[1/2]Actor Margot Robbie is photographed all over a photocall for the approaching Warner Bros movie “Barbie” in Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 25, 2023. REUTERS/Mike Blake/Document Photograph
LOS ANGELES, July 6 (Reuters) – Warner Bros (WBD.O) studio on Thursday stated a map in its upcoming “Barbie” film of the South China Sea is a “child-like” drawing with out a supposed importance, days after Vietnam stated it could ban the movie over the map.
Vietnam balked at a scene of the map that displays China’s unilaterally claimed territory within the South China Sea, state media reported on Monday. It made up our minds to prohibit home distribution of the extremely expected movie starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.
Warner Bros believed the map used to be innocuous.
“The map in Barbie Land is a fanciful, child-like crayon drawing,” the studio stated in a commentary. “The doodles depict Barbie’s make-believe adventure from Barbie Land to the true global. It used to be no longer supposed to make any form of commentary.”
“Barbie” used to be in the beginning slated to open in Vietnam on July 21, the similar date as in the US, in step with state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper.
Vietnamese government objected to a scene appearing a map that comes with the so-called nine-dash line, the newspaper stated. The U-shaped line is used on Chinese language maps as an example China’s claims over huge spaces of the South China Sea, together with swaths of what Vietnam considers its continental shelf, the place it has awarded oil concessions.
“We don’t grant license for the American film ‘Barbie’ to free up in Vietnam as it incorporates the offending symbol of the nine-dash line,” the newspaper reported, mentioning Vi Kien Thanh, head of the Division of Cinema, a central authority frame answerable for licensing and censoring international motion pictures.
“Barbie” is the most recent film to be banned in Vietnam for depicting China’s nine-dash line, which used to be repudiated in a global arbitration ruling via a courtroom in The Hague in 2016. China refuses to acknowledge the ruling.
This week, Vietnam additionally opened an investigation of the site of Ok-pop workforce Blackpink’s excursion organiser, forward of the gang’s live performance in Hanoi, over grievance from enthusiasts that it displays a map of the South China Sea with disputed limitations.
Reporting via Danielle Broadway and Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles
Enhancing via Mary Milliken and Matthew Lewis
Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Consider Ideas.
