Warner Bros. explains what’s up with that controversial Barbie map

Of all the summer movies that could’ve caused a geopolitical controversy, nobody would’ve put their money on Barbie being the first one to do it. And yet, earlier this week, Barbie was banned in Vietnam over a shot featuring a map of the world that showed a dotted line extending from the coast of China, which appeared to be a reference to the “nine-dash line”—a controversial mark on some maps that indicates that China controls a contested section of the South China Sea. Similar maps have caused other movies to be banned in the region, and Philippines Senator Risa Hontiveros argued yesterday that, “the movie is fiction, and so is the nine-dash line,” so theaters in the country should at least include a disclaimer indicating that the line is “a figment of China’s imagination.”

Now, unsurprisingly, Warner Bros. has shared a statement explaining that it did not generate an international controversy on purpose, with Variety sharing a statement from the studio about the map: “The map in Barbie Land is a child-like crayon drawing. 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.” (By the way, “it was not intended to make any type of statement” is the national anthem of modern Hollywood.)

And, looking at the map in the movie (which you can see in one of the trailers), it’s hard to argue with that. It’s a silly drawing that isn’t accurate to the real world at all, with missing countries and little drawings all over it. But at the same time, the line on the map does have a similar shape to the nine-dash line, and it is extending out from a similar place. It would be weird for someone to have done it on purpose, but people have done weirder things on purpose while making movies.

Either way, Warner Bros. isn’t taking a stand on this, so it doesn’t seem like some hugely important thing that everyone involved with Barbie would die for. Of course, if the studio now removed it, that would probably trigger a different controversy. The lesson here is: Making movies is complicated.