Barbie Map Controversy: Warner Bros. Explains the Drawing That Got the Film Banned in Vi

August 2024 · 5 minute read

Of all the impressive skills Barbie has amassed in her 64 years as a working doll, who knew that cartography would be a focal point of her highly anticipated summer movie debut?

But here we are. Trailers for the upcoming “Barbie,” from director Greta Gerwig and Warner Bros. Pictures, have led to the dissemination of a controversial map used in the film – one depicted in a scene with stars Margot Robbie and Kate McKinnon (known in the film as “Weird Barbie”) — and the studio is speaking up after days of international headlines.

“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.”

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The childlike map, with chalk-scribbled dolphins and even a hashtag bobbing around Earth’s vast bodies of water, drew the ire of cinema gatekeepers in Vietnam this week. The drawing depicts what has been called a representation of the “nine dash line,” which reinforces China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea (there are only eight lines in the “Barbie” map, and not in the shape dictated by actual global maps). Vietnam disputes those claims and believes it violates the country’s sovereignty. Officials subsequently pulled the release of “Barbie” in the territory.

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But how does the map function in the movie itself? Keeping spoilers at a minimum, Robbie’s Barbie is facing an existential crisis inside the walls of her pink dream world. McKinnon’s Weird Barbie encourages her to go on a journey of self-discovery and provides her with a map to “the Real World,” one made with whimsy by a fellow doll. What some have taken to represent the “nine dash line” is what one source described as “journey lines,” the serial dashes often used in family animation and kid’s drawings to represent where a character has traveled to or from.

Representatives for Gerwig and Warner Bros. would not comment on plot points of the film. Depicted in high resolution above, the map features other so-called “journey lines” as well as arrows and boats. While filmmakers are sensitive to the geopolitical issues raised by the map (issues stoked by Senator Ted Cruz), said the sources, the drawing in “Barbie” is simply the doll’s own road to enlightenment. Momentous buzz and huge marketing spends around the film have seemed to escalate everything it touches, from debating the Ken doll’s age to creating a CGI-perfect foot arch.

“I’m not sure this map, which you’d miss if you blinked at the one-minute mark in the third trailer, is admissible in the International Court of Justice. It’s cartoonishly unrealistic,” wrote Toronto Sun columnist Vinay Menon on Wednesday. “Where is continental Europe? New Zealand? What do the sailboats represent? Is that a jester’s crown atop Iceland?”

“Barbie” also stars Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Will Ferrell, Hari Nef, Issa Rae and Simu Liu. It hits North American theaters on July 21.

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