The Film Industry's Nine Dash Line Problem

This summer's hit movie Barbie has been banned in Vietnam for its portrayal of the Nine Dash Line on a world map. Note: I have not (yet) seen any of the movies or shows listed below.

This line represents China's claims in the South China Sea. These claims have been rejected by the United Nations. In the above image, via Vox, it is the white squiggle to the right of Asia. Here is the line on a map from the Daily Mail.

The inclusion of this line on a very stylized, child-like map that is clearly not meant to be accurate is curiously unnecessary. The speculation in many articles was that the line was added to appease Chinese government censors and open the movie up to the huge Chinese market. This is not the first controversy about the Nine Dash Line on screen. Disney's movie Abominable also shows this line in a scene that was ordered removed by the Malaysian government and was also boycotted by Vietnam.

Image from YouTube

The Philippine government banned two episodes of the Netflix series Pine Gap for showing this line on maps. The line in the image below is barely noticeable but it is there in red.

Image via Radio Free Asia-cropped to better fit this space

The movie Uncharted was also banned in Vietnam for use of an "illegal image" of a map. This two second frame shows the same line.

The image above is from an (pre-Barbie) article in Esquire titled Every Time Hollywood Messed Up and Displayed China's Illegal Nine Dash Line on Screen. This article shows more stills of these maps including one from Crazy Rich Asians that appears on a designer handbag. It does not show the line but still ran afoul of the Vietnamese censors.