A very geopolitical landscape. Vietnam banned the highly anticipated American film “Barbie” On Monday, July 3, state media reported scenes showing a map showing Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea.
This map shows a specific geographic delineation for China, called The nine-dotted linewhich lays out Beijing’s claims over these disputed waters, over which Hanoi has claims.
sequel after announcement
The Hollywood comedy about the famous Mattel doll, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, was supposed to be released in Vietnam on July 21, but the Vietnamese film chains removed the release date from their website.
International diplomacy: all roads lead to Beijing
“The National Film Classification and Classification Board watched the film and decided to ban it from being shown in Vietnam due to a violation related to”Fei Qin, director of the Vietnam Film Department, told the Dan Tre news site.
Another state media, Tien Phong, reported that a map showing this line appeared in several scenes in the film.
Conflict that leads to several censors
This territorial dispute has already had consequences for other films in the recent past set in Vietnam, a communist country that largely practices censorship.
sequel after announcement
The last year, “unknown”the action-adventure film starring Tom Holland, was also banned from cinemas for the same reason.
In the 2018 American romantic comedy “Crazy Rich Asians”A scene was cut in the country, showing a branded briefcase with a map showing disputed islands in the South China Sea under Beijing’s control.
A year later, Hanoi pulled the DreamWorks animated film from the screens “shocking”. Then last year, Netflix had to delete episodes of its series “pine gap” for similar scenes.
lemonde.fr explains in a video that the South China Sea, home to valuable oil and gas deposits, is the subject of competing claims to sovereignty. Many of China’s neighbors fear that Beijing is seeking to extend its influence there.
