Girl power.
But also power to the genocidal authoritarian state of China.
We have gay characters! We are good people and very progressive.
Oh bugger.
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.
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.
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 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66083761
Gotta appeal to China somehow to enter their market to get all that money.
“We do not grant licence for the American movie Barbie to release in Vietnam because it contains the offending image of the nine-dash line,”
I think the article is saying that the movie is actually displaying China’s unilaterally claimed line and Vietnam is banning it for doing so. i.e. against China’s wishes right?
edit: Oh, I misred cyborganism’s comment. I thought he was saying Vietnam was trying to enter China’s market.
What about this reads as against China’s wishes? They love having their territorial claims recognized.
The comment was saying that the movie included the nine dash line to allow it access to the Chinese market. Had they not included it, they might have had their film banned in China.
Edit: swipe keyboard mistake