Snicker if you wish. Guffaw for good measure. Bill May and other male synchronized swimmers — now called artistic swimmers — have heard the putdowns before.

But they’re getting the last laugh.

Men have competed in synchro at the lower levels for decades. Now, they’re being included in the Olympics, meaning next year’s Summer Games in Paris.

“I think it’s a huge opportunity for the sport to grow and attract more men,” May told The Associated Press at the World Aquatics Championships. “By keeping men out, you’re limiting the sport. By including men, you’re going to see an upshift in the popularity and the numbers.”

May looks like a lean bodybuilder. He was among the first men to compete when synchro was included in the worlds for the first time in 2015. And he worked for 17 years at Cirque du Soleil doing water-themed shows. He has come out of competitive retirement for a chance to compete at the Olympics.

“There has always been that misconception that it’s a female-only sport, or that it’s for wimps, or that it’s not a difficult sport,” May, 44, said. “Anyone that has anything negative to say about the sport — boy, female, anyone — just try it and you’ll know it’s the most difficult sport in the world.”

This is not the synchronized swimming that your parents or grandparents watched — the water ballet that made few waves below the flowery rubber caps and permanent smiles. It’s estranged from the sport introduced at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

The acrobatic team event, in particular, features lifts, throws and flips, and diving routines launched off the shoulders of teammates treading water below. It’s gymnastics on water, and concussions are a risk.

Interested men often confront the stereotypes.

Beginning in elementary school, 18-year-old American Kenny Gaudet dreamed of being a synchronized swimmer. He made it, but it wasn’t easy.

“It makes me emotional just to think about the problems we all went through and the struggles we all had just to get a chance to swim and do what we love,” said Gaudet who competed at this year’s worlds.

“So much bullying. So much slander. So much hate,” he added. “Just because of my gender, just because I’m a male in artistic swimming. When I first started, I wanted to quit so many times. Growing up, my peers would ask why I’m doing a female sport, why am I being like a girl and degrade me for doing what I love to do.”

One aspect of Adam Andrasko’s job as the head of USA Artistic Swimming is recruiting men. He said there are about 100 participating in the United States, up from 25 just four years ago.

“There hasn’t been a good foundation of growth,” Andrasko said. “You haven’t had the farm system.”

A few countries at the world championships have male swimmers, including the United States, Japan, Germany and China. Spain and Italy also have top competitors.

“There aren’t a lot of countries with strong males,” in the international competition, Andrasko said, noting that men often lack the flexibility to compete. “So, you might not see a lot of males swimming in the Olympics. I’m concerned it goes to the Olympic Games and we don’t see a male participating. I definitely have that fear.”

“To this point,” he added, “women are still far better at this sport than a man.”

Another fear, apparently unfounded, is that women might resent the men competing in the sport. Men will compete in only team events at the Olympics. Teams have a maximum of eight members — with a limit of two men — which means men might crowd out some women.

There is no requirement for men to be included.

Asked about any acrimony, two-time American Olympian Anita Alvarez replied, “No, not at all.”

Alvarez has blacked out twice in the last two years while competing and had to be resuscitated. She’s been cleared to compete with no diagnosis except physical or mental exhaustion. Holding her breath for too long underwater is also suspected.

Men can add some physicality to routines, and their presence could lead to a wider audience. Alvarez also credits May with choreography skills that he picked up with Cirque du Soleil.

“Having the inclusion of both males and females will make it more open for young boys and young girls to dream of being in the Olympics, parents wanting to start their kids,” Alvarez said.

She ran off her workout routine, sure to scare away men and women equally.

“We’re training eight-plus hours a day, treading water all day,” she said. “You have to be able to count time and work with music. You have to be able to watch your patterns and stay in line. We don’t wear goggles when we compete. You’re holding your breath. You don’t touch the bottom. There are so many elements that go into it that people don’t see.”

And we’re about to see more men trying it.
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Elton John briefly testified Monday for the defense at Kevin Spacey ‘s sexual assault trial as the actor’s lawyer attempted to discredit a man who claimed the Oscar winner aggressively grabbed his crotch while driving to the singer’s summer ball.

John appeared in the London court by video link from Monaco after his husband, David Furnish, testified that Spacey did not attend the annual party at their Windsor home the year the accuser said he was attacked.

One of the alleged victims said he was driving Spacey to the White Tie & Tiara Ball in 2004 or 2005 when the actor grabbed him so forcefully he almost ran off the road.

Furnish supported Spacey’s own testimony that he only attended the event in 2001. Furnish said he had reviewed photographs taken at the party from 2001 to 2005 and Spacey only appeared in images that one year. He said all guests were photographed each year.

John said the actor attended the party in the early 2000s and arrived after flying in on a private jet.

Furnish said Spacey’s appearance was a surprise and he remembered it because it was a big deal.

“He was an Oscar-winning actor and there was a lot of buzz and excitement that he was at the ball,” Furnish said.

John said he only remembered Spacey coming once to the gala and said the actor spent the night at their house after the event. He also confirmed that Spacey bought a Mini Cooper at the auction held that night for the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

The alleged victim said he may have gotten the year wrong, but that he would not have forgotten the incident because it took his breath away and he almost crashed the car.

The timeline, however, is important because the man testified that Spacey had fondled him over several years beginning in the early 2000s. The incident was the final occasion, he said, when he threatened to hit the actor and then avoided him.

Spacey said the two were friends and they engaged in some romantic contact but the man was straight, so the actor respected his wishes not to go further. He said he was crushed when he learned the man had complained to police about him and said the man had “reimagined” what had been consensual touching.

Furnish said he was familiar with the accuser and described him as “charming,” the same term Spacey used.

Spacey, 63, has pleaded not guilty to a dozen charges that include sexual and indecent assault counts and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.

Over two days of testimony last week, the two-time Academy Award winner insisted that he never sexually assaulted three of the four accusers who described disturbing encounters between 2001 and 2013. The acts allegedly escalated from unwanted touching to aggressive fondling to one instance of performing oral sex act on an unconscious man.

Spacey dismissed one man’s fondling claims as “pure fantasy” and said he shared consensual encounters with two others who later regretted it. He accepted the claims of a fourth man, saying he had made a “clumsy pass” during a night of heavy drinking, but he took exception to the “crotch-grabbing” characterization.

John’s testimony comes just over a week after he wrapped up his 50-year touring career with a show in Stockholm.

It’s the second time the “Rocket Man” star and Furnish have made appearances in a London courtroom this year. The two showed up at hearings in their phone hacking lawsuit with Prince Harry against the publisher of the Daily Mail newspaper.

The couple, the Duke of Sussex and actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost are among a group of claimants that allege Associated Newspapers Ltd. violated their privacy by intercepting voicemails and using unlawful methods to snoop on them.

A judge is deciding whether to throw out the case after the publisher said the group waited too long to bring their claims.
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There could be some surprises at the Women’s World Cup.

Sure, the U.S. is still considered dominant, and those elite European teams have developed even more with the rise of competitive clubs. Then there’s Brazil, which always seems on the verge of a breakout.

But an expanded field of 32 teams at the tournament starting Thursday in Australia and New Zealand means more players will see the international spotlight — and they no doubt want to prove they belong.

Consider Japan.

Back in 2011, Japan wasn’t expected to make the semifinals, let alone the championship match. But the Japanese, reeling from the earthquake and tsunami that devastated their country earlier that year, rallied and beat the Americans on penalties after a 2-2 draw, and in the process became the first Asian team to win soccer’s top prize.

That was the last Women’s World Cup that wasn’t won by the United States. The No. 1-ranked Americans aim to make it three in a row.

U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski is well aware that other countries are catching up. He pointed to Zambia’s exhibition victory over Germany in the run-up to the tournament.

“The top 10 have always been there. The world that is catching up is Wales, is Vietnam, is Zambia, Portugal. These are these are the countries that are catching up. The 7-0, 8-0 games are gone. And we can see that Germany plays against Zambia, loses 3-2. Those games are going to happen,” Andonovski said. “And that’s what we are preparing ourselves for, so we don’t run into into a game like that with the mentality that it’s gonna be easy. No game is gonna be easy. It doesn’t matter who’s in front of us.”

Canada is considered among those top teams, particularly after winning the Olympic gold medal at Tokyo. But coach Bev Priestman suggested that growing parity means there are no givens.

“It could really throw up some surprises just on tournament football, you can lose group-stage games and then go on to win the thing. So yeah, it’s it’s tighter than it’s ever been,” Priestman said.

There are eight teams on debut at the tournament, including Ireland, Vietnam, Zambia, Haiti, Morocco, Panama, Portugal and Philippines. While most stand little chance against the likes of France or Sweden, there’s always that hope.

And there’s hope that the international stage will help push federations to invest in more for the teams that don’t traditionally have support.

“A lot of federations are slowly getting into the trend of being better,” South Africa forward Thembi Kgatlana said. “A lot of those girls in those countries have been professional athletes, so they have an idea of what it means to be a professional. And when they go back to the respective national teams, they are able to also help and say `Hey, we need this, we need that.’ It kind of forces the national teams to also adapt into the trends of changing and becoming better.”

