Is Barbie a Chinese pawn? That’s what GOP lawmakers are asking in response to a trailer for the new Mattel and Warner Bros. film that has already prompted an outright ban in Vietnam. In a one-second long clip from the trailer, Barbie stands in front of a cartoonish world map poster, where an S-shaped dotted line can be spotted off the coast of Asia.
Vietnam banned commercial screenings of the film on July 3, according to state-run outlet Tuoi Tre, saying that the representation of the nine-dash line reinforces China’s encroachment on Vietnamese sovereignty. Vietnam has banned other American films for the same reason, including Tom Holland’s Uncharted in 2022 and the DreamWorks animated film Abominable in 2019.
