Exclusive: Republican lawmakers said Hollywood was once again at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over reports that the movie “Barbie” contained a map that appeared to support Beijing’s control of the South China Sea. accusing.
“It may just be Barbie’s map of the Barbie world, but the fact that the cartoonish crayon-scribbled map seems to purposely depict [China’s] The illegal territorial claims show that Hollywood is under pressure to please Chinese Communist Party censors,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on China. , Wisconsin) told Fox News Digital.
The upcoming summer blockbuster starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling finds itself in the midst of today’s most heated geopolitical conflict.
Vietnamese authorities have announced that a Warner Bros. movie will be banned within its borders because it contains a map that allegedly supports China’s claims to vast areas of the South China Sea. Filipino officials have suggested they could follow suit.
China reacts to controversial Beijing-preferred map in ‘Barbie’ movie
Amid ‘Barbie’ controversy, Republican lawmakers accuse Hollywood of bowing to the Chinese Communist Party (Getty Images and Warner Bros.)
Gallagher told Warner Bros. he dismissed the controversy to clarify that “this map is not intended to support any territorial claims and was in fact once the work of a plastic anthropomorphic doll.” asked to speak out about
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Florida) has accused the U.S. film industry of blatant “hypocrisy” in pandering to China’s huge audience while ignoring China’s alarming human rights record.
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“This is yet another shameful example of how Hollywood is in the pocket of communist China. Not only does it undermine our national security, it exposes the film industry’s blatant hypocrisy against social justice and human rights.” It does,” Waltz told Fox News Digital.
The demarcation lines shown on the map represent China’s claim to large swaths of the South China Sea, also contested by Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan. The map’s inclusion in Barbie highlights the growing controversy over Hollywood’s dependence on China, which rivals the United States in its biggest market in recent years.
The summer blockbuster starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling is embroiled in geopolitical conflict. (Courtesy of Warner Bros. Films)
Industry critics have accused studio executives of ignoring Beijing’s wishes. Human rights violations to sell movies there.
Republican Rep. Jim Banks (R., Indiana), who serves on the China Committee with Gallagher, similarly accused studio executives of “playing water” on various crimes in China.
“We defeated the Soviet Union with Coke, Levi’s and James Dean. Winning the new Cold War with China requires as much soft power dominance as military dominance, but in Hollywood working with the Chinese Communist Party It’s impossible,” Banks said. “Film executives who carry water for a brutal communist regime are endangering national security and must pay the price.”
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Senator Marsha Blackburn, Republican, Tennessee, criticized the inclusion of a pro-China map in the movie “Barbie” as wrong on a legal and moral level.
Under President Xi Jinping, China has been accused of numerous human rights violations and suppression of free speech. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, Poole, Files)
An international tribunal in The Hague said in 2016 that China’s claims to large swaths of the South China Sea had no legal basis, but Beijing overruled the ruling at the time.
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“Hollywood and the left are once again more interested in selling movies in communist China than in confronting the regime’s egregious human rights abuses,” said Blackburn. “Barbie’s depiction of a map supporting China’s claims to the South China Sea is legally and morally wrong and should be taken seriously.”
