South China Sea – The Map Room

The Wall Street Journal provides some background to the map that got the Barbie movie into trouble in Vietnam, and the steps movie studios are increasingly taken to ensure that on-screen cartography doesn’t run afoul of other countries’ sensitivities. How to avoid a repeat of the Barbie controversy? “One proposal executives have discussed: having an employee inside the clearance department review every map featured on screen for potential problems or offenses. That’s a tough proposition, one employee noted, since the ‘Barbie’ map wasn’t processed by the Los Angeles team as a normal map at all.” (Link may be paywalled; see also the Apple News+ link—which granted is also paywalled.)

Previously: Philippine Censors Want ‘Barbie’ Blurred, Not Banned; The Nine-Dash Line Gets ‘Barbie’ Banned in Vietnam.

The Philippines is just as keen as Vietnam is to ban films showing the nine-dash line, and has done so in the past. Nevertheless, the Philippine censor board has decided to allow the release of the forthcoming Barbie movie, but has asked Warner Bros. to blur the offending map, which is apparently only eight dashes (and therefore okay) and too cartoonish to be linked to a controversial line on a real map. Coverage: BBC News, Guardian, Hollywood Reporter, Variety.

That follows the Warner Bros. line; last Thursday Variety reported the Warner Bros. response to Barbie being banned in Vietnam: “‘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.’”

(Based on the screenshots I’ve seen, all it is is a dashed line extending east from a wildly inaccurate Asia; there are dashed lines elsewhere on the map that suggest routes more than borders.)

Tag: South China Sea

Behind the Scenes of the ‘Barbie’ Map

Philippine Censors Want ‘Barbie’ Blurred, Not Banned