Philippines to allow 'Barbie' movie despite Chinese map controversy

The Philippines’ Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) says it will allow the new “Barbie” movie to be released in theaters in the country, after reviewing a controversial scene that features a map that critics say depicts China’s claimed territory in the South China Sea.

The MTRCB said it conducted two reviews of a scene from the Margot Robbie-starring flick, in which a cartoon map labeled parts of the sea that Vietnam claims as its own as Chinese territory. China uses a U-shaped line, referred to as a nine-dash, to mark its claims over vast areas of the South China Sea.

Last week, Vietnam banned “Barbie” — which was poised to debut in theaters on July 21 — from domestic distribution as a result. The MTRCB had said earlier this month that it was considering the same move as Vietnam.

But in a Wednesday statement, the MTRCB said, “Considering the context by which the cartoonish map of the character ‘Weird Barbie’ was portrayed in the film, the Review Committee is convinced that the contentious scene does not depict the ‘nine-dash line.’”

“Instead, the map portrayed the route of the make-believe journey of Barbie from Barbie Land to the ‘real world,’ as an integral part of the story,” the statement said. But, the MTRCB warned, “Rest assured that the Board has exhausted all possible resources in arriving at this decision as we have not hesitated in the past to sanction filmmakers/producers/distributors for exhibiting the fictitious ‘nine-dash line’ in their materials.”

In a statement to Variety last week, Warner Bros. Film Group dismissed the map as a “child-like crayon drawing” that appears “in Barbie Land,” saying it “was not intended to make any type of statement.”