More than a game

Players are well aware that the World Cup gives them the platform to speak about inequity, human rights and a whole host of social issues.

At the World Cup final four years ago in France, fans chanted “Equal Pay!” in support of the Americans’ fight for equitable compensation to their male national team counterparts. The players struck a contract that equalized pay last year.

Now other teams are joining the call for better pay and conditions. A group of international players, backed by the global players association FIFPRO, called on FIFA to increase prize money and make sure that each player at the tournament gets a share of those funds.

As a result, all 736 players participating at this World Cup will each get at least $30,000, an amount that increases the further teams advances in the tournament. FIFPRO has vowed to make the money gets to the players.

The overall fund for this World Cup is $152 million, covering prize money, team preparation and payments to players’ clubs. That’s a 300% increase over the funds for the 24-team edition in 2019, and 10 times what it was in 2015.

It’s just a number

It’s hard to say who has had more of an impact on women’s soccer in their home countries: Canada’s Christine Sinclair or Brazil’s Marta. Both players will be making their sixth appearance at the World Cup.

Sinclair, 40, holds the international scoring record, among both men and women, with 190 career goals. She’s played in 323 games for Canada.

Marta, 37, a six-time FIFA World Player of the Year, has scored 115 goals for Brazil in 174 appearances. Marta is the tournament’s all-time leading scorer with 17 goals and will vie to be the first player to score in six World Cups.

They are not the only players to make a sixth World Cup roster: Nigeria’s Onome Ebi, 40, is about a month older than Sinclair and is the oldest in the tournament.

The kids are alright

Casey Phair, an American-born forward on South Korea’s squad, turned 16 on June 29 and is the youngest person on a tournament roster. She’s one of four 16-year-old players in World Cup squads.

The United States boasts teenager Alyssa Thompson, who plays for Angel City in the National Women’s Soccer League. Just 18, she missed her high school graduation because of soccer.

A look back

The U.S. women ran through a gauntlet of tough teams — first host France in the quarterfinals and then England in the semis — before beating Netherlands 2-0 in the final to win the 2019 World Cup. Sweden defeated England in the third-place match.

Details, details

The co-hosts are in action on the tournament’s opening day, with New Zealand facing Norway in Auckland followed by Australia against Ireland in Sydney.

The United States opens against Vietnam on Saturday in Auckland, but because of the time difference, viewers in North America will watch on Friday.

The top two teams from each of the eight groups will advance to the knockout stage, which begins on Aug. 5. The championship game is set for Aug. 20.
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Hollywood actors walked off the job Friday, striking for higher pay, an improved residuals policy and protections against the use of artificial intelligence. Hollywood writers have been on strike since May. Genia Dulot has the report.
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Under the tall prairie grass outside this southwestern Minnesota town lies a precious seam of dark red pipestone that, for thousands of years, Native Americans have quarried and carved into pipes essential to prayer and communication with the Creator.

Only a dozen Dakota carvers remain in the predominantly agricultural area bordering South Dakota. While tensions have flared periodically over how broadly to produce and share the rare artifacts, many Dakota today are focusing on how to pass on to future generations a difficult skillset that’s inextricably linked to spiritual practice.

“I’d be very happy to teach anyone … and the Spirit will be with you if you’re meant to do that,” said Cindy Pederson, who started learning how to carve from her grandparents six decades ago.

Enrolled in the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Nation, she regularly holds carving demonstrations at Pipestone National Monument, a small park that encompasses the quarries.

In the worldview of the Dakota peoples, sometimes referred to as Sioux, “the sacred is woven in” the land where the Creator placed them, said Iyekiyapiwin Darlene St. Clair, a professor at St. Cloud State University in central Minnesota.

But some places have a special relevance, because of events that occurred there, a sense of stronger spiritual power, or their importance in origin stories, she added.

These quarries of a unique variety of red pipestone check all three – starting with a history of enemy tribes laying down arms to allow for quarrying, with several stories warning that if fights broke out over the rare resource, it would make itself unavailable to all.

The colorful prayer ties and flags hung from trees alongside the trails that lead around the pink and red rocks testify to the continued sacredness of the space.

“It was always a place to go pray,” said Gabrielle Drapeau, a cultural resource specialist and park ranger at the monument who started coming here as a child.

From her elders in the Yankton Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, Drapeau grew up hearing one of many origin stories for the pipestone: In time immemorial, a great flood killed most people in the area, their blood seeping into the stone and turning it red. But the Creator came, pronounced it a place of peace, and smoked a pipe, adding this is how people could reach him.

“It’s like a tangible representation of how we can connect with Creator,” Drapeau said. “All people before you are represented in the stone itself. It’s not just willy-nilly stone.”

Pipes are widely used by Indigenous people across the Great Plains and beyond, either by spiritual leaders or individuals for personal prayer for healing and thanksgiving, as well as to mark rites of passage like vision quests and the solemnity of ceremonies and gatherings.

“Pipestone has a particular relationship to our spiritual practice – praying with pipes, we take very seriously,” St. Clair said.

The pipe itself is thought to become sacred when the pipestone bowl and the wooden stem are joined. The smoke, from tobacco or prairie plants, then carries the prayer from a person’s heart to the Creator.

Because of that crucial spiritual connection, only people enrolled in federally recognized tribes can obtain permits to quarry at the monument, some traveling from as far as Montana and Nebraska. Within tribes, there’s disagreement over whether pipes should be sold, especially to non-Natives, and the pipestone used to make other art objects like carved animal figures.

“Sacredness is going to be defined by you — that’s between you and the Creator,” said Travis Erickson, a fourth-generation carver who’s worked pipestone in the area for more than two decades and embraces a less restrictive view. “Everything on this Earth is spiritual.”

His first job in the quarries, at age 10, was to break through and remove the layers of harder-than-steel quartzite covering the pipestone seam – then about six feet down, now more than 18 feet into the quarry, so the process can take months. Only hand tools can be used to avoid damaging the pipestone.

Taken out in sheets only about a couple of inches thick, it is then carved using flint and files.

“The stone talks to me,” added Erickson, who has fashioned pipe bowls in different shapes, such as horses. “Most of those pipes showed what they wanted to be.”

Growing up in the 1960s, Erickson recalled making pipes as a family affair where the day often ended with a festive grilling. He taught his children, but laments that few younger people want to take up the arduous job.

So does Pederson, some of whose younger family members have shown interest, including a granddaughter who would hang out in her workshop starting when she was 3 and emerge “pink from head to toe” from the stone dust.

But they believe the tradition will continue as long as they can share it with Native youth who might have their first encounter with this deep history on field trips to the monument.

On a recent trip, Pederson’s brother, Mark Pederson, who also holds demonstrations at the visitor center, took several young visitors into the quarries and taught them how to swing sledgehammers — and many asked to return, she said.

Teaching the techniques of quarrying and carving is crucially important, and so is helping youth develop a relationship with the pipestone and its place in the Native worldview.

“We have to be concerned with that as Dakota people – all cultural messages young people get draw away from our traditional lifeways,” St. Clair said. “We need to hold on to the teachings, prayers, songs that make pipes be.”

From new exhibits to tailored school field trips, recent initiatives at the monument — undertaken in consultation between tribal leaders and the National Park Service — are trying to foster that awareness for Native youth.

“I remind them they have every right to come here and pray,” Drapeau said — a crucial point since many Native spiritual practices were systematically repressed for decades past 1937, when the monument was created to preserve the quarries from land encroachment.

Some areas of the park are open only for ceremonial use; the 75,000 yearly visitors are asked not to interfere with the quarriers.

“The National Park Service is the newcomer here — for 3,000 years, different tribal nations have come to quarry here and developed different protocols to protect the site,” said park superintendent Lauren Blacik.

One change brought through extensive consultations with tribal leaders is the park’s decision to no longer sell pipes at the visitor center, though other pipestone objects are — like small carved turtles or owls. Pipes are available at stores a few miles away in Pipestone’s downtown.

Tensions over the use of sacred pipes by non-Natives long predates the United States, when French and English explorers traded them, said Greg Gagnon, a scholar of Indian Studies and author of a textbook on Dakota culture.

“Nobody wants to have their world appropriated. The more you open it up, the more legitimate a fear of watering it down,” he said. But there’s also a danger in becoming entrenched in dogmatic ways of understanding traditions, Gagnon added.

For carvers like Pederson, good intentions and the Spirit at work in both those practicing the craft as well as those receiving the pipestone are reasons to be optimistic about the future.

“Grandma and Grandpa always said the stone takes care of itself, knows what’s in a person’s heart,” she said.
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After a globe-trotting publicity blitz by star Tom Cruise, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” launched with a franchise-best $80 million over five days, though it came in shy of industry expectations with a $56.2 million haul over the three-day weekend, according to studio estimates.

The Paramount Pictures’ debut was boosted by strong overseas sales of $155 million from 70 markets. But while a $235 million worldwide launch marked one of the best global openings of the year, “Dead Reckoning” couldn’t approach the high-speed velocity of last summer’s top film, “Top Gun: Maverick.”

