For 64 years, Barbie has been breaking glass ceilings and sometimes even surpassing career milestones before real women. Now, the doll has helped a real woman hit the industry with the blockbuster Barbie movie. But not all countries are supportive or happy about the film.
Recently, Kuwait’s Information Ministry banned the film Barbie to protect public ethics and traditions. Lafi-al-Subaie, head of the ministry’s film censorship committee, said the movie which has topped $1 billion at the global box office, opposes the ideas and beliefs that are alien to the Kuwaiti society and public order. The move came after Lebanon’s Culture Minister Mohammad Mortada called t take all necessary measures to ban showing Barbie in the country as it promotes homosexuality and transsexuality.
In Lebanon, Culture Minister Mohammad Mortada said, he asked authorities to ban Barbie for promoting homosexuality, though the film does not contain any overt references to same-sex relationships or queer queens.
The film was also banned in Vietnam over a scene allegedly showing China’s claimed territory in the contested South China Sea.
Barbie has helped a real woman hit an industry milestone earning more than $1 billion after just 7 days, making filmmaker Greta Gerwig the first woman to have sole directing credit on a billion-dollar film. Barbie reached this graph faster than any other Warner Bros, beating Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 by two days, as Jeff Goldstein, the studio’s president of domestic distribution said.
The movie owes some of its initial success to a pink-heavy, marketing campaign, and its same-day opening with Christoper Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which sparked the Barbenheimer cultural phenomenon. Since its debut, the film has impressed both audiences and critics with its self-aware social commentary.
