MovieChat Forums > The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) Discussion > Isit just me, but were the villains in ...

Isit just me, but were the villains in this film all hispanic?


The villians in this film all have a spanish accent and their armor looks like the armor that the Spanards wore back in the old days.

reply

This was a choice on the part of the filmmakers. Since the Telmarines descended from pirates in our world, they added a Spanish flair to their character, including the accents and the armor.
Also, I don't think we refer to Spaniards as Hispanic.

Alexis

"Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing."
-Data

reply

Yes, OP, the villains in this movie are Spanish; overall::: Just Latins

They are not only using accents or Spanish armour..
The actors playing Telmarians are all (or mostly all, I am excluding Igor Karkarov and others) Spaniards, Mexican one of them, or Italians (which is basically the same, Italians are as well Latin as Hispanics are)

Also, I don't think we refer to Spaniards as Hispanic


OK, the United States is America for you out there, now Spaniards are not Hispanic either XD

Spain, BREAKING NEWS, is HISPANIC!!!

Thats why Latin America is also know as Hispanic America: coming from Spain.

PS:
I LOVE This movie and the Telmarines are so cool

Do you recognize my voice...?

reply

But not all people in Latin America are descended from Spaniards. I've never heard Latin America refered to as Hispanic America. That's a little insulting to the populations that are descended from the native Americans (Indians).

Also, I know some Spaniards and Italians who take issue with you calling them "basically the same." French is derived from Latin as well--are they the same too?

I also love this movie. And I love the choice of having the Telmarines being the descendents of Spanish pirates.
Btw, where are you from?

Alexis

"Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing."
-Data

reply


"OK, the United States is America for you out there, now Spaniards are not Hispanic either XD

Spain, BREAKING NEWS, is HISPANIC!!!"

In the US, we generally refer to those people from Central America, particularly Mexico as well as the islands in the Caribbean as Hispanic and people from Spain as Spanish.

It would be like calling Canadians Americans as they are from North America. The terminologies may be different in different parts of the world.

Bob

reply

Stupid post.

reply

Hispanic and Latino are terms to define regions of origin and not a person's race.

Latino generally refers to countries (or cultures) that were once under Roman rule. This includes Italy, France, Spain, etc. Brazilians are considered to be Latino, but are not considered to be Hispanic.

Hispanic describes cultures or countries that were once under Spanish rule (Mexico, Central America, and most South America where Spanish is the primary language).

reply

lol... so Greeks and Egyptians are Latinos? Darlin', Hispanics and Latinos are the same thing. Try asking one, if you can bring yourself to talk to one.

reply

lol... so Greeks and Egyptians are Latinos? Darlin', Hispanics and Latinos are the same thing. Try asking one, if you can bring yourself to talk to one.



Don't be so cocky, especially when you are wrong. Hispanics are a subgroup under the Latin umbrella.

In general use in northern America (thus Hollywood) nowadays Latinos are usually only referred to Hispanic associated people. As USA integrated the Italian-Greek cultures into its Anglo-American white culture. The Italians stopped being Latinos, and became Italian Americans, same with Greeks.

This is probably largely due to these races having been able to pass themselves off as white northern Anglo-American, thus melding into the American identity. These groups thus largely lost their ability to speak their native Latin tongue, Italian, Greek and learnt English and integrated into the English-American identity of the USA.

Whilst mainly due to the colour of their skin Hispanic people where easily distinguished by white English speaking Americans. Thus they found it impossible to sneak into the English-American identity of the US. This probably reinforced their Latin language identity and they never lost their Latin culture and language distinction. Unlike the Italian-Greek races did.

They thus kept being described as Latino, a derogatory distinction to differentiate them from "real white Americans", by the English speaking US segment.


Technically being accurate to the original terms. Hispanic refers to Spanish-Portuguese speaking groups, whilst Latino covers cultural racial groups whose language descends largely enough from Latin.

But in general usage no one outside of the US really uses the term Latino or Hispanic. It's certainly not used in Europe, where a Spanish person would simply be Spanish and not described as "from Spanish".

There is no need to make that distinction in Europe (other than maybe in Switzerland), as the general terms like European does not mean white Anglo-Saxon people, like the term American does in the US. Which forces the US population to differentiate non Anglo-Americans with words such as Latino and Hispanic.

The word Latin in Europe is largely restricted to the language group and not to any race or culture anymore, instead people in Europe are simply referred to by their nationality.

So depending on usage, everyone can be considered right and wrong.


