The authority that censors films in the Philippines has given its consent to the screening in the country of Barbie, after that in recent days there had been major controversy due to the presence in a scene of a map that appears to contain what is called the “nine line”. The line represents China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, a resource-rich area claimed by several countries, including the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei. The line encompasses much of the South China Sea, in contrast to the claims of nearly every other country, which have always strongly contested it. In recent days, because of that map, Vietnam had prohibited the projection of Barbie.
Even the Philippines had reserved the possibility of banning the film, but after a “meticulous” analysis, the Philippine censorship authority announced that it cannot be said with certainty that the map in Barbie actually represents the “line of nine strokes”: the map appears in fact in a scene in which the character of Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, describes the journey she would like to take to leave the “world of Barbie” and go to the real world, and features several dotted lines that may simply indicate Barbie’s path. However, the authority also informed Philippine newspapers that it had asked Warner Bros, the company that distributes the film, to “blur” the map in the version that will be screened in the Philippines. At the moment, Warner Bros has not responded.
READ: The MTRCB has found no reasons to ban the screening of the film “Barbie” in the PH, saying the scene depicting the “nine-dash line” is the character’s “make-believe journey to the real world.” | @HMallorcaINQ pic.twitter.com/OOdyjZIbYe
— Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet) July 12, 2023
– Read also: The “nine-dash line” that angers China’s neighbors, explained