Scorching pink is having a second because the world prepares for the discharge of the extremely anticipated Barbie film this month.
The world — besides Vietnam. Officers within the Southeast Asian nation have banned industrial screenings of the nostalgia-evoking film, starring Margot Robbie, which was slated to hit cinemas there on July 21.
Hanoi’s motive: geopolitics.
The top of Vietnam’s Division of Cinema instructed The Washington Submit that the cancellation of “Barbie” screenings was as a result of movie that includes a map that seems to depict China’s disputed claims over a big swath of the South China Sea.
For many years, the resource-rich waterway — which spans some 1.4 million sq. miles, and is traversed by roughly one-third of international shipping — has been contested between numerous Southeast Asian nations, Taiwan and China, all of which have overlapping claims to a group of uninhabited rocks, reefs and islands. Regardless of worldwide arbitration on a few of these assertions, the South China Sea has been marked by militarization and no clear decision.
And now “Barbie” is enmeshed within the area’s long-standing political disputes.
