Barbie movie: Vietnam has banned the family-friendly film for an ‘offensive’ map image

Vietnam has prohibited the new Barbie film from being released on account of an “offensive image” that has fans guessing as to what the much-anticipated flick has in store, reports news.com.au.

The pink-and-plastic-filled production, which is hitting cinema screens worldwide later this month, has been banned due to a scene that shows a map of the heavily-debated borders of the South China Sea.

A senior official from Vietnam revealed that the film showed an “offensive image” of the so-called “nine-dash line”, a boundary in the shape of a “u” seen in Chinese maps to show the country’s disputed claim over the bulk of the body of water.

China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Brunei have all contested as to where the national boundaries lie in the South China Sea.

An international tribunal ruled against China’s claim in 2016, however Beijing did not recognise the ruling.

Following the judgement, China has continued to build military installations in the South China Sea including on islands that have already been claimed by other nations.

The heavily-debated borders of the South China Sea.

“We do not grant license for the American movie Barbie to release in Vietnam because it contains the offensive image of the nine-dash line,” Vi Kien Thanh, head of the Department of Cinema, stated to Vietnam’s state newspaper, Tuoi Tre. The Department of Cinema is a government body in charge of licensing and censoring films from overseas.

It is not yet known which scene includes the image or even why the map of the region would appear in the doll film to begin with.

Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are seen rollerblading on the set of Barbie. Photo / Getty

Barbie is not the first movie to be slammed by Vietnam over the nine-dash line.

In 2019, the DreamWorks animation Abominable was banned for the same reason. Three years later, the Tom Holland film Uncharted was also pulled.

Barbie, which was directed by Greta Gerwig and stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, will be released in New Zealand on July 20.