“Dead Reckoning Part One,” the seventh film in the 27-year-old series, had been forecast to better the franchise high of the previous installment, “Fallout,” which opened with $61 million domestically in 2018. Instead, it also fell short of the $57.8 million “Mission: Impossible II” debuted with in 2000.

That puts the film’s opening-weekend tally very close to the tepid launch of Disney’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” which opened in U.S. and Canadian theaters with $82 million over five days and $60 million over the three-day weekend. Paramount and Skydance had higher hopes for the action extravaganza of “Dead Reckoning,” which cost $290 million to make, not counting marketing expenses.

Those costs were inflated, in part, by the pandemic. “Dead Reckoning,” directed by Christopher McQuarrie, was among the first major productions shut down by COVID-19. It was preparing to shoot in Italy in March 2020. When the film got back on track, McQuarrie and Cruise helped lead the industry-wide recovery back to film sets – albeit with some well-publicized friction over protocols along the way.

Still, “Dead Reckoning” was hailed as a high point in the franchise. Critics (96% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and fans (an “A” on CinemaScore) alike came away awed by the stunts and chases of the latest “Mission: Impossible” film. Though the coming competition of “Barbenheimer” — the much-anticipated debuts of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — looms, “Mission: Impossible” should play well for weeks to come.

“This is a global franchise. It’s going gangbusters and it’s going to play for a long time. Quality always wins in the end,” said Chris Aronson, distribution chief for Paramount.

“Dead Reckoning,” Aronson said, met or exceeded the studio’s expectations.

“In international markets, in like-for-like markets, we’re 15% ahead of ‘Fallout,’ and that’s taking China out,” added Aronson. “Domestically, we’re over 3% ahead of ‘Fallout’ for the first five days. To beat its predecessor is phenomenal, especially in this environment.”

Cruise, the so-called savior of movie theaters last year, traveled tirelessly to again pump life back into a summer box office that’s been sluggish. After a splashy world premiere in Rome with a red-carpet on the Spanish Steps, Cruise and McQuarrie surprised theaters in Atlanta, Miami, Toronto and Washington D.C. in the days ahead of opening.

“Dead Reckoning” hit theaters at a crucial mid-summer period for Hollywood, and not just because of the SAG-AFTRA strike which began Thursday. “Mission: Impossible” launched a week before one of the biggest box-office showdowns of the year.

Though “Dead Reckoning” and “Oppenheimer” have vied for some of the same IMAX screens, each film has publicly endorsed the idea that a rising tide lifts all blockbusters. Cruise and McQuarrie in early July even bought opening-weekend tickets to both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer.” “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig and “Oppenheimer” filmmaker Christopher Nolan reciprocated with their own gestures of support.

However, that trio of films performs over the next few weeks will do a lot to determine the fate of the summer box office.

“These are a crucial couple of weeks for the industry starting this weekend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for data firm Comscore. “I think it’s going to be a fun reinvigoration of the box office because we have had a few films underperforming. Really, the summer movie season restarts this week with ‘Mission’ leading into ‘Barbenheimer.'”

No other new wide release challenged “Mission: Impossible” over the weekend. Second place went to Angel Studios’ faith-based political thriller “Sound of Freedom” which increased 37% in its second with $27 million. Jim Caviezel stars in the child trafficking drama.

Last week’s top film, “Insidious: The Red Door” slid to third with $13 million in its second weekend. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” dropped quickly with $12 million for its third weekend, with a domestic total so far of $145.4 million.

In limited release, the Searchlight Pictures’ mockumentary “Theater Camp” opened to $270,000 from six theaters in New York and Los Angeles.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,” $56.2 million.

2. “Sound of Freedom,” $27 million.

3. “Insidious: The Red Door,” $13 million.

4. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” $12 million.

5. “Elemental,” $8.7 million.

6. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” $6.1 million.

7. “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” $3.4 million.

8. “No Hard Feelings,” $3.3 million.

9. “Joy Ride,” $2.6 million.

10. “The Little Mermaid,” $2.4 million.
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British-born actress and singer Jane Birkin, a 1960s wildchild who became a beloved figure in France, has died in Paris aged 76.

The French Culture Ministry said the country had lost a “timeless Francophone icon.”

Local media reported she had been found dead at her home, citing people close to her. Birkin had a mild stroke in 2021 after suffering heart problems in previous years.

Birkin was best known overseas for her 1969 hit in which she and her then-lover, the late French singer and songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, sang the sexually explicit “Je t’aime…moi non plus”.

She had lived in her adopted France since the late 1960s and apart from her singing and roles in dozens of films, she was a popular figure for her warm nature, stalwart fight for women’s and LGBT rights.

The “most Parisian of the English has left us,” said Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. “We will never forget her songs, her laughs and her incomparable accent which always accompanied us.”

Jane Mallory Birkin was born in London in December 1946, daughter of British actress Judy Campbell and Royal Navy commander David Birkin.

She first took to the stage aged 17 and went on to appear in the 1965 musical “Passion Flower Hotel” by conductor and composer John Barry, whom she married shortly after. The marriage ended in the late 1960s.

Before venturing across the Channel aged 22, she achieved notoriety in the controversial 1966 Michelangelo Antonioni film “Blow-Up,” appearing naked in a threesome sex scene.

But it was in France that she truly shot to fame, as much for her love affair with tormented national star Gainsbourg, as for her tomboyish style and endearing British accent when speaking French, which some said she cultivated deliberately.

Following the breakup of that relationship in 1981, she continued her career as a singer and actress, appearing on stage and releasing albums such as “Baby Alone in Babylone” in 1983, and “Amour des Feintes” in 1990, both with words and music by Gainsbourg.

She wrote her own album “Arabesque” in 2002, and in 2009 released a collection of live recordings, “Jane at the Palace.”

“It’s unimaginable to live in a world without you,” said French singer Etienne Daho, who produced and composed Birkin’s last album in 2020.

It was on the set of the film “Slogan” in 1969 that Birkin first met Gainsbourg, who was recovering from a break-up with Brigitte Bardot, and the two quickly began a love affair that captivated the nation.

That same year they released “Je T’Aime… Moi Non Plus” (“I Love You… Me Neither”), a song about physical love originally written for Bardot in which Gainsbourg’s explicit lyrics are punctuated with breathy moans and cries from Birkin.

The song was banned by the BBC and condemned by the Vatican.

Gainsbourg’s drinking eventually got the better of the relationship, and Birkin left him in 1981 to live with film director Jacques Doillon. However she remained close to the troubled singer until his death in March 1991.

It was around this time that she inspired the famous Birkin bag by French luxury house Hermes, after chief executive Jean-Louis Dumas saw her struggling with her straw bag on a flight to London, spilling the contents over the floor.

She is survived by two daughters the singer and actress Charlotte, born in 1971, and Lou Doillon, also an actress, born in 1982. She also had a daughter, Kate, who was born in 1967 and died in 2013.
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Pianist André Watts, whose televised debut with the New York Philharmonic as a 16-year-old in 1963 launched an international career of more than a half-century, has died. He was 77.

Watts died Wednesday at his home in Bloomington of prostate cancer, his manager, Linda Marder, said Friday. Watts joined the faculty of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 2004. He said in 2016 that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Watts won a Philadelphia Orchestra student competition and debuted when he was 10 in a children’s concert on Jan. 12, 1957, performing the first movement of Haydn’s Concerto in D major.

He studied under Genia Robinor and made his New York Philharmonic debut in a Young People’s Concert led by music director Leonard Bernstein on Jan. 12, 1963, a program televised three days later on CBS.

“Now we come to a young man who is so remarkable that I am tempted to give him a tremendous buildup, but I’d almost rather not so that you might have the same unexpected shock of pleasure and wonderment that I had when I first him play,” Bernstein told the audience. “He was just another in a long procession of pianists who were auditioning for us one afternoon and out he came, a sensitive-faced 16-year-old boy from Philadelphia … who sat down at the piano and tore into the opening bars of a Liszt concerto in such a way that we simply flipped.”

Bernstein conducted Watts and the orchestra in Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

“What Mr. Watts had that was exceptional was a delicacy of attack that allowed the piano to sing,” Raymond Ericson wrote in The New York Times.

Watts so impressed Bernstein that the conductor chose him to replace an indisposed Glenn Gould and play the Liszt concerto twice at Philharmonic Hall a few weeks later. Within months, he had earned a recording contract and became among the most prominent pianists.

“When I’m feeling unhappy, going to the piano and just playing gently and listening to sounds makes everything slowly seem all right,” he said on a 1987 episode of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

Born in Nuremberg, Germany, on June 20, 1946, to a Hungarian mother and a Black father who was in the U.S. Army, Watts moved with his family to Philadelphia.

“When I was young, I was in the peculiar position with my school chums of not being white and not being Black, either,” Watts told The Christian Science Monitor in 1982. “Somehow I didn’t fit in very well at all. My mom said two things, ‘If you really think that you have to play 125% to a white’s 100% for equal treatment, it’s too bad. But fighting will not alter it.’ And, ‘If someone is not nice to you, it doesn’t have to be automatically because of your color.’

“(That advice) taught me that when I’m in a complex personal situation, I don’t have to conclude it is a racial thing. Therefore, I think I have encountered fewer problems all along the way.”