Hispanic (adj.) Look up Hispanic at Dictionary.com
"pertaining to Spain" (especially ancient Spain) 1580s, from Latin Hispanicus, from Hispania "Iberian Peninsula," from Hispanus "Spaniard" (see Spaniard). Specific application to Spanish-speaking parts of the New World is 1889, American English; especially applied since c.1972 to Spanish-speaking persons of Latin American descent living in U.S.




Latino Look up Latino at Dictionary.com
"male Latin inhabitant of the United States" (fem. Latina), 1946, American English, from American Spanish, shortening of Latinoamericano "Latin-American" (see Latin America). As an adjective, attested from 1974.



Latin (adj.) Look up Latin at Dictionary.com
Old English latin, from Latin Latinus "belonging to Latium," the region of Italy around Rome, possibly from PIE root *stela- "to spread, extend," with a sense of "flat country" (as opposed to the mountainous district of the Sabines), or from a prehistoric non-IE language. The Latin adjective also was used of the Roman language and people.

Used as a designation for "people whose languages descend from Latin" (1856), hence Latin America (1862). The Latin Quarter (French Quartier latin) of Paris, on the south (left) bank of the Seine, was the site of university buildings in the Middle Ages, hence the place where Latin was spoken. The surname Latimer, Lattimore, etc. is from Vulgar Latin latimarus, from Latin latinarius "interpreter," literally "a speaker of Latin."

reply

Most of the comment in bold type is pure hogwash. Unfortunately there is no term for 'from the US'; while American is generally considered US, it does indeed include Canada and Mexico. Those of Italian and Greek descent are pretty much as distinguishable in facial feature as those of Latin American descent. Those of actual Spanish descent would be less so than either of the previous three. Those of Latin American descent often include Caucasian, whether from Spain or elsewhere in Europe, native people (Indians from whatever area of Latin America the person hails from), and likely Africa thanks to the slave trade. My ancestors (more than 200 years ago) came from mostly the United Kingdom areas, but I have met people from Latin America or the Caribbean that are even pastier than I.

As to 'races', there is no such thing as a Latin or a Hispanic race - those are ethnicities. Negro, Caucasian, Asian, Pacific Islander and Native American (to include South and Central America) are races - however, we are quickly approaching the point where the mixture will be such that we should all just check a box labelled 'human'.

reply

breaking news, Italians AREN'T

reply

Please don't throw the oh so often over thrown racism card into this masterpiece of a film. please, Im begging you. Im so sick of all the racist crap that is constantly slinged in our faces on this website. is that to much to ask?

"Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen"
Im a film editor! please hire me!

reply

This movie is not a masterpiece.

reply

That's your opinion as is mine that it is a masterpiece. Im just saying, Im tired of the racism thing.

"Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen"

reply

I assumed the Telmarines were descendents of some band of hispanic pirates. Therefore, the Telmarines looked hispanic and talked that way. Is there a problem with that? If a band of Chinese people stubmled upon a magic portal to Narnia, went through it, and over time populated into a nation of people, then I would expect those people to look Chinese.

reply

the telmarines were all wetbacks. they were crossing the rio grande and ended up in narnia

reply

They're all "brown people".

reply

According to the behind-the-scenes stuff on the DVD and making-of book, they're supposed to be a conglomeration of Spaniards and Italians since pirates were often a multi-cultural bunch.

Team Jolie

reply

[deleted]

You should remember too that Prince Caspian, who is a hero of sorts, is also a Telmarine. Whatever the case, however, it was not CS Lewis' fault as he did not make them Spanish. In the BBC version of Prince Caspian, Caspian was a blond and the Telmarines were British.

Also, I must agree with the other posters. "Hispanic" is an English word (yes, of course derived from Spanish/Latin), which was first widely used in the US. Although usage varies, in the US it typically does not include Spain, which is more commonly considered a Mediterranean or a Latin nation (as are Italy, France, and Romania) or more generally just as a European nation. I have also run into Spaniards who absolutely reject the label Hispanic for themselves.

reply

They are Spanish.

