The brand new Barbie film is all the craze. The upbeat pop music, loud pink homes and signature aesthetic of the ultra-feminine doll bounce out from its viral trailer. The hype surrounding the film induced a pink paint scarcity and a viral “Barbiecore” trend on social media. All the excitement apart, it’s already stirring up unexpected political controversy forward of its July 21 launch date within the U.S.—Vietnam has banned Barbie due to a scene exhibiting a map of a disputed part of the South China Sea, according to state-run outlet Tuoi Tre.
A phase of the film reveals the “nine-dash line” as depicted on Chinese language maps to indicate the areas of the South China Sea it claims. It’s unclear which scene reveals the map or for what plotline.
In 2016, a tribunal in The Hague rejected China’s territorial claims within the South China Sea and criticized their growth and development of synthetic islands in disputed territories, however China rejected that ruling. Various territories have competing claims over the ocean, together with China, Vietnam, Taiwan and Malaysia.
The Barbie film isn’t the primary to be yanked in Vietnam due to the South China sea dispute. DreamWorks’ 2019 animated movie Abonimable was banned by the Vietnamese authorities for a similar cause, as was Tom Holland-starring Uncharted in 2022.
Warner Bros. didn’t reply to Fortune’s request for remark.
Whereas the plot of the film is unclear forward of its American launch, this controversy could need to do with the query many had when the trailer was launched in April: What’s with all of the characters and why are so many individuals responding to “Ken?”
The brand new-age Barbie
What’s past a doubt is that the moviemakers are going for illustration of Barbie and Ken past the stereotypical white, blonde-haired dolls of their late 1950s heyday. The film is clearly vying for larger inclusivity, as Simu Liu, the musclebound Asian Canadian actor who shot to fame as Marvel’s Shang-Chi, is taking part in Ken along with co-lead Ryan Gosling, who extra carefully resembles the unique mid-century doll. Glimpses of Liu within the trailer have gotten the Asian community excited within the lead-up to subsequent month’s launch.
“Greta was very, very conscientious about who she forged. We had been in a position to forged folks of various shapes, sizes, in a different way abled, to all take part on this dance—all below this message of: You don’t need to be blonde, white, or X, Y, Z with the intention to embody what it means to be a Barbie or a Ken,” Liu stated at an occasion final 12 months, according to Vanity Fair.
The film is directed by Greta Gerwig, who is understood for sturdy feminine characters and celebrated arthouse fare comparable to Woman Fowl and an adaptation of Little Ladies. Gerwig’s companion, Noah Baumbach, is one other indie movie luminary and is becoming a member of her as co-writer of the script. The movie additionally stars Kate McKinnon, a celebrated comedic actress well-known for Saturday Evening Stay and a number of other movie roles, in addition to an extended connection to Gerwig that dates again to their undergraduate days together at Barnard Faculty, in higher Manhattan. (One of many well-known “seven sisters” of American personal increased schooling Barnard has a partnership with the close by Ivy League college Columbia, and is a venerable residence of intellectual studying.)
“If you happen to love Barbie, you’re going to like it, should you hate Barbie, you’re going to like it,” Margot Robbie, the actress with the title position, told The Guardian. “However should you identical to a very good film, you’re going to like it.”
Barbie has been a global icon for many years. However for a lot of its historical past, there was just one sort of Barbie—high-heeled, white and petite. When the dialog about inclusivity and variety grew to become extra urgent, folks started to query the relevance of the old-school Barbie that seemed very totally different from a number of the kids who performed with it, hurting the dolls’ gross sales.
“Shoppers didn’t suppose that she was related. She didn’t mirror the world that youngsters reside in,” Barbie-maker Mattel’s president and COO, Richard Dickson, told Fortune final month.
Mattel has actively tried to spice up its branding technique by capitalizing on the sturdy fits of the doll’s franchise as an empowering determine for women. They’ve additionally launched extra inclusive variations of the dolls with totally different hair, pores and skin and physique sorts and representing totally different professions.
Because the Barbie model advanced, it continued to develop its footprint globally—since its launch in 1959, greater than 1 billion dolls have been offered worldwide. The film’s effort at inclusivity, the extent of which could be arduous to gauge till its launch, could also be a nod to the model’s efforts in direction of making the doll resonate with a wider viewers.
“The brand new film appears to be in dialogue with these comparatively current modifications: Practically all of the characters within the movie’s Barbie universe are named ‘Barbie’ and ‘Ken,’ no matter their pores and skin tone, hair shade and texture, and so forth,” Rebecca Hains, professor of media and communication at Salem State College and writer of “The Princess Downside: Guiding Our Women Via the Princess-Obsessed Years,” advised Fortune. “Because of this though the movie is centered on a white, blonde Barbie (performed by Margot Robbie), the movie reinforces the concept Barbie could be something – together with not simply careers, however a variety of races and ethnicities, as effectively.”
A few of the Barbie forged members have spoken in regards to the effort change how characters are represented in a means that’s extra related to at present’s viewers.
Whereas the Barbie identify has traveled far and extensive, the success of the film world wide stays to be seen in a number of weeks. For now, the forged is touring cities, with stops in components of Asia together with Seoul, to advertise the film.