Watts’ career was interrupted on Nov. 14, 2002, when he was stricken by a subdural hematoma before a scheduled performance with the Pacific Symphony at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, California. He had surgery in Newport Beach.

Watts then had surgery in 2004 to repair a herniated disk that caused nerve damage in his left hand. He made the last of more than 40 Carnegie Hall appearances with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in 2017. He had been scheduled to appear at the New York Philharmonic this November to mark the centennial of “Young People’s Concerts.”

He was nominated for five Grammy Awards and won Most Promising New Classical Recording Artist in 1964 for the Liszt concerto with Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. He was nominated for a 1995 Emmy Award for Outstanding Cultural Program and received a 2011 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal from then-President Barack Obama.

Watts is survived by his wife Joan Brand Watts, stepson William Dalton, stepdaughter Amanda Rees and seven step-grandchildren. There were no immediate funeral plans.
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Thousands of actors, from A-list celebrities to those struggling to break into the entertainment industry, voted to go on strike this week, plunging Hollywood and the broader film and television industry into what seems likely to be a lengthy work stoppage.

The board of the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) ordered the strike Thursday, demanding a new contract that takes into account the new technologies — particularly video streaming and artificial intelligence — that have already transformed the industry and appear likely to drive even more change in the future.  Previously, 98% of the union’s members had voted in favor of authorizing the strike if negotiators could not reach a deal.

The members of SAG-AFTRA join the members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), who have been on strike since May, with similar demands for an updated contract. The last time writers and actors went on strike at the same time was in 1960, when actor and future U.S. President Ronald Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild.

On the other side of the dispute is the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), representing major film studios, streaming services, and other outlets, including Amazon, Apple, Disney, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount, Sony and Warner Bros Discovery. Negotiations between the alliance and SAG-AFTRA broke down this week.

Battle lines drawn 

While there are a number of issues the two sides need to resolve, two of the largest are residual payments and the use of generative artificial intelligence.

The term “residuals” refers to payments that actors receive when a production they took part in is broadcast again. The current system does not account well for the phenomenon of on-demand streaming of films and television shows, and does not include enhancements for movies and shows that become very popular. Actors want a “success metric” that raises the payout for popular content.

Additionally, actors want compensation and protections surrounding the use of generative artificial intelligence. For example, if footage of their performances is used to train AI systems, which can then artificially produce new content using an actor’s image and voice, they want to be paid for that content.

Structural problems 

James McMahon, a professor at the University of Toronto and the author of The Political Economy of Hollywood: Capitalist Power and Cultural Production, told VOA in an email exchange that the sticking points between actors and the studios are structural and will be difficult to overcome.

“The decline of box-office receipts and the rise of video streaming are, I believe, two sides of the same problem,” he wrote. “The major studios have (a) struggled to get more people to watch more movies, especially in theaters; and (b) have struggled to produce filmed entertainment profits that are competitive to the profits of other large multinational firms. Video streaming seemingly comes to the rescue of declining box-office receipts. However, user growth in streaming is not infinite, and when growth slows, firms will find additional profit from streaming by raising prices and cutting costs.”

He said that studios have been able to extract more revenue by raising the price of streaming services, keeping residuals low, and hiring fewer writers.

“[T]hese are the ways, up until these strikes, the major studios have found additional opportunities to cut costs. These strikes feel ‘existential’ because the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are saying that these cost-cutting benefits have not been sufficiently negotiated, particularly for the welfare of the average actor or writer.” 

Claims of greed 

Fran Drescher, best known as the star of the 1990s television show “The Nanny,” delivered a fiery speech Thursday in her capacity as current president of SAG-AFTRA, slamming the studios as greedy and selfish. She criticized the studios for resisting calls to raise actors’ pay at the same time that studio executives, like Disney CEO Bob Iger, are paid tens of millions of dollars per year.

“We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity. I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us,” she said.

“I cannot believe it, quite frankly, how far apart we are on so many things,” Drescher added. “How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history.”

In a press release responding to the strike, the AMPTP said, “A strike is certainly not the outcome we hoped for as studios cannot operate without the performers that bring our TV shows and films to life. The Union has regrettably chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry.”

Huge impact 

The combined effect of the two strikes will be to stop  production of most feature films and scripted television programs. The writers’ strike had already forced many productions to close down, but now even films and shows with completed scripts will be affected.

However, the strike’s impact will go deeper than halting production. The members of SAG-AFTRA will be barred from promoting any films in which they appear, including campaigning for honors such as the Academy Awards for films and the Emmy Awards for television programs.

On Thursday, the stars of “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie,” two summer blockbusters scheduled for release this month, stopped participating in promotional events hyping the films. In the case of “Oppenheimer,” the lead actors, including Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon and Florence Pugh, walked out in the middle of the film’s London premiere after the strike was announced.

‘Middle class’ actors 

While Hollywood’s megastars may receive most of the media coverage, the vast majority of the roughly 160,000 SAG-AFTRA members are not household names, but people trying to earn a living in an industry that has changed significantly in recent years.

“This isn’t about the big stars — they have their own agents who negotiate contracts above and beyond the SAG contract and earn hundreds of thousands, millions, or even tens of millions of dollars,” Jonathan Handel, a media attorney and journalist, told VOA. “This is about middle-class actors struggling to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table in high-cost cities like Los Angeles and New York.”

Handel, whose book, Hollywood on Strike!: An Industry at War in the Internet Age, chronicled the last strike by actors in 2007, said that the parties could be facing a long road toward any permanent resolution.

“Right now, there is a lot of bitterness in the room,” he said. “A lot of things were said, and there’s no real appetite for anything but striking. Labor is very upset and very unhappy with the way the companies are running things. The companies, for their part, view this as existential also, because filmed entertainment has not seen more rapid, disruptive change in such a short period of time since the period after World War II.” 
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The U.S. national team, like most of the rest of the field, faces a long flight to the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Already seasoned travelers, the American players have strategies for wiling away the time. And they’ll certainly need those tactics: The flight to New Zealand, where they’ll spend the group stage of the tournament, is 12 hours. Midfielder Andi Sullivan plans on napping, while defender Emily Fox intends to keep with a soccer theme and finally watch “Ted Lasso.”

Midfielder Andi Sullivan plans on napping. Defender Emily Fox intends to keep with a soccer theme and finally watch “Ted Lasso.”

The U.S. national team — like most of the rest of the field — faces a long flight to the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

Already seasoned travelers, the Americans have strategies for wiling away the time. And they’ll certainly need those tactics: The flight to New Zealand, where they’ll spend the group stage of the tournament, is 12 hours.

“I need suggestions!” midfielder Kristie Mewis exclaimed about the shows she plans to download for the flight. “Honestly, I’m rewatching ‘Suits’ right now. I love ‘Suits.'”

Once they get there, the players will retreat into a self-imposed bubble where they shut out the noise and the distractions for some seven weeks. Most stay off of social media platforms for the duration.

Forward Trinity Rodman, making her World Cup debut, is taking the advice of the veterans. Rodman’s dad is former NBA star Dennis Rodman, so she gets a lot of attention just because of her name.

“They have been very open about making sure you have entertainment and ways to distract yourself outside of your phone and social media, because I do think with social media you can get consumed by it and you can definitely get sucked up in it,” Rodman said. “But I think finding those ways to isolate yourself, finding hobbies in the hotel room: Coloring, journaling, reading, Fortnite. I’m a bit of a gamer so that has definitely helped me to just like relax.”

The United States plays Wales in a send-off match on Sunday in San Jose, California. That same night, they’ll fly to training camp in New Zealand.

The World Cup kicks off July 20. The United States opens with a game against Vietnam on July 22.

 
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The Los Angeles County Medical Examiners’ office says Lisa Marie Presley, the only child of the iconic musician Elvis Presley, died earlier this year as a result of “a small bowel obstruction.”  

Presley, who was also a musician, died January 12th, just two days after she attended the Golden Globes where she saw Austin Butler take home the Best Actor award for his portrayal of her father in the film Elvis.

The obstruction that Presley had “is a known long-term complication” of bariatric weight loss surgery, the medical examiner’s office said. Her surgery was performed “years ago,” according to the report.   

The medical examiner’s report also said Presley had “therapeutic levels” of oxycodone and other medicine in her system but added that they were not seen as contributing factors to her death.

Presley was once married to Michael Jackson, another iconic performer.  
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Leaders of a Hollywood actors union voted Thursday to join screenwriters in the first joint strike in more than six decades, shutting down production across the entertainment industry after talks for a new contract with studios and streaming services broke down.

It’s the first time two major Hollywood unions have been on strike at the same time since 1960, when Ronald Reagan was the actors’ guild president.

In an impassioned speech as the strike, which begins at midnight, was announced, actors’ union president Fran Drescher, former star of “The Nanny,” chastised industry executives.

“Employers make Wall Street and greed their priority, and they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run,” Drescher said. “It is disgusting. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history.”

Hours earlier, a three-year contract had expired, and talks broke off between the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers representing employers including Disney, Netflix, Amazon and others.

