Ted Cruz rages about 'Chinese communist propaganda' in 'Barbie' movie

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is taking shots at the "Barbie" movie in his long-standing commitment to the culture war.

The Texas Republican accused makers of the new movie of feeding "communist propaganda" to American audiences by showing a contested region in the South China Sea, after previously criticizing the film for similar reasons, reported Insider.

"There's a scene in 'Barbie,' where there is this map of the world, and it's drawn like with crayon," Cruz said Sunday in an interview with The Daily Signal. "I mean, it's really a very simple cartoon. And so they have this blockish thing that is called 'Asia,' and then they've drawn what are called the nine-dashes."

"This is Chinese communist propaganda in which the Chinese are asserting sovereignty over the entirety of the South China Sea, and they don't have any right to it under international law, but they are trying to take it away from their neighbors there."

The nine-dash line shows China's territorial claims over much of the South China Sea. and which the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled to be in violation of international law, but that hasn't stopped the nation from building 20 outposts in the Parcel Islands and conducting naval operations in the area.

The "Barbie" movie shows what a spokesperson for Warner Bros. described as a "map in Barbie Land is a child-like crayon drawing," which caused claimant nations like Vietnam and the Philippines to ban the movie or ask the film's distributor to blur the lines on that map.

"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," said the Warner Bros. spokesperson.