The Barbie movie is an absolute box office juggernaut. It’s already the second highest-grossing movie of the year, both domestically and globally, and it’s also the second film of the year to cross the $1 billion mark at the global box office. At this point, one wonders if the only thing that might keep the film from being number one at the global box office is that it has been banned in some nations, and Algeria just added itself to that list.
Unlike Lebanon, which banned Barbie before the movie ever opened there, Algeria had actually been showing the film for several weeks. But the movie has reportedly now been banned by Algeria’s Culture Ministry. While Algerian news site 24H Algérie reported that the decision was made due to the film’s “damaging morals,” an “official source" told Reuters that the decision was made because Barbie….
[P]romotes homosexuality and other Western deviances [and] does not comply with Algeria's religious and cultural beliefs.
If true, this decision echoes the rationale behind the decision in Lebanon to ban Barbie as well, where it was also felt the movie promoted homosexuality. It’s an interesting take, to say the least since it’s hard to see exactly how the movie promotes homosexuality. None of the characters are explicitly gay. It’s unclear how much sexual orientation means to the majority of the characters, who are specifically described as being incapable of having sex.
Alongside Lebanon, Algeria joins Kuwait among the list of nations that have banned Barbie for moral reasons. Kuwait also recently banned horror movie Talk to Me, not due to the content of the film, but exclusively because the film's lead actor is transgender, despite that fact not being referenced in the movie. There is a trans actor in the Barbie cast as well, but that fact has not been referenced by any of the nations banning the movie.
Vietnam also banned Barbie, but in that case, the decision was political, not moral. A map view of the real world reportedly included the “nine-dash-line” a representation of Chinese territory that Vietnam claims violates its own sovereignty. A handful of films over the years have received bans for the same reason.
Algeria’s decision to ban Barbie looks to be largely symbolic, and certainly won’t have a significant impact on the movie’s global box office take. It had been showing in the nation of 44 million for three weeks before this decision was made. It seems likely that Barbie had made most of the money it was going to make in Algeria already. While the bans will certainly reduce the ultimate box office total for Barbie, it seems unlikely Warner Bros. is going to be too upset considering how successful the movie has become.