Outside Netflix’s Hollywood offices, picketing screenwriters chanted “Pay Your Actors!” immediately after the strike was declared. Actors will begin picketing alongside writers outside studio headquarters in New York and Los Angeles on Friday.

“It looks like it’s time to take down the MASKS. And pick up the SIGNS,” Oscar-winner Jamie Lee Curtis said in an Instagram post with a photo of the tragic and comic masks that represent acting.

The premiere of Christopher Nolan’s film “Oppenheimer” in London was moved up an hour so that the cast could walk the red carpet before the SAG board’s announcement. Stars including Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt and Matt Damon left the event once the strike was announced.

The strike — the first for film and television actors since 1980 — casts a shadow over the upcoming 75th Emmy Awards, whose nominations were announced a day earlier. Union rules prevent actors from doing any interviews or promotions around the awards, and they may not appear at the ceremony.

The strike rules also prevent actors from making personal appearances or promoting their work on podcasts or at premieres. And they are barred from doing any production work, including auditions, readings, rehearsals or voiceovers, along with actual shooting.

While international shoots technically can continue, the stoppage among U.S.-based writers and performers is likely to have a drag on those, too.

Disney chief Bob Iger warned the strike would have a “very damaging effect on the whole industry.”

“This is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption,” Iger said on CNBC. “There’s a level of expectation that they have that is just not realistic.”

A nearly two-week extension of the actors union contract and negotiations only heightened the hostility between the two groups. Drescher said the extension made us “feel like we’d been duped, like maybe it was just to let studios promote their summer movies for another 12 days.”

Before the talks began June 7, the 65,000 actors who cast ballots voted overwhelmingly for union leaders to send them into a strike, as the Writers Guild of America did when their deal expired more than two months ago.

When the initial deadline approached in late June, more than 1,000 members of the union, including Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence and Bob Odenkirk, added their names to a letter signaling to leaders their willingness to strike.

While famous names predominate, the strike also includes tens of thousands of little-known actors who scramble for small parts at sometimes meager pay. The union says modest-but-essential income streams, including long-term residuals for shows they appear in, have dried up.

Stakes in the negotiations included that kind of pay, which actors say has been undercut by inflation and the streaming ecosystem, benefits, the growing tendency to make performers create video auditions at their own expense, and the threat of unregulated use of artificial intelligence.

“At a moment when streaming and AI and digital was so prevalent, it has disemboweled the industry that we once knew,” Drescher said, drawing applause from her fellow union leaders. “When I did ‘The Nanny’ everybody was part of the gravy train. Now it’s a vacuum.”

The AMPTP said it presented a generous deal that included the biggest bump in minimum pay in 35 years, higher caps on pension and health contributions, and “a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses.”

“A strike is certainly not the outcome we hoped for as studios cannot operate without the performers that bring our TV shows and films to life,” the group said in a statement. “The Union has regrettably chosen a path that will lead to financial hardship for countless thousands of people who depend on the industry.”

SAG-AFTRA represents more than 160,000 screen actors, broadcast journalists, announcers, hosts and stunt performers. The walkout affects only the union’s actors from television and film productions, who voted overwhelmingly to authorize their leaders to call a strike before talks began on June 7. Broadway actors said in a statement that they stand “in solidarity” with SAG-AFTRA workers.

The 11,500 members of the Writers Guild of America have been on strike since their own talks collapsed and their contract expired on May 2. The stoppage has showed no signs of a solution, with no negotiations even planned.

That strike brought the immediate shutdown of late-night talk shows and “Saturday Night Live,” and several scripted shows, including “Stranger Things” on Netflix,” “Hacks” on Max, and “Family Guy” on Fox, which have either had their writers’ rooms or their production paused. Many more are sure to follow them now that performers have been pulled too.
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A sponsor is giving away 20,000 tickets to Women’s World Cup matches in New Zealand as ticket sales remain sluggish in a country in which rugby dominates as the national sport. 

According to FIFA, 1.25 million tickets have been sold for matches across cohosts Australia and New Zealand. Of those 320,000 have been sold to matches in New Zealand, but only six of those matches are close to a sell out. 

On Thursday, the accounting firm Xero, a tournament partner, said it would offer 5,000 free tickets to a match at each of New Zealand’s four venues. 

Women’s World Cup chief executive Dave Beeche told the New Zealand Herald that FIFA is “comfortable” with the current rate of ticket sales in New Zealand. He said sales had picked up in recent weeks as coverage of the tournament had increased. 

“Naturally, there are some games that are experiencing higher demand with the Kiwis and some of the top-ranked teams,” Beeche said, “but we’re happy with how the progress is overall.” 

Last month FIFA’s head of women’s football Sarai Bareman indicated she had some concerns about the pace of ticket sales in New Zealand, despite overall sales being ahead of the 2019 World Cup in France. 

Bareman said sales in Australia have been bolstered by support for the Australian women’s team which is a genuine title contender, while New Zealand’s Football Ferns have never won a World Cup group match. 

A larger problem is that soccer is not generally a widely supported sport in New Zealand and attracting fans to stadiums in the coldest months of the year was always going to be a hard sell. 

New Zealand’s national rugby team, the All Blacks, will play South Africa in Auckland on Saturday in a match which could have been sold out several times over. 
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HBO dominated Wednesday morning’s Emmy nominations, with the elite trio of “Succession,” “The White Lotus” and “The Last of Us” combining for a whopping 74, but the dominant theme darkening the scene is the ongoing writers strike and the looming possibility that actors may join them in as little as a day.

“Succession” and its deeply dysfunctional dynasty of 1 percenters led all Emmy nominees in its fourth and final season with 27, including best drama, which it has won two of the past three years. It got three nominations for best actor in a drama, with Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin all getting nods for playing men of the Roy clan, and Sarah Snook getting a best actress nomination. It also got four nominations for best supporting actor in a drama.

The cursed vacationers at a Sicilian resort from the second of “The White Lotus” truly dominated the supporting categories, however, landing five nominations for best supporting actress in a drama — including nods for Jennifer Coolidge and Aubrey Plaza — and four more for best supporting actor.

Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal, the duo on a fungus-filled quest in ” The Last of Us,” each got lead acting nominations. The show, an adaption of the popular Playstation video game, was second behind “Succession” with 24 nominations. “The White Lotus” had 23.

“Ted Lasso” was tops among comedies with 21 nominations, including best comedy series and best actor for Jason Sudeikis.

The nominations suggested that HBO can still dominate even as streaming-only outlets have taken over so much of elite TV — though the distinction is increasingly blurred, with a huge segment of viewers watching “Succession” and the cable channel’s other offerings on the streaming service now known as Max.

Cox, 77, got his best actor in a drama nod despite appearing in fewer than half of this season’s “Succession” episodes, though as the Roy family patriarch he loomed just as large over the episodes he didn’t appear in. A win would be his first in three nominations for the role, though he won an Emmy for best supporting actor in a TV movie in 2001.

Strong won in 2020 for playing “eldest boy” Kendall Roy. Culkin got his first nomination for best actor after two previous nominations in the supporting category.

Other nominees:

Drama series: “Andor”; “Better Call Saul”; “The Crown”; “House of the Dragon”; “The Last of Us”; “Succession”; “The White Lotus”; “Yellowjackets.”

Comedy series: “Abbott Elementary”; “Barry”; “The Bear”; “Jury Duty”; “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”; “Only Murders in the Building”; “Ted Lasso”; “Wednesday.”

Anthology series: “Beef”; “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”; “Daisy Jones & the Six”; “Fleishman is in Trouble”; “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Best actress in a drama series: Sharon Horgan, “Bad Sisters”; Melanie Lynskey, “Yellowjackets”; Elisabeth Moss, “The Handmaid’s Tale”; Bella Ramsey, “The Last of Us”; Keri Russell, “The Diplomat”; Sarah Snook, “Succession.”

Best actor in a drama series: Jeremy Strong, “Succession”; Bob Odenkirk, “Better Call Saul”; Kieran Culkin, “Succession”; Pedro Pascal, “The Last of Us”; Brian Cox, “Succession”; Jeff Bridges, “The Old Man.”

Best actor in a comedy series: Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear”; Jason Sudeikis, “Ted Lasso”; Bill Hader, “Barry”; Martin Short, “Only Murders in the Building”; Jason Segel, “Shrinking.”

Best actress in a comedy series: Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”; Rachel Brosnahan, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”; Christina Applegate, “Dead to Me”; Jenna Ortega, “Wednesday”; Natasha Lyonne, “Poker Face.”

Best supporting actress in a comedy series: Sheryl Lee Ralph, “Abbott Elementary”; Ayo Edebiri, “The Bear”; Janelle James, “Abbott Elementary”; Hannah Waddingham, “Ted Lasso”; Juno Temple, “Ted Lasso”; Jessica Williams, “Shrinking.”

Best supporting actor in a comedy series: Anthony Carrigan, “Barry”; Brett Goldstein, “Ted Lasso”; Phil Dunster, “Ted Lasso”; Henry Winkler, “Barry”; James Marsden, “Jury Duty”; Tyler James Williams, “Abbott Elementary”; Ebon Moss-Bachrach, “The Bear.”

