Staff Writer
At the premiere of the movie about the renowned doll, which many had worried would be outlawed, hundreds of pink-clad Barbie enthusiasts from the Philippines expressed happiness and relief.
The fantasy-comedy film came under significant censorship due to suspicions that a painting of a colorful globe map depicted China’s claims to the South China Sea.
Despite competing claims from other Southeast Asian nations including the Philippines and Vietnam, China claims nearly the whole waterway.
To the relief of Filipino Barbie fans, the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) of the Philippines last week decided that the cartoonish lines on the map did not represent the so-called nine-dash line that China uses to support its claims, and thus gave the movie the go-ahead.
“I was really hoping that they wouldn’t ban it or that they would just cut the scene,” said Nicole Tolentino, 23, a 20-year Barbie devotee who even crocheted a pink top to wear to a screening at a Manila movie theater.
“But they didn’t really do anything with it,” she continued.
Excited moviegoers mingled about outside the theater in the fuchsia lighting, some posing for pictures in a Barbie booth while others brought their own Barbie dolls to the showing.
Martina Santiago expressed her sadness about the potential rejection of the movie, which stars Ryan Gosling as Barbie’s boyfriend Ken and Margot Robbie as Barbie.
We had already planned the costume and everything, so we’re grateful it worked,” she remarked.
In order to “avoid further misunderstandings,” the MTRCB requested that the Hollywood company Warner Bros. muddle the contentious phrases.
However, AFP reporters who saw the film claimed that the lines were distinct.
Not all Barbie admirers agreed.
Margaux Pichay, 19, remarked, “That’s the part I did not like… I wish it were cut,” adding that she found the rest of the movie to be “very empowering.”
The MTRCB pointed AFP to a statement from July 12 in which they claimed that “the map portrayed the route of the make-believe journey of Barbie from Barbie Land to the’real world’, as an integral part of the story,” in response to a question regarding Warner Bros.’ failure to blur the lines.
