuzz about the flag of Taiwan appearing in Top Gun, to name one example. We also know the movie industry is terrified of upsetting China, as it's a key demographic and money cow.

So it's a bit suspicious when completely unnecessary elements like the recognition of China's contested sea borders are included in a movie where they have no good reason to appear in the first place. It would be cool if the movie industry wasn't afraid of pissing off the CCP, but the least we could ask for is for them no to spread their propaganda.

Realtrain, 10 months ago

It's extremely interesting to me how China's SCS claims permeate through big business. It's no coincidence they used a china-friendly map.

Learry, 10 months ago

I wasn’t able to find a screenshot of the movie, but the bbc article has a map that does a better job at showing what is displayed www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66083761

theyoyomaster, 10 months ago

In what world does the Barbie movie have a plot that requires a map showing territorial waters of the South China Sea? Even if she was traveling the world this specific part of a map seems like it’s zero value added.

slicedcheesegremlin, 10 months ago

Every time I hear about this movie it sounds even more unhinged

BettyWhiteInHD, 10 months ago

deleted_by_author

MargotRobbie, 10 months ago

Oops, looks like I dropped my Margot condom for my monster dong.

nan, 10 months ago

It’s pandering to the larger market.

I haven’t seen this movie, but in both Uncharted and Abominable it is a normal map but with imaginary dashes in the South China Sea. They know Americans won’t care.

In Uncharted it is during one of those airplane scenes like they have in Indiana Jones.

magnetosphere, 10 months ago

Yeah. That’s my biggest question, too. I don’t care about Vietnam banning a movie, but I wonder how and why the South China Sea figures into things. Is the map only onscreen for a second or two, or are we talking about a significant plot point?

Also, how did they feel about the travel poster that said “Surf Vietnam” in Back to the Future II? Five minutes ago, I would have thought that was an asinine question, but now I seriously wonder.

borislav_titjack, 10 months ago

zero value for you. lots of $value for someone trying to sell a movie in China. it also works here, look at us pushing the bait to the top of the active feed and help let everyone know, that there's a new Barbie movie. oh and it's making hUgE waves globally, look they banned it. it's troll marketing and the guardian is just feeding people ads.

bioemerl, 10 months ago

Girl power.

But also power to the genocidal authoritarian state of China.

We have gay characters! We are good people and very progressive.

MargotRobbie, 10 months ago

Oh bugger.