Spanish people are not Hispanic. In fact, no one is really "Hispanic", it's a term invented by the Nixon administration.

reply

"Hispanic" is a very old word that existed way before Nixon. It was originally used to describe the region which is now known as Spain, before Spain existed and before the Americas were discovered. However, today in the Americas, "Hispanic" is used to refer to those regions of the Americas that were once under Spanish rule (i.e. Mexico, Cuba, most of S. America, etc.) Most US government agencies do not consider Spain to be "Hispanic". In the US, for legal purposes, Spanish people are usually considered "Western European" or simply "white". However "Hispanic" is not an incorrect term and is used by some agencies and members of the population to refer to the Spanish. "Hispanic" is often considered offensive to the Spanish due to the negative view that US Americans have against people from Latin America associated with illegal immigration and the like..

reply

Also, I must agree with the other posters. "Hispanic" is an English word (yes, of course derived from Spanish/Latin), which was first widely used in the US. Although usage varies, in the US it typically does not include Spain, which is more commonly considered a Mediterranean or a Latin nation (as are Italy, France, and Romania) or more generally just as a European nation. I have also run into Spaniards who absolutely reject the label Hispanic for themselves.
Not exactly, although in many parts correct.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word Hispanic has basically 2 meanings as a adjective and 1 as a noun.

The first meaning as an adjective is : "Pertaining to Spain or its people; esp. pertaining to ancient Spain", and the earliest example they have of it in this meaning is from 1584 in a book by the English author Reginald Scot.

The second adjectival meaning is : "Spanish-speaking, esp. applied to someone of Latin-American descent living in the United States" which is much more recent, with the first quotation being from 1974.

The meaning as a noun is basically the same as the second adjectival meaning, "A Spanish-speaking person, esp. one of Latin-American descent, living in the U.S." Again this is a modern usage, with the earliest quote being from the NY Times in 1972.

reply

Thank you for supplying some actual scholarship.

reply

In the books, the Telmarines are "dark" in the way they depicted in the film. Absolutely NOT all of the villains were Telmarines - not all of the villains had that skin coloring. Recall that the VERY evil villain was a white woman (Tilda Swinton). Caspian himself and his teacher also are dark-haired. And the teacher has that accent you mention.

Most of the Telmarines are good, decent, hard-working people. The books make this clear. And in the film, Miraz is heavily criticized for his unethical and suspicious behaviors and circumstances.

The accent is supposed to be a Telmarine accent. Remember also, these books were written way before we became so very, very sensitive about any hint of any suggestion of ANY race. America is absolutely the worst in this respect.

reply

In the "Horse and his Boy" all the villains, Calormenes, are middle eastern I think, but one of the good characters is also from Calormen.

reply

" Since the Telmarines descended from pirates in our world, they added a Spanish flair to their character, including the accents and the armor. "

I will never get Hollywood's obsession with portraying pirates as Spanish. The pirates were the enemies of the Spanish. Dutch, French, English and others crying because the Spanish got first to the New World and gained all that gold. It's like if 300 years from now, they were doing lots of media starring terrorists that are Gawd-fearing flag waving WASP supremacist guys and do not mention Arabs at all.

Wait a minute...

reply

I will never get Hollywood's obsession with portraying pirates as Spanish.


Jack Sparrow is Spanish? Long John Silver is Spanish? Blackbeard is Spanish?

If anything Hollywood jumped on the bandwagon of making pirates more often than not west country English with all the rolling "rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs" etc just like people in the south west English counties of Devon, Cornwall and Somerset speak like.

reply

They are making a 4th Pirates of the Caribbean movie and guess what? Blackbeard is in it! He has a daughter (lol what)! And his daughter speaks Spanish and is played by Penelope Cruz!

Now without leaving PotC, may I remind of that Spanish pirate member of the Pirate Brethren in the 3rd movie, who was somehow also the commander of the Spanish Indies Galleons? WTF!

Or from the first movie, isn't the big bad named Hector Barbosa? What a funny coincidence, a Portuguese name!

Well, yeah, you are right. There are a lot of plucky, funny country English pirates who don't do pirate stuff like raping, sacking and pirating in Hollywood movies. EVIL pirates who do that are almost always Spanish. And so I have to ask again, why?

reply

They are making a 4th Pirates of the Caribbean movie and guess what? Blackbeard is in it! He has a daughter (lol what)! And his daughter speaks Spanish and is played by Penelope Cruz!

Now without leaving PotC, may I remind of that Spanish pirate member of the Pirate Brethren in the 3rd movie, who was somehow also the commander of the Spanish Indies Galleons? WTF!

Or from the first movie, isn't the big bad named Hector Barbosa? What a funny coincidence, a Portuguese name!


LOL, why are you complaining about small stuff when the VILLAINS in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies are ENGLISH hehe????

I can give you a huge stack of Hollywood films where the bad guys are English, more often than not through no actual viable plot reason and just because they are English.

Well, yeah, you are right. There are a lot of plucky, funny country English pirates who don't do pirate stuff like raping, sacking and pirating in Hollywood movies. EVIL pirates who do that are almost always Spanish. And so I have to ask again, why?


