‘Barbie’ movie could get banned in the Philippines, following Vietnam

Margot Robbie poses for the media prior to a news conference of the movie Barbie in Seoul, South Korea, Monday. The film is to be released in the country on July 19.

Lee Jin-man/AP

MANILA, Philippines — Who knew the next kerfuffle over the longtime territorial dispute between China and its Southeast Asian neighbors over the South China Sea would be so… PINK.

The upcoming Barbie movie by Warner Bros. has not even hit theaters yet and a second Southeast Asian nation may ban it from being shown because of a scene that includes a map that appears to depict a controversial nine-dash line — the U-shaped contour China uses on maps where it lays claim to nearly all of the South China Sea.

Many of Beijing’s neighbors in and around the South China Sea say these claims threaten their sovereignty.

Territorial claims in the South China Sea are complex and overlapping

Beijing’s claim, shown here as a thick red dotted line, is often represented on Chinese maps with nine long dashes — hence the term “nine-dash line.”

Notes

These are the approximate claims by China and other countries. In many cases, countries are intentionally vague about the extent of their claims.

On Tuesday, the Philippines’ Movie and Television Review and Classification Board posted a notice confirming that the Barbie movie was under review. The film regulator did not say why the movie was being reviewed, nor did it say when a decision to allow it to be showed in theaters across the country would be rendered.

The movie was supposed to hit…