Best supporting actor in a drama series: F. Murray Abraham, “The White Lotus”; Nicholas Braun, “Succession”; Michael Imperioli, “The White Lotus”; Theo James, “The White Lotus”; Matthew Macfadyen, “Succession”; Alan Ruck, “Succession”; Will Sharpe, “The White Lotus”; Alexander Skarsgård, “Succession.”

Best supporting actress in a drama series: Jennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”; Elizabeth Debicki, “The Crown”; Meghann Fahy, “The White Lotus”; Sabrina Impacciatore, “The White Lotus”; Aubrey Plaza, “The White Lotus”; Rhea Seehorn, “Better Call Saul”; J. Smith-Cameron, “Succession”; Simona Tabasco, “The White Lotus.”

Actors joining movie and television writers on strike would further shut down the industry and be the first time since 1960 that two Hollywood unions are on strike. While show and film releases will continue, work on upcoming projects would cease and the promotional interviews and appearances by actors to support the projects would cease.

The possibility of an industry debilitated by two strikes could dampen any joy for those nominated and could put the damper on the ceremony scheduled for September 18 on the Fox network.

The nominations were announced by “Community” star Yvette Nicole Brown and Television Academy CEO Frank Scherma, who referenced the labor disputes before at the top of Wednesday’s livestream.

“We hope the ongoing guild negotiations can come to an equitable and swift resolution. We are committed to supporting a television industry that stands strong in equity and where we can continue to honor all the incredible work you do,” Scherma said.
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Vietnam’s move to ban the Warner Bros. film “Barbie” from domestic distribution over a scene showing China’s claimed territory in the South China Sea encapsulates an age-old territorial dispute between the two countries, experts said.

A nine-dash line encompassing about 90% of the South China Sea has appeared on Chinese maps since the 1950s. More recently, China has been aggressive about exercising its claimed sovereignty, to the consternation of the other countries bordering the sea.

Among them is Vietnam, which has rejected China’s claim for decades as an illegal violation of its sovereignty and security — a position endorsed by an international tribunal in 2016. 

This week, Hanoi asked Netflix to remove the Chinese-made romance drama series “Flight to You” from its service in Vietnam because multiple episodes showed a map with the nine-dash line. Netflix complied, according to the entertainment media outlet Variety.

Last week, Vietnam also banned the release of the Warner Bros. film “Barbie,” originally scheduled be released in the country next week, because of a scene in the movie showing a map that appears to depict the nine-dash line.

Also last week, Vietnam ordered the inspection of a website of iMe, a promoter of the K-pop girl group Blackpink, which was scheduled to perform its first concert in Hanoi this month. 

‘A strong signal’

Prashanth Parameswaran, the founder of the weekly ASEAN Wonk newsletter and a fellow with the Wilson Center’s Asia Program, said, “Vietnam’s response sends a strong signal that the government does not recognize the legitimacy of the nine-dash line and will take actions to demonstrate its commitment to this.”

Vietnam’s Cinema Department under its Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism reviewed all 39 episodes of “Flight to You,” according to Variety, and said a map showing the nine-dash line depicted in nine episodes of “Flight to You” is “inappropriate.”

Regarding the “Barbie” ban, Vi Kien Thanh, head of the Cinema Department, said on July 3 the film “contains the offending images of the nine-dash line.”

About the Blackpink promotor’s website, Le Thanh Liem, inspector of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said on July 5 that the ministry is looking into the matter.

On July 6, Pham Thu Hang, Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said, “The promotion and usage of products or publications featuring the nine-dash line in Vietnam is a violation of Vietnam’s law and is unacceptable.”

Warner Bros. said on July 6 the dashed lines in the film are a “whimsical, child-like crayon” scribble tracing a “make-believe journey from Barbie Land to the real world” and do not represent China’s nine-dash line.

On the same day, iMe apologized for an “unfortunate misunderstanding” and pledged to replace images that are inappropriate for Vietnamese audiences, according to Tuoi Tre News.

Cleo Paskal, a non-resident fellow for the China Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), said, “This is a matter of national sovereignty and security to Vietnam — things it perceives as under attack, including from frequent PRC incursions into its waters.”  

China’s official name is the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Paskal continued, “Vietnam is also signaling to neighbors that standing up to China is imperative.”

Ruling against China

An international tribunal at The Hague ruled in 2016 that China had no legal basis to claim the line as its maritime border.

Based on the ruling, not only Vietnam but the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, all countries surrounding the nine-dash line, have been refuting the disputed border.

Bates Gill, executive director for Asia Society’s Center for China Analysis, said via email, “In official maps of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the so-called ‘nine-dash line’ appears to encircle almost all of the South China Sea, signaling that expansive area within the line belongs to China.”

He continued that aside from Vietnam, “a number of other governments – including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam – also claim territory either within or near the nine-dashed line.”

Chinese ships often make incursions into the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of these countries to exercise China’s claim on the territory. 

A country’s EEZ extends 200 nautical miles out from its coast. 

The U.S. has been patrolling the South China Sea to exercise the freedom of navigation in the area against Chinese aggressions.

India’s reversal

Late last month, India reversed its previous stance and supported the 2016 ruling in a joint statement released with the Philippines.

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo said in the statement after their meeting in New Delhi from June 27 to 30 that the dispute over the nine-dash line should be resolved in line with the 2016 ruling. 

At the time, China’s Foreign Ministry described the 2016 ruling as “null and void and has no binding force.”

The Chinese Embassy in Washington on Friday referred the VOA Korean Service to its Foreign Ministry comments when asked about Vietnam’s rejection of the nine dash-line on a map shown in “Barbie.”

“Relevant country should not link the South China Sea issue with normal cultural exchange,” Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on July 4.

Promoting disputed line

According to Bich Tran, a fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore and an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Beijing has disregarded the international ruling.

“Beijing has actively promoted the line, and due to the size of the Chinese market, companies face pressure to please China by showing the controversial line on their products [or] websites,” Tran said in a video interview.

“In the case of the Blackpink concert, the map was clear, and an apology statement was issued by iMe. It becomes more complicated in the case of Barbie. The map is abstract, but there is a dashed line that reminds people of the nine-dash line,” he continued.

“I believe the film producer wants to have it both ways. On one hand, they can please China and have access to the Chinese market. On the other hand, they make the map so abstract that they have plausible deniability,” Tran said.

China has been engaged in a campaign to promote the disputed dashed line as its southern maritime border through scholarly journal articles as well as items like maps, globes, postcards and T-shirts.

Paskal at the FDD said, “Vietnam know that the PRC starts on the political warfare front — making grand territorial claims based on little fact, then repeats those claims to the point that they become normalized and a challenge to the claims is perceived as an ‘offense’ to China.”

Last year, Vietnam prohibited Sony film “Uncharted” and, in 2019, banned DreamWorks’ animation “Abominable” for showing a map containing the nine-dash line.
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The last time Elina Svitolina was a Grand Slam semifinalist — twice, actually, in 2019 — she was pursuing the usual trappings of success in professional sports: trophies, money, fame, etc.

Now Svitolina plays for more important reasons. For her daughter, Skaï, who was born in October. For her country, Ukraine, where a war that began with Russia’s invasion in February 2022 continues.

And Svitolina firmly believes that those factors affect the way she swings a racket and the way she handles important moments on a tennis court. Enough so that she is one of the last four women remaining at Wimbledon after adding to her series of surprising victories over major champions with a 7-5, 6-7 (5), 6-2 victory against No. 1-ranked Iga Swiatek on Tuesday.

“War made me stronger and also made me mentally stronger. Mentally, I don’t take difficult situations as, like, a disaster, you know? There are worse things in life. I’m just more calmer,” said Svitolina, 28, who once was ranked as high No. 3 and now is No. 76 after taking time off to start a family with her husband, tennis player Gael Monfils.

She returned to the tour three months ago.

“Also, because I just started to play again, I have different pressures,” Svitolina said after kneeling and covering her face with her hands, when Swiatek missed one last forehand at Centre Court. “Of course, I want to win. I have this motivation, like huge motivation, to come back to the top. But I think having a child — and war — made me a different person. I look at the things a bit differently.”

She received a wild-card entry from the All England Club to get into the field and now will face another unseeded player, 42nd-ranked Marketa Vondrousova, for a berth in Saturday’s final.

Vondrousova, the 2019 French Open runner-up, beat fourth-seeded Jessica Pegula.

Swiatek, who was coming off claiming her fourth Grand Slam title at the French Open last month, felt the change in the way Svitolina smacked balls over the Centre Court net. That included a stretch where Svitolina won 20 of 22 points during a stretch that spanned the end of the first set and start of the second.

“She played with more freedom and more guts. Sometimes, she really just let go of her hand,” Swiatek said, pantomiming a forehand, “and she played really, really fast.”

Svitolina certainly did not expect to still be around this deep into the fortnight. She originally wasn’t even planning to get back in action after giving birth until around now. But she and Monfils started working out together on January 2, and Svitolina’s progress was substantial enough that she altered her timeline.

Svitolina’s phone has been inundated by messages of support from her native country, and she’s seen videos of kids there following her matches.

