"Barbie" was banned in Vietnam, and naked Florence Pugh was "dressed" in "Oppenheimer": scandals and bloopers of major movie hits in 2023

Two of this year's major blockbusters, the "pink" comedy with a deep meaning "Barbie" and the dark historical thriller "Oppenheimer", which premiered on the same day, are still in the fray. However, both the first and second movie hits, despite the multimillion-dollar box office receipts on their first weekends in theaters, managed to acquire haters. Moviegoers around the world find gaffes and historical inaccuracies in the films. Some of them have caused high-profile international scandals.

For example, the screening of Barbie has already been banned in Vietnam, and in India, the director of Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan, was asked to cut one of the scenes. Read more about all this in OBOZREVATEL's article.

"Barbie" provoked a scandal in international politics

In one of the episodes, we can see Margot Robbie, the lead actress, against the backdrop of a world map with a dotted line in Asia. The Vietnamese authorities saw in this designation the so-called nine-dash line, which is considered to be China's territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Warner Brothers, of course, immediately began to deny any play along with China and references to the dispute between the countries in general. Nevertheless, in Vietnam, the episode with the map was taken extremely sharply and the film was banned.

In some countries, Florence Pugh's nude scene in "Oppenheimer" was "dressed up"

In India, Indonesia, and Bangladesh, the sex scene with Florence Pugh and Cillian Murphy was not appreciated, or rather the part where the actress sits completely naked on a chair. This episode was censored in the countries listed above. No, it wasn't cut out, but the heroine appeared in front of the audience in a "black CGI dress". The graphics were applied quite well, so movie fans even assumed that the scene was edited by Universal. The studio did not comment on the incident.

India asks to cut sex scene from Oppenheimer due to desecration of holy scripture

During an intimate scene between Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh, one of the holy scriptures in Hinduism, the Bhagavad Gita, is shown in the frame. Moreover, in the same scene, "Robert Oppenheimer" quotes from the book, describing the creation of nuclear weapons: "I have become death, the destroyer of worlds".

The founder of the Save Culture Save India Foundation drew attention to this, criticizing Christopher Nolan and calling for this episode to be cut from the movie: "We don't know the motivation and logic behind the inclusion of this unnecessary scene from the scientist's life. But this is a direct attack on the religious beliefs of billions of tolerant Hindus, which is tantamount to waging war on the Hindu community."

The "wrong" US flag in "Oppenheimer"

Christopher Nolan is considered a genius of our time, as all his films are complex, intricate stories with unpredictable outcomes. To create such masterpieces, you need to be extremely attentive to details. It is this quality that the director is famous for. However, in Oppenheimer he made a rather gross historical mistake.

The movie blooper was found by netizens. They drew attention to a scene where the residents of Los Alamos enthusiastically wave American flags with 50 stars on them, symbolizing, as you know, the states of America. What could be the mistake? The fact is that the events depicted in this scene take place in 1945. Alaska became a state on January 3, 1959, and Hawaii on August 21 of the same year. That is, at that time there were 48 states, not 50, and the US flag could not have looked like this.

"Oppenheimer" with subtitles of "Barbie"

Another funny mistake happened through no fault of the directors or anyone else on the crew of the two films. The audience in India was unlucky again. In one of the cinemas in Chhattisgarh, Oppenheimer was shown with the subtitle "Barbie". This is how Internet users created hundreds of memes about the so-called "Barbieheimer", and some viewers saw it in real life. Commentators suggest that at the same time, during a comedy session about a blonde doll, viewers were reading subtitles from a thriller about the "father of the atomic bomb."

As a reminder, the premieres of two major summer 2023 movie hits, Barbie and Oppenheimer, took place on the same day, July 20. This divided the audience into two clans: some went to see the cautionary comedy about the iconic blonde doll, while others went to see the biographical thriller about the creator of the atomic bomb. However, there were some particularly brave moviegoers who decided to attend two screenings in one day. The Internet even gave this confrontation, although it is more accurate to say a cultural phenomenon, a name: "Barbieheimer". However, the "pink" movie by Greta Gerwig starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling won the competition. During its first weekend in theaters, Barbie grossed $300 million in box office receipts.

We also told you that film critics and viewers are actively sharing their feedback on the acclaimed movie Barbie. Some call it a beautiful story without a deep meaning, while others, on the contrary, admire the coverage of important topics through the prism of humor along with an interesting non-trivial plot. Read reviews from experts from all over the world and moviegoers in our article.

As OBOZREVATEL wrote, the images of the actresses who played the iconic dolls in the movie Barbie are being analyzed in detail and implemented in real life by fashionistas around the world. The film also features an outfit from a Ukrainian brand. It costs 11600 hryvnias. For more details, follow the link here.

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