Well, I guess yesterday was kind of a slow day for news \u2014 apparently there weren\u2019t enough mass shootings to be worth more than just a mention in the news, so one of the stories was about the Barbie Movie. Yea, that\u2019t right \u2014 the Barbie Movie.
Our daughter and our granddaughters were\/are into Barbie dolls at least to some extent, but I never figured that would lead to a real movie. Maybe someone figures that enough girls have played with Barbie dolls over the years that they\u2019d all pack the theaters\u2026. but for whatever reason it seems that Barbie is shaping up to be one of the biggest movies this summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But \u2014 the fact that it is a movie about a doll wasn\u2019t what got it a spot on the news. The movie was set to premier in Vietnam on July 21, but apparently Vietnamese officials saw a trailer or preview of the movie and banned the film.\u00a0
According to the news story, The National Film Evaluation Council in Vietnam found a scene in the preview to be controversial. The scene shows a map of the world on the wall behind Barbie \u2014 what\u2019s controversial about the map is that it appears to include the highly-disputed \u201cnine-dash line.\u201d According to the newscaster, the line is only eight dashes and extends from a poorly drawn map of Asia. But according to Vietnamese officials, it is a representation of the nine-dash-line.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The nine-dash-line first showed up on Chinese maps in the late 1940s and, it seems to represent China\u2019s and Taiwan\u2019s claims to the South China Sea. Since it first appeared, China has never explicitly stated what it means. One argument is that the line is a representation of China\u2019s sovereign rights over fishing and natural resources of the area \u2014 which is within the parameters of the United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS.)\u00a0 But \u2014 other Asian nations in the region are concerned that it is China\u2019s attempt to claim total maritime control of the area.\u00a0
China\u2019s maritime claims cause concern because of the economic and geographical importance of the area marked by the nine-dash-line \u2014it links the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. Vietnam has long challenged China\u2019s claim to the area inside the nine-dash-line. So has the Philippines, that had an international tribunal of arbitrators rule in its favor in 2016 and declare that China had no legal or historical rights to the area within the nine-dash line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vietnam\u2019s Film Council announced that the Barbie movie would be banned in the country due the image of the nine-dash-line. The Philippines also threatened to ban the film for the same reason, but said they might change their stance if the controversial scene is edited out.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the years, many countries have made it clear that they believe the line is illegal, invalid, and potentially dangerous, and won\u2019t tolerate Hollywood acknowledging or validating China\u2019s claims in any manner.
So this line depicting China\u2019s claim to own the South China Sea has been around for almost 80 years but it took Barbie to get it on the nightly news\u2026..
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, I guess yesterday was kind of a slow day for news \u2014 apparently there weren\u2019t enough mass shootings to be worth more than just a mention in the news, so one of the stories was about the Barbie Movie. … Continue reading