“This really makes my heart melt, seeing this,” she said. “Just happy I could bring a little happiness to the people of Ukraine.”
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Double Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya won an appeal against track and field’s testosterone rules on Tuesday when the European Court of Human Rights ruled she was discriminated against and there were “serious questions” about the rules’ validity.

World Athletics, which enforces the regulations, said in reaction to the decision that its rules would remain in place, however, meaning there would not be an immediate return to top-level competition for the South African runner.

Semenya’s case at the rights court was against the government of Switzerland, and not World Athletics itself, although the decision was still a major moment in throwing doubt on the future of the rules.

Semenya was legally identified as female at birth and has identified as female her entire life, but regulations introduced by track and field’s governing body in 2019 forced her to artificially suppress her natural testosterone to be allowed to compete in women’s competitions.

World Athletics says she has one of a number of conditions known as differences in sex development, which results in a natural testosterone level in the typical male range and which gives her an unfair advantage in women’s competitions.

Semenya has been challenging the testosterone rules in the courts for years, but had previously lost an appeal at sport’s highest court in 2019 and a second challenge against the rules at Switzerland’s supreme court in 2020. That second rejection of her appeal was the reason why the Swiss government was the respondent in the European Court of Human Rights case.

The Strasbourg-based rights court ruled in Semenya’s favor by a 4-3 majority of judges on the complaint of discrimination and noted she was denied an “effective remedy” against that discrimination through the two previous cases she lost at the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Swiss supreme court.

Tuesday’s ruling was in many ways a criticism of the 2019 decision by CAS. The sports court kept in place the rules that require Semenya and others with so-called differences in sex development conditions, or DSDs, to take birth control pills, or have hormone-blocking injections, or undergo surgery to be allowed to run at top competitions such as the Olympics and world championships.

The rules were initially enforced in certain events but were expanded and made stricter by World Athletics this year. Athletes such as Semenya were forced to lower their testosterone further if they wanted to run in any race.

The decision by the Switzerland-based CAS that rejected Semenya’s first appeal had not properly considered important factors such as the side effects of the hormone treatment, the difficulties for athletes to remain in compliance of the rules, and the lack of evidence that their high natural testosterone actually gave them an advantage, the European rights court said.

An unfair advantage is the core reason why World Athletics introduced the rules in the first place.

The European rights court also found Semenya’s second legal appeal against the rules at the Swiss supreme court should have led to “a thorough institutional and procedural review” of the rules, but that did not happen when that court also ruled against Semenya.

The government of Switzerland was ordered to pay Semenya 60,000 euros ($66,000) in respect of costs and expenses by the European rights court.

Ultimately, the rules have sidelined Semenya since 2019 as she has refused to artificially suppress her natural hormone levels in order to run, and the European rights court noted the “high personal stakes” for Semenya in how the regulations interrupted her career and affected her “profession.”

Tuesday’s decision could force CAS and ultimately World Athletics to re-examine the regulations, although the path and timeline to a possible rollback of the rules is unclear.

In a statement, World Athletics said: “We remain of the view that the DSD regulations are a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of protecting fair competition in the female category as the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Swiss Federal Tribunal both found, after a detailed and expert assessment of the evidence.”

The 32-year-old Semenya is aiming to run at next year’s Olympics in Paris. She was the 2012 and 2016 Olympic champion in the 800 meters but did not defend her title at the Tokyo Olympics because of the regulations.
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Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ms. Lauryn Hill and Megan Thee Stallion will headline this year’s Global Citizen Festival as the anti-poverty nonprofit looks to focus attention on increasing inequality for girls and young women around the world.

Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans said the Sept. 23 event at New York’s Central Park will be the centerpiece of his group’s campaign to encourage supporters, especially those in Gen Z, to take action on gender inequality, climate change and other issues.

Studies show that half of Gen Z “feel disillusioned and powerless to make a positive impact,” Evans told The Associated Press in an interview. “As long as you and I have been alive, there was almost this sense of positive momentum in the world that almost felt like the eradication of extreme poverty could be inevitable,” he said. “But the data suggests the world is now getting worse.”

According to the United Nations Population Fund, 257 million women around the world want to avoid pregnancy, but don’t have access to modern contraceptives. The fund’s partnership to provide reproductive health services is currently underfunded by $100 million.

Education Cannot Wait, the United Nations fund that helps ensure nearly 20 million children in crisis continue learning, needs $670 million for its work.

The Global Citizen Festival, which will also include performances from K-pop sensation Stray Kids and singer-songwriter Conan Gray, provides free tickets to the event in exchange for fans taking actions on the group’s app and website that support these goals.

This year, that may mean asking Canada, Norway and Japan to donate more to the United Nations Population Fund. It may mean pushing companies to join the United Nations Race to Zero to set targets for reducing their carbon emissions. Or urging the governments of the United States, United Kingdom, Italy and Australia to provide more funding to vulnerable countries to adapt to climate change.

Global Citizen’s use of supporters to convince political, business and philanthropic leaders to tackle some of the world’s biggest problems is designed to appeal to younger generations, Evans said.

“These are pillars of what we know Gen Z cares about, but often they feel powerless because the data isn’t on their side,” Evans said. “We’re talking to Gen Z in a way that they know their actions can have a scalable impact.”

Singer Angelique Kidjo, who was recently named to this year’s Great Immigrants list by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, said that her Batonga Foundation found that supporting girls and young women ends up strengthening entire villages in her native Benin and throughout Africa.

“Helping women in a community is like starting a rolling stone that never stops rolling,” said Kidjo, adding that it was the women who kept their villages safe during the COVID-19 pandemic by making masks and soap for hand-washing, as well as enforcing social distancing.

Not only will Hill and Megan Thee Stallion provide examples of female empowerment with their performances, but Evans hopes they will encourage their fans to take action during the event, which will be streamed on numerous digital platforms.

“For many decades, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have occupied that space where music and activism meet,” said Evans, adding that the band’s classic “Under the Bridge” was the first song he learned to play on guitar. “We couldn’t be happier with this lineup.”
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The Netherlands and Indonesia on Monday hailed the return of hundreds of cultural artifacts taken — sometimes by force — during colonial times as a major step forward in restitution efforts worldwide.

The items, ranging from valuable jewels to 13th-century temple carvings, were officially handed back to Indonesia at a ceremony at the Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden.

“We are really delighted. This is a very historic moment for both us, Indonesia, and the Netherlands. And the relationship between the two,” said Hilmar Farid, director general of cultural heritage at Indonesia’s Ministry of Culture. “But I think what we have achieved so far is also a very significant contribution to the global debate about returning of colonial objects.”

The Dutch government announced the return last week of the Indonesian treasures and looted artifacts from Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Ali Sabry welcomed the decision and said the Indian Ocean nation will work to preserve the items, including a richly decorated ceremonial cannon.

They are the first artifacts returned home on the advice of a Dutch committee set up in 2022 to assess requests by countries for restitution of artifacts in state museums. The committee is considering more restitution requests from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Nigeria.

Indonesia got back more than the trove of glittering jewels and ancient carvings from a temple in Java, said Farid.

“We consider these objects as our missing items in our historical narrative and of course they play different roles symbolically, culturally,” he said. Their return means Indonesia can “reintegrate them into their cultural contexts. And that is, of course, of symbolic importance to us.”

Gunay Uslu, the Dutch state secretary for culture and media, called the presentation Monday “a historically, important” event that resonates beyond the Netherlands and its former colony.

“It’s also an important moment for the world because it’s about colonial objects in a colonial context. So it’s a sensitive topic,” she said.

A Berlin museum announced in January it is ready to return hundreds of human skulls from the former German colony of East Africa. In 2021, France said it was returning statues, royal thrones and sacred altars taken from the West African nation of Benin. And last year, Belgium returned a gold-capped tooth belonging to the slain Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba.
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Indiana Jones’ reign atop the box office was short-lived. In its second weekend in theaters, the Disney release was usurped by another franchise fifth – ” Insidious: The Red Door.” The horror film starring and directed by Patrick Wilson scared up $32.7 million in ticket sales from 3,188 theaters, according to studio estimates on Sunday.

It did better than the last installment, “Insidious: The Last Key,” from 2018 and is the most any PG-13 horror movie has earned in its debut in the past two years.

“Insidious 5” was not well reviewed — but modestly budgeted scary movies are often critic-proof when it comes to the box office. This Blumhouse-produced franchise starring Wilson and Rose Byrne began in 2011 under the direction of James Wan and has been responsible for over $570 million in global box office returns — and none of the films has cost more than $16 million to produce. Only the first movie received a “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes; The “Insidious” films more often garner sub 40% scores.

“The horror genre seems to have a never-ending allure for audiences,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “Horror movies are profitable and they’re popular. Audiences love them and the accountants love them, too.”

It was shrewd of Sony to release “Insidious” on the weekend between two Hollywood tentpoles, in this case ” Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ” and ” Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part I,” which opens on Wednesday. But it was still a surprise that it was able to take No. 1 from something as well-known as “Indiana Jones.”

“It was a perfect release date,” Dergarabedian said. “This adds more complexity to the dynamics of the marketplace.”

