Toros Y Flamenco: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

The [[Hollywood Atlas]] version of Iberian countries (mostly Spain with possible addition of elements from Portugal, Andorra, etc.).

 

 

If you don't know why this trope fails that much at Geography, you should know that the Running of the Bulls (celebrated on the week beginning the 7th of July on the day know as "San Fermín") is celebrated only in Pamplona. The "Feria de Abril" (April Fair) where women actually dress with tiered spotted skirts and men wear chaqués is celebrated only in Sevilla. The distance between those cities is ''over 600 miles''. Yet in fiction, both seem to happen at the same time and place.

Also, this Iberian country is always Spain. Portugal? What's a Portugal?

 

 

See also [[Latin Land]], which shares many elements with this trope, due to strong historical and cultural ties between Iberia and South American countries. Sometimes confused or amalgamated (by hack authors) with [[South of the Border]] into [[Spexico]] due to the same strong historical and cultural ties ''plus'' the similar climate.

 

 

In [[Real Life]] Spain this trope is known as ''Españolada''.

 

== Advertising ==

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z2_kKAe9y0 This commercial] for EDS, with the running of the squirrels. Compare with [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aM_3-00qX4 the real thing]. In [[Real Life]], Pamplona is a moderately large sized city in the comparatively humid North of the country.

* [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] by this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD8-h9Mgr2E Spanish beer ad] that moves the running to the [[Big Applesauce]] and replaces the bulls with bisons.

 

* Surprisingly averted by Antonio aka Spain in ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]''; while there is official art with him in a matador costume, the traditional stereotypes about the country are barely touched (he is still depicted as a ''siesta'' lover, though) and his personality is less of a [[Latin Lover]] and more of a [[Nice Guy]].

* Like every other national and ethnic stereotype, this trope is alive and well in ''[[G Gundam]]''. "Now representing Neo Spain, <s> Toro</s> Matador Gundam!"

* The Spain arc of ''[[Ashita no Nadja]]'' has Nadja working her ass off to learn how to dance Flamenco, befriending an embittered ''matador'', attracting the ire of {{spoiler|the matador's [[New Old Flame]]}} and also {{spoiler|meeting up with Keith and mistaking him for his twin brother Francis}} in the ''Alhambra''.

* Spain team in ''Medabots''; the medafighters are dressed as bullfighters and the Medabots are bulls!

 

* ''[[Asterix]] in Spain'' plays with the trope. There are "aurochs" (bulls), and Asterix acts like a matador when he fights with one, but most of the setting is traditional roman cities, no much different than the ones in other comics. There is a band of gypsies and Obelix dances flamenco, however. Partly [[Justified Trope|justified]] because Asterix is set in 50 B.C. (so it's not like making 21st century cities look like 18th century ones).

** Doesn't excuse the fact there are <s>gypsies</s> "nomads" and flamenco [[Anachronism Stew|hundreds of years before]] any of them arrived in Spain (but then again, [[Present Day Past|this is Asterix]] we are talking about).

*** Strabo and Roman sources like Juvenal or Pliny actually talk about the ''puellae gaditanae'', women from Gades (today's Cádiz) or otherwise in the Baetica who were famous for their dances two centuries BC, even using metal castanets (''crusmata baetica''). I kid you not.

 

** It may have been shot in Cádiz, but the movie claimed it was Seville.

* Parodied in the classic Spanish film ''¡Bienvenido, Mr. Marshall!'', in which the people of a small Castilian village decide to give themselves an Andalusian makeover in order to impress the Americans in charge of distributing Marshall Plan funds.

* The 2001 ''[[Masterpiece Theatre]]'' version of ''[[The Merchant of Venice]]'', and, likely, the Trevor Nunn stage production it was based on, has the Prince of Aragon show off with a flamenco dance step with fitting music to boot. Given that [[Did Not Do the Research|Aragon is in Northern Spain and has zero flamenco tradition]], this was about as accurate as portraying someone from Alaska as a ten gallon hat-wearing cowboy.

 

== Literature ==

* [[Tom Clancy]] and [[Dan Brown]] have also portrayed Spain as a third-world country in ''Balance of Power'' and ''Digital Fortress'', respectively. Brown's case is even stranger because he supposedly spent some time living in Seville.

** That's [[Dan Browned]] [[Up to Eleven]]...

* Turns up, complete with running of the bulls, in the [[Discworld]] novel ''Witches Abroad''. Unfortunately the whole thing is misunderstood by the witches, and after the sight of a small blonde woman walking right through the crowd of bulls as though being trampled to death is something that happens to other people and taking the wreath off the lead bull, the townsfolk decide just to have a flower festival instead.

 

* There is a hilariously wrong episode of ''[[MacGyver]]'' set in the Basque Country (Spanish dub of the beginning [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjbbfK87JWc here]).

* There is an episode of ''[[Full House]]'' where the oldest daughter tries to sell her father a trip to Spain, mariachi hat included.

* ''[[Caroline in The City]]'' has an episode (called ''Caroline and the Bullfighter'', so you know where this is going) where the main characters travel to Pamplona and, well, let's just say that every thing that follows is wrong.

* The episode ''Barcelona, May 1917'' of ''The Young [[Indiana Jones]] Chronicles''. Curious case as it was written, directed and starred mostly by British people, and in turn features a lot of ''British'' stereotypes about Spain instead of American ones: paella, Cordobese hats, a ''[[Anachronism Stew|duel]]'' at a bullring, a small jealous husband with moustache and an omnipresent bullfight tune every 5 minutes. Oh, and once the cheating is revealed to be a forgery, the small jealous husband decides to share a drink with the guy that he was going to kill a second before. ''¡Fiesta!''

* The Running of the Bulls is parodied in the ''[[Brass Eye]]'' episode "Animals" with the "Running of the Wasp", complete with footage of a crowd of people ostensibly running away from a wasp.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* The ''[[James Bond]] 007'' role-playing game module ''Goldfinger II - The Man With Midas Touch'' takes the heroes to Pamplona during the Running of the Bulls, where they are doused with pheremones that make them an irresistible target to the bulls and then dumped into the Running of the Bulls as part of a [[Death Trap]].

 

== Video Games ==

* Vega's stage in ''[[Street Fighter]] 2'' (and Vega himself, for that matter).

** To be fair, however, all of the fighters are ridiculous stereotypes. This was [[Rule of Funny|probably intentional]].

* ''[[Harry Potter]]: Quidditch World Cup'': The Spanish team members are dressed as bullfighters, their stadium is a bullring and [[No Indoor Voice|they SCREAM!!!, not talk]].

* The Spanish team in ''[[Backyard Sports|Backyard Soccer]]'' is called Los Toritos.

 

== Western Animation ==

* [[Walt Disney]]'s ''Ferdinand the Bull'' short. ([[Adaptation Displacement|And the book it was based on.]])

** Which of course, looked like your stereotypical Spanish town, apart from the mentions of them being in Portugal.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Hollywood Atlas]]