Of all the awesome skills Barbie has accumulated over her 64 years as a working doll, who knew mapping would be a focal point of her highly anticipated summer movie debut?
But here we are. The trailers for the upcoming “Barbie,” from director Greta Gerwig and Warner Bros. Pictures, led to the release of a controversial card used in the film – one depicted in a scene with stars Margot Robbie and Kate McKinnon (known in the film as “Weird Barbie”) – and the studio is taking the speech after days of international headlines.
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“The Barbie Land map is a childish pencil drawing,” a Warner Bros. spokesperson said. MovieGroup. Variety. “The doodles depict Barbie’s imaginary journey from Barbie Land to the ‘real world’. It was not intended to make any type of statement.
The childish map, complete with chalk-scribbled dolphins and even a hashtag floating around the Earth’s vast bodies of water, has drawn the ire of movie-goers in Vietnam this week. The design features what has been called a representation of the “nine-dash line”, which reinforces China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea (there are only eight lines on the “Barbie” map, and not in the form dictated by the actual world maps). Vietnam disputes these claims and believes that they violate the country’s sovereignty. Authorities later withdrew “Barbie”‘s release in the territory.
But how does the map work in the movie itself? Keeping spoilers to a minimum, Robbie’s Barbie faces an existential crisis inside the walls of her pink dream world. McKinnon’s Bizarre Barbie encourages her to go on a journey of self-discovery and provides her with a map of the “real world”, a map whimsically made by another doll. What some have taken to represent the “nine-dash line” is what one source described as “travel lines”, the serial dashes often used in family animation and children’s drawings to represent where a character has traveled to or from.
Representatives of Gerwig and Warner Bros. would not comment on the film’s plot points. Depicted in high resolution above, the map features other so-called ‘travel lines’ as well as arrows and boats. While the filmmakers are sensitive to the geopolitical issues raised by the map (issues stoked by Sen. Ted Cruz), the sources said, the design in “Barbie” is simply the doll’s own path to enlightenment. Memorable buzz and huge marketing spend surrounding the film seemed to heighten everything it touches, from the debate over Ken doll’s age to creating a perfect CGI arch.
“I’m not sure that this card, which you would miss if you blinked by the minute in the third trailer, is admissible in the International Court of Justice. It’s cartoonishly unrealistic,” the columnist wrote on Wednesday. of the Toronto Sun Vinay Menon. “Where is continental Europe? New Zealand? What do the sailboats represent? Is this a jester’s crown on top of Iceland?”
“Barbie” also stars Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Will Ferrell, Hari Nef, Issa Rae and Simu Liu. It will be released in North American theaters on July 21.
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