MovieChat Forums > True Caribbean Pirates (2006) Discussion > More historical and ethnic inaccuracies

More historical and ethnic inaccuracies

posted 17 years ago by castizodelforo
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Once again, The History Channel gives us another documentary with plenty of historical inaccuracies. As they often do, they portray the Spaniards with Mexican actors. WTF? This week alone I have seen several shows produced by the History Channel, including a terribly overacted "The Spanish American War", in which they bring a bunch of Mexican extras and make them play the "Spaniards."

It's annoying and highly inaccurate. Spaniards are European. I have lived in Spain. Spaniards are caucasian, but in most TV documentaries they are portrayed by Mexican actors. Why is this? IS it laziness or complete ignorance on the part of the producers?

[–] buford1974 17 years ago

The extras hired were Puerto Rican, not Mexican. Puerto Rico was populated by the Spanish as early as the 15th Century. The land scenes were filmed in Puerto Rico because it is in the Caribbean and was a major port/attack zone/lucrative landing point for pirates. For a complete history of Puerto Rico go to : http://www.topuertorico.org/history.shtml. Puerto Ricans are not Mexicans. Two different countries.

[–] castizodelforo 17 years ago

Fair enough. Still, just a couple of things:

- They did not pick the right extras for the job. At least they should have employed people that resemble Europeans to play Spaniards. For anyone that knows Spain, the documentary looked ridiculous in their portrayal of Spaniards.

- Even though the Spaniards first colonized Puerto Rico in the 15th century, it doesn't mean today's Puerto Ricans look like Spaniards. As a matter of fact, most Puerto Ricans today are a mix of Native people's (Tainos, Boricuas, etc), African slaves brought up to the Caribbean by the slave trade, and some European blood.

The casting of extras for this documentary was wrong.