I think you Spaniards have it easy compared to how the English are portrayed.

Pst) I very much doubt if Penelope Cruz is going to be an 'evil' Spanish pirate in the next movie LOL. She's obviously going to be one of the good guys (or gals).

reply

This probably reinforced their Latin language identity and they never lost their latin culture and language. Unlike the italian-greek races did.


Simple answer pragmatic racism.

These films are made for white Anglo-American people, the American-English speaking white world.

And to prove a point of yours, only 8% of terrorism is carried out by Muslims according to the US government, even though Muslims are nearly 25% of the worlds population. In contrast Jews carry out 8-9% of all cases of terrorism, and they represent a far smaller group of the worlds population.

But yet the media portrays Muslims as synonymous with terrorists. Yet terrorism was being carried out by Christians, atheists, animal rights activists, Greenpeace, communists, Irish, African Americans, etc for decades before 9-11.

The simple reason is it serves a twisted purpose.

Portraying Muslims as terroists makes it easier for USA-Israel to occupy Muslim lands (which are huge), as it makes it more palatable for their population to stomach. using twisted logic such as, "they are evil, so its OK if a few innocent people die trying to kill their own evil people. Its their fault after all".

Whilst portraying pirates, baddies, evil people as non-white Americans makes it easier to sell movies to the xenophobic white Anglo-American population of the US.

reply

They seemed to have made a decision to make the villains look mediterranean looking.


Its that man again!!

reply

I'm pretty well aware of the Evil English trope - now could you stop pointing stupid nonsense and actually reading what I'm writing, please?

I. DON'T. GET. WHY. A. COLLECTIVE. KNOWN. FOR. FIGHTING. THE. SPANISH. IN. REAL. LIFE. IS. CONSISTENTLY. PORTRAYED. AS. SPANISH. IN. HOLLYWOOD. MOVIES. AND. OTHER. MEDIA.

I don't *beep* care how many times has the big bad of a movie been portrayed as English. That's not the *beep* point.

reply

^

Yes it is the point. You are complaining about relatively nothing. The English get it far worse than the Spaniards in Hollywood.....and America is supposed to be Britain's closest ally.

Pirates came from many nationalities and piracy took place all over the world There are even pirates today. And I haven't seen many films where it's the Spanish who are pirates to be honest. Pirates fought the English in 'real life' too. Doesn't mean they themselves can't have been English. They were.

I repeat, the ENGLISH are more often portrayed as pirates than any other nationality. Not the Spanish. I really don't know what you are complaining about, especially in a film like this. You talk about accuracy in a fantasy film which features talking lions and little kids who can fight like warriors?

Maybe I should complain that the baddie Shere Kahn in The Jungle Book has an English accent while the good guys (Mowgli and Baloo) have American ones? As far as I know, tigers don't go around speaking in clipped English accents in real life.

Narnia is a FANTASY film and nothing in it makes much sense.

reply

Apart from all the talk about the origin of "Hispanic", I'm interested in the origin of Telmarine. Obviously there's the seafaring suffix, but do you think the tel- prefix could mean "far", as in telescope, television? (Interesting that the Spanish flag features the "Pillars of Hercules", supposedly at the exit from the Mediterranean, leading to the far west of the world and all those Conquistador lands.)

reply

Wow. This was terrible.
Ok, more than 90% of Spaniards are white. They depict them as if all of them looked middle eastern. Spaniards are just as white as French people, that's a fact.

To the guy complaining that they make English pirates look worse:
First, that's not true at all. There are MANY films were they romanticize English pirates, the most famous one being "Pirates of the caribean" trilogy of course. Second, English pirates used to rob and kill UNARMED people. Including women and children.

reply

And won't people understand that Hispanic is not a race? My father is blonde, and most of my family is white with green eyes and they consider themselves hispanic. It's cultural.

reply

[deleted]

"But not all people in Latin America are descended from Spaniards. I've never heard Latin America refered to as Hispanic America. That's a little insulting to the populations that are descended from the native Americans (Indians).

Also, I know some Spaniards and Italians who take issue with you calling them "basically the same." French is derived from Latin as well--are they the same too?

I also love this movie. And I love the choice of having the Telmarines being the descendents of Spanish pirates.
Btw, where are you from?

