Vietnam bans 'Barbie' movie over South China Sea map | Hacker News Reader

Vietnam bans 'Barbie' movie over South China Sea map

reuters.com

60 pointsdanso60 comments

Here's the map we're talking about:

It makes this story even more interesting to me that the line would even appear on a map that is drawn like that - it looks like a toddler drew it. Crazy.

I can barely even recognize where Europe is supposed to be. I get why Vietnam is mad but it's kinda funny to see that the map in question is extremely abstract. The whole world should ban this movie because it seems like no territory on it is correct.

You really have to know that it's about the small dotted line next to China. So I do get it, it can be seen as very sneaky propaganda.

That's only eight dashes, though.

Only 8 dashes, I wonder if ASEAN will ban the movie for not existing.

Thanks. I don't understand why it wasn't in the article in the first place.

Crazy that they added such a specific detail to a map that looks like ... that. I agree with Vietnam that it has to be a deliberate move towards being nice to China.

For them to add that line to a map with an otherwise extremely low level of detail and realism seems like it must have been intentional. I have just as little sympathy for the studio as I would if they had snuck in a swastika.

The line is coming out of northern Russia in the Arctic on the map (you can see the Kamchatka Peninsula), there's another line in the Atlantic, and it doesn't have the right amount of dashes.

Hanlon's Razor seems to apply.

swastika is pretty common holy symbol in India, since thousands of years, a few decades of nazi use is not going to change that.

My mom never heard of Germany or Nazi or World War 2. She will happily draw swastikas during festivals.

Really? You look at that, and think, "Ah, yes; they are obviously correct that this random wavy dashed line on this completely garbled map coming off of a part of "Asia" that might be China (or might be Russia, or might be nowhere in particular) is clearly representing this very specific political delineator China uses, that is U-shaped and has a specific number of dashes that the line on the map does not appear to have."

It seems to me that a map like this is a Rorschach test—you'll see in it whatever you expect to find.

Indeed why are they doing this? Just to pander to the chinese govt. That itself should warrant a ban in more places than just vietnam.

Why is it even necessary to show a political map in this movie? I haven't seen it, but I doubt that territorial claims by China are part of the story...

Because China demands gestures like this to give films access to the Chinese market, and Hollywood in turn grovels.

I can think of quite a few popular films, distributed in China which don't feature any maps.

I think self-censorship is fairly well documented when it comes to Hollywood and the PRC at this point, but do you have something to back up that demanding “gestures” such as this are commonplace? If so, it is news to me at least and I would like to read more about it.

There was a great book, Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy, that had both examples and which talked about how the idea that Hollywood is kowtowing to Beijing is coming to an end... not so much because of Hollywood, but because China has been working hard to build up their film industry to a point that they have regular domestic features and don't have to depend on foreign films. So while some studios still likely self-censor in an effort to get China distribution, as that avenue is increasingly closed off regardless of the film content, that self-censorship may go away.

There isn't, especially not for something that stirs up regional drama like SCS maps. PRC censors rather there be no politics at all.

One of my personal favorites is John Cena groveling in Mandarin because he mistakenly called Taiwan a "country".

https://youtu.be/42nfIbwjK0s

And those who don't have their careers destroyed - how often do you see actors talk about the plight of Tibet after Richard Gere was basically run out of Hollywood?

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/...

Barbie as the latest pawn in a geopolitical standoff resulting in nuclear war and the end of humanity is actually quite funny.

>shows China's unilaterally claimed territory in the South China Sea

I do not blame them, and I hope more countries in that region follows through. China has no claim beyond what is said in international treaties.

But as we all know, US will do anything for the Chinese Market and short term profits, even allow a kind of "corporate espionage" for plants the have inside China.

The word is now "appeasement".

I'm trying to figure out who's crazier here.

China, Vietnam or Hollywood/producers of this movie.

I go back and forth in my head. I guess if you put a gun to my head I'd say I have the most sympathy for Vietnam but it's a really marginal thing.

why is this detail even in the movie? seems like an easy conflict to avoid by omission

I just logged in to post the same thing — seems odd.

it's paid propaganda (paid meaning tax credits and gatekept access to financing, distribution). hollywood movies exist for shareholder profit, making money for changes like this easily accepted and even incentivized. see also the changes they routinely make to meet complex rules around including enough british actors for lucrative british tax credits, and extrapolate more globally.

the defense against this in this thread can be summarized as "it doesn't matter" or "it's not that much" while it is what's happening

I can think of far fewer films that include detailed political world maps than exclude them, though.

I don't mean to contradict you, your comment just made a good opening to post the world map from the movie. The map is really (really…) not detailed, and honestly I find it hard to identify the problem border in it off the coast of "Asia".

Somebody on Twitter pointed out the sea border around Greenland is controversial as well, something about fishing rights.

https://images2.imgbox.com/81/a9/mSlNXz7I_o.jpeg

sure, but that's just one example...

Wow. That’s really something.

I’m sure at least some of us here recall professors being investigated and fired for not disclosing relationships with China.

I’m also guessing none of this is disclosed by movie studios?

what hollywood does for US imperialism is also shameful and obfuscated. studios work closely with military and CIA and no it is not disclosed as propaganda.

Chinese censors demand stuff like this be included in exchange for access to the Chinese market, and hollywood grovels.

The real reason is the government doesn't want western garbage movies influencing it's citizens. They censor a lot of the internet and block all tabloid news sites as well as a lot of..let's say polarized news sites.

Also everyone in Vietnam hates the Chinese as the Viet govt keeps giving them special administrative regions for business

How is the border shown in the movie? Is a screenshot available? How is the map embedded into the 'story'?

Oppenheimer will win the opening weekend war in Vietnam at least.

When is India going to get into the name claim game and claim the entirety of the Indian Ocean to itself and collect tolls on all seafarers in its territory. That’ll one up from a mere sea.

There's no way the map was placed by accident, some studio exec had to have specifically requested it. There's no way it has anything to do with the story.

A globe on a desk behind one of the characters?

One of those fun animated maps showing a plane flying to indicate a venue change? https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/36850/showing-jou...

It doesn't have to be a key plot point for them to make a fuss of it.

This is a chalk drawing prop made specifically for the movie.

I see someone else in the thread posted an image. It's abstract and doesn't even have the nine lines.

https://imgur.com/V8YTjzJ

did you bother checking what it was before coming up with two examples? it's quite blatantly placed...

I went looking, without luck; not all that surprising given it's not released yet. Someone has since provided a photo. Now that I've seen it, I'm not sure what the fuss is all about (on either side of the issue).

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