A slightly-blurred Barbie may be allowed to screen in the Philippines

Per Variety, the Philippines’ Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) conducted “two meticulous screenings” attended by the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Office of the Solicitor General. There were also “thorough deliberations, and consultations with relevant government agencies, including a legal expert on the West Philippine Sea,” per its statement.

“Considering the context by which the cartoonish map of the character ‘Weird Barbie’ was portrayed in the film, the Review Committee is convinced that the contentious scene does not depict the ‘nine-dash line,’” the statement reads. (There are only eight dashes on the Barbie map, for what it’s worth.) “Instead, 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.”

The statement concluded with a stern warning about sanctioning other media regarding the nine-dash line. “Rest assured that the Board has exhausted all possible resources in arriving at this decision as we have not hesitated in the past to sanction filmmakers/ producers/distributors for exhibiting the fictitious ‘nine-dash line’ in their materials,” the MTRCB wrote.

A separate letter (via The Guardian) to Philippine senator Francis Tolentino, one of the film’s critics, indicated that the board had asked Warner Bros. Pictures to blur the lines on the map. The board seemed to ultimately agree with WB’s explanation that the map is a simple “child-like crayon drawing.” “Moreover, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia are not visible on the map. This is in stark contrast to the maps found in the banned films Abominable (2019) and Uncharted (2022),” the letter read.