Alexis"

My take on all this. Firstly, I'm an American of fully Spanish (from Spain) descent.
True, some people in Latin America are descended from Spaniards, some from indigenous (for example, in Mexico Aztec and Mayan; in Peru, Incan), and some from both Spanish and indigenous people. But the meaning of the word Hispanic is "Spanish-speaking," so technically it applies to anyone in Latin America who speaks Spanish (a large number of people (of fully indigenous descent) in Mexico speak, for instance, instead, Nahuatl -- the language their Aztec ancestors spoke, as well as others (i.e. Mixtec, Zapotec...) and Quechua (another example) in Peru.) So Latin American, I think, makes most sense, especially since there are some major coincidental similarities between the civilizations of those major indigenous empires (especially regarding the Aztec and Inca) (as well as, of course, major differences) and Spain at the time of the Spaniards' first contact with them. I don't believe that an indigenous person of Mexico would have a problem identifying him/herself as Latin American (albeit of fully indigenous heritage).
On to the next point, I speak fluent Spanish, an intermediate level of Italian (still learning), and am learning French. I've also visited Spain, France, and Italy. In one sense, you're right, Italy's history really has nothing to do with Spain apart from that both are on land that once pertained to the Roman Empire (where Latin was spoken), and this also applies to France (which geographically is much closer to Spain than Italy). HOWEVER, in spite of all that, Italy and Spain are MUCH, MUCH, MUCH (I can't emphasize this enough) more similar to each other than France is to either of them, in terms of both culture and language. In fact, the commonalities between the Spanish and Italian langauges and between the 2 nations (culturally) are incredible.
On a side note, remarkably, I honestly feel that London is much more similar to Paris than Paris is to either Florence (Italy) or Seville (Spain), for example. (I've visited London, too.) And, while the Romans ruled parts of Britain for roughly 350 years at the very beginning of last milennium, they ruled in Scotland and Wales, but not England. (And while English is a Germanic language, French has similarities to German like the guttural (throat-induced) "r"). So this is all a really long way of saying that I think history can be really surprising, and even sometimes a little misleading when it comes down to actual culture, and that coincidences can be amazing! Oh, and I consider myself to be Hispanic (of Spanish-speaking descent) every bit as much as European (Spain is in Europe, and the Spanish language originated in Spain, so, of course).


reply

And, while the Romans ruled parts of Britain for roughly 350 years at the very beginning of last milennium, they ruled in Scotland and Wales, but not England.


"At the very beginning of the last millennium" the Roman Empire was long gone. Julius Caesar conquered Great Britain at the end of the last millennium B.C.
Also, they surely ruled England (and Wales), but certainly not Scotland. Hadrian's wall was build specifically to fortify the border between England and Scotland.

That's the errors I can see without consulting Wikipedia, I guess there'll be more in the rest of your post, but I won't bother checking.



I did not save the boy, God did. I only CARRIED him.

reply

DAKUBABA :

My take on all this. Firstly, I'm an American of fully Spanish (from Spain) descent.
True, some people in Latin America are descended from Spaniards, some from indigenous (for example, in Mexico Aztec and Mayan; in Peru, Incan), and some from both Spanish and indigenous people. But the meaning of the word Hispanic is "Spanish-speaking," so technically it applies to anyone in Latin America who speaks Spanish (a large number of people (of fully indigenous descent) in Mexico speak, for instance, instead, Nahuatl -- the language their Aztec ancestors spoke, as well as others (i.e. Mixtec, Zapotec...) and Quechua (another example) in Peru.) So Latin American, I think, makes most sense, especially since there are some major coincidental similarities between the civilizations of those major indigenous empires (especially regarding the Aztec and Inca) (as well as, of course, major differences) and Spain at the time of the Spaniards' first contact with them. I don't believe that an indigenous person of Mexico would have a problem identifying him/herself as Latin American (albeit of fully indigenous heritage).

Finally!!! After reading scores of posts containing half baked arguments, you hit the nail right on the head. I agree with every bit of your take.
Many people in the U.S. got it all mixed up the term hispanic with the idea of some sort of race, and the idea of a person consider him/herself caucasian AND hispanic puzzle them. I'm actually a quarter italian and there quarters PuertoRican, I speak english, spanish and italian. Am I hispanic? absolutely. Am I white? Yes, mostly, although more accurate would be saying mixed-race since some of my PuertoRican ancestors were native american (TAINO AND ARAWAK tribes from the Caribbean)
Spaniards ARE Hispanics and are mostly white, not sure about the percentage but close to 90% the ramaining 10% would be mixed races between whites and Moors. Latin Americans are mostly mixed race (white hispanics and native american). But there are many hispanic-Americans who are white (roughly about 10 to 15%) Most of hispanic Americans are either native americans or mixed race. (85 to 90%) And about 5% are black hispanics (african-American who grew up in a Spanish speaking culture).

Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?

reply