Philippines Allows Barbie Film with Blurred South China Sea Map

Facts

• Government censors in the Philippines said on Wednesday that they will allow the "Barbie" movie to be shown in theaters after asking the movie's distributor to blur lines on a world map drawing that allegedly endorsed China's territorial claims to the disputed South China Sea.¹
• The film was banned in Vietnam for allegedly showing the "nine-dash line" on a map. The line is used by China to assert its internationally rejected claims in the South China Sea, where Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei also have competing claims.²
• The Philippines Movie and Television Review and Classification Board said it reviewed the movie twice and consulted foreign affairs and legal experts over the alleged depiction of the nine-dash line.²
• Philippine censors said that after reviewing the film, they were convinced that the "cartoonish map" did not depict the nine-dash line and instead depicted the "make-believe journey of Barbie from Barbie Land to the ‘real world,' as an integral part of the story."³
• The censors say that dashed lines drawn in a "child-like manner" appeared in several locations on the map around each of the continents, but that only eight dashes appeared on the Asian landmass and the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia were not visible at all on the map. These depictions, they say, are in stark contrast to maps in previously banned movies "Abominable" (2019) and "Uncharted" (2022).⁴
• The fantasy comedy film, directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, is set to open in theaters in the Philippines on July 19.⁵

Sources: ¹CBS, ²BBC News, ³Al Jazeera, ⁴The Frontierpost, and ⁵Guardian.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Al Jazeera. Philippine censors did not arrive at the decision to allow the screening of the Barbie film lightly and meticulously reviewed the film to ensure it did not depict the fictitious nine-dash-line. In past situations, regulators have been more than willing to sanction filmmakers, producers, and distributors for exhibiting the fictitious ‘nine-dash line’ in their materials, and popular films have recently been banned from being shown in the country. Manilla exercised due diligence and fairness here.
• Narrative B, as provided by CBS. This whole controversy is absurd. The map in the Barbie movie was obviously a childish drawing of a world map and not a divisive political statement. The film is about a children's toy come to life and it is mind boggling that such a small moment in such an inoffensive film was taken so seriously as a geopolitical controversy.