“Indiana Jones 5” took second place in its second weekend with $26.5 million in North America (down 56% from its opening), bringing its domestic total to $121.2 million. Globally it’s earned an estimated $247.9 million.

Indy had some other competition too, in “Sound of Freedom,” a child trafficking drama starring Jim Caveziel, that opened on July 4 and nearly boasted similar ticket sales for the day. “Sound of Freedom” was made and distributed by Angel Studios, a faith-based, crowdfunded operation, and managed to come in third place this weekend with an estimated $18.2 million from 2,850 theaters.

Brandon Purdie, head of theatrical distribution at Angel Studios, said in a statement that the numbers exceeded expectations and attributed its success to word of mouth.

“We’re deeply grateful to AMC, Cinemark, Regal, and all our theater partners — and their hard-working theater staff members — for working with us to accommodate the surging demand for this film and having the courage to release ‘Sound of Freedom’ during the busiest movie season of the year,” Purdie said.

Part of Angel Studios’ operation involved the ability to buy “pay it forward” tickets on behalf of others. On opening day, the studio estimated that $11.6 million came from direct box office and $2.7 million through the pay it forward option. The film has been popular among right-wing pundits too and has appeared on QAnon message boards.

“Joy Ride” also made its theatrical debut this weekend in 2,820 locations and earned an underwhelming $5.9 million to take sixth place behind “Elemental” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” The R-rated comedy directed and co-written by Adele Lim follows four friends on an international trip, played by Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu and Sabrina Wu.

The modestly budgeted Lionsgate release got rave reviews out of the South by Southwest Film Festival and maintains a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it didn’t motivate big crowds this weekend. Those that did go (58% women, 72% over age 25, according to PostTrak) gave it a B- CinemaScore, suggesting the movie did not meet expectations, which can sometimes be because of how the film was marketed. The hope is that word-of-mouth might help “Joy Ride” in the coming weeks.

“Joy Ride” is one of several raunchy, adult comedies in theaters this summer, including the Jennifer Lawrence movie “No Hard Feelings,” which earned $5.3 million in its third weekend, bringing its domestic total to $40.3 million.

In more limited release, “The Lesson,” a literary chamber thriller starring Richard E. Grant and Daryl McCormack, opened to $157,752 from 268 screens.

With the summer movie season at its midway point, there is concern about the overall box office, which is about on par with where it was at the same point in 2022.

“By now, we thought we’d be well ahead of last year,” Dergarabedian said. “But (movies like ‘Insidious’ and ‘Sound of Freedom) add more revenue to the bottom line that a lot of people didn’t expect. Sometimes surprises come along and that’s great for theaters.”

He added, “But we need the next few weeks to really overperform.”

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “Insidious: The Red Door,” $32.7 million.

2. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” $26.5 million.

3. “Sound of Freedom,” $18.2 million.

4. “Elemental,” $9.6 million.

5.” Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” $8 million.

1. “Joy Ride,” $5.9 million.

2. “No Hard Feelings,” $5.3 million.

3. “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” $5 million.

4. “The Little Mermaid,” $3.5 million.

5. “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken,” $2.8 million.
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STOCKHOLM – Surrounded by emotional fans from around the globe, Elton John hailed them as his “lifeblood” as he gave his final farewell concert in Stockholm after more than 50 years of live performances.

“You know how much I like to play live. It’s been my lifeblood to play for you guys, and you’ve been absolutely magnificent,” he told the delighted audience at the arena in the Swedish capital.

Wearing a tailcoat accented with rhinestones and a red pair of his trademark large glasses, the 76-year-old pop superstar sat down at the piano shortly after 8 p.m. local time to cheers to open his farewell show with one of his most popular songs, Bennie and the Jets.

Playing for more than two hours, John interspersed the songs with moments when he would leave the piano to thank not only his fans but also his band and his crew, some of whom have been with him for more than 40 years.

“I want to pay tribute to these musicians. … They’re really incredible, they’ve been with me so long, some of them. And they are the best, I tell you, the best,” he said.

Shortly after a rendition of Border Song which he dedicated to Aretha Franklin, John’s I’m Still Standing brought the 30,000 fans at the Tele2 Arena to their feet.

Before he took his encore, John screened a message from Coldplay, who were playing in the western Swedish city of Gothenburg, in which singer Chris Martin thanked him for his career and commitment.

“It was amazing. I have no words right now because I haven’t processed all the show, but it was amazing,” said Anton Pohjonen, a 25-year-old bank worker from Finland.

“You almost start tearing up on his account. But then it feels great to be here,” added Swedish teacher Conny Johansson, who bought tickets for the show four years ago.

Excited fans were looking forward to an emotional end to the superstar’s glittering live career even before the curtain went up.

“It’s going to be very emotional tonight,” said Kate Bugaj, 25, a Polish student who admitted she had delayed her master’s exams to follow her musical hero’s tour.

Describing herself as a “huge fan,” she said it all began the first time she watched The Lion King, the 1994 Walt Disney film which gave John one of his two Oscar music wins.

Fifty-year-old Jeanie Kincer traveled from Kentucky in the United States for the show.

“I wanted to be here for the end because I was too young to be here in the beginning,” she said.

The star has been winding down his decades-long live career with a global farewell tour.

He played his last concerts in the United States in May and brought the curtain down on Britain’s annual Glastonbury Festival last month.

Saturday’s farewell concert was the second consecutive evening the Stockholm stadium hosted the legendary British singer-songwriter for the last leg of his final tour, which began five years ago and was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and a hip operation in 2021.

On his “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour, John will have given 330 concerts, crisscrossing Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada and Britain, before closing in Stockholm.

Overall, the tour has seen him perform in front of 6.25 million fans. 
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Two very different films are set to come out on July 21. One is about the development of the world’s first nuclear weapons. The other is about Barbie. 

Which one has proved to be contentious on the global stage? Surprisingly, it’s not the Oppenheimer biopic. 

Instead, the much-anticipated “Barbie” has stoked controversy in both Vietnam and the Philippines this week, with the former banning it outright and the latter considering a similar move.  

Over the years, Barbie manufacturer Mattel has come under fire for producing dolls that aren’t diverse and that some have said promote unrealistic body standards.

But now the brand has inadvertently strayed into geopolitical quarrels with the movie’s inclusion of Beijing’s controversial nine-dash line on a map. 

Vietnamese officials this week banned screenings of the film because it shows a map with the disputed Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea. Manila is considering following suit.

The nine-dash line depicts Beijing’s contested claims to parts of the South China Sea. Vietnam, as well as Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan all dispute the line.  

An international tribunal at the Hague ruled in 2016 that the nine-dash line was invalid, but Beijing has not recognized the decision.  

Free expression experts say such bans won’t solve the territorial dispute and may help strengthen domestic censorship systems in the process. To others, the entire situation is being blown out of proportion.  

For years, questions have been raised over the extent to which American studios acquiesce to Beijing. And for Hollywood, the Chinese market, standing at 1.4 billion people, is lucrative.  

Vietnam and the Philippines have previously banned movies for including the nine-dash line, including Sony’s 2022 movie Uncharted, DreamWorks’ 2019 movie Abominable. Vietnam also banned the 2018 Australian TV series Pine Gap, and the Philippines censored select episodes.

Hanoi’s “Barbie” ban shows that “censors have started to be more sensitive about information on territorial disputes between Vietnam and China,” said Trinh Huu Long, the founder of the journalism and research group Legal Initiatives for Vietnam.  

“The censors will even be praised for overreacting to the unclear map, by both their superiors and the public, because anti-China sentiment runs deep into the country’s political culture,” added Long, who grew up in Vietnam but now lives in Taiwan.  

Still, some China experts think the Barbie movie’s alleged inclusion of the nine-dash line is not a pressing concern for either country.

“I don’t expect this to be more than a really incidental sort of thing,” said Rui Zhong, a China expert at the Wilson Center. “I don’t think either foreign ministry is losing sleep over the Barbie movie.

“The map has some waves drawn in the ocean and a sun over Africa, so I don’t really know the larger-scale geographical accuracy or implications,” Zhong told VOA. “I seriously doubt this is a film that will extensively wade into East or Southeast Asian politics.” 

China has so far been ignoring international law and building man-made islands in the South China Sea to help buttress its disputed sovereignty claims. 

But outright bans on films that may legitimize those claims still aren’t the best solution, according to Michael Caster, who covers Asia at the free expression group Article 19. 

“Maps are political, and borders often bear historical wounds, but rather than ensuring free and open discussion, the knee jerk response to censor seldom supports historical or transitional justice,” Caster told VOA. 

The film studio Warner Bros., for its part, has defended the Barbie movie’s map, which depicts eight dashes.

“The map in Barbie Land is a whimsical, child-like crayon drawing,” Warner Bros. said Friday. “The doodles depict Barbie’s make-believe journey from Barbie Land to the real world. It was not intended to make any type of statement.” 

For Long, the concern over Vietnam’s “Barbie” ban is that these sorts of prohibitions — related more to sovereignty and less to political dissent — ultimately make it easier for Hanoi to ban materials that actually might be critical of the government.  

“The government is surely using legitimate nationalist reasoning to strengthen its entire censorship system,” Long said.
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