Latest / Ridiculous History / How James Bond Created a Mexican Dia de los Muertos Tradition

Transcript

How James Bond Created a Mexican Dia de los Muertos Tradition · Ridiculous History

0:24
Speaker 1: Let's paint a scene for you to begin this episode.
0:28
Speaker 1: Shall we use a broad brush. Let us use a
0:31
Speaker 1: broad brush, let us use several brushes. We're gonna need
0:34
Speaker 1: a lot of black and white paint for this one. Okay,
0:36
Speaker 1: I think I see where you're going. So the world
0:41
Speaker 1: renowned secret agent Double O seven himself, James Bond, gets
0:47
Speaker 1: a message that leads him on an unauthorized mission into
0:54
Speaker 1: Mexico City on the Day of the Dead. Hi, I'm
1:00
Speaker 1: a Brown, Noel Brown. It's not bad. I don't know. No,
1:10
Speaker 1: you're like again you I've already Yeah, okay, that'd be good.
1:15
Speaker 1: I like I like that. I like the Connery, the
1:17
Speaker 1: Connery Bond voice, spawn tramp spawn, like I don't even know. Yeah,
1:26
Speaker 1: I am no old Brown. In fact, you may have
1:28
Speaker 1: thought that someone else was here, that that that sounded different.
1:32
Speaker 1: Not true. You know who else is here though, Noel Brown?
1:34
Speaker 1: Oh boy do I are super producer Casey Pegram And
1:41
Speaker 1: most importantly, we're so glad that you are here because
1:44
Speaker 1: in today's episode we learned something very very strange. Noel,
1:51
Speaker 1: could could you help me describe this opening scene from
1:55
Speaker 1: the film Specter? Should we say spoilers? I don't know,
1:58
Speaker 1: it's not really it's it is. It is like the
2:00
Speaker 1: opening sequence. Yeah, it's the opening sequence. I don't remember
2:05
Speaker 1: that movie particularly well, though I do remember this scene. Um,
2:09
Speaker 1: he basically Bond is on a high speed foot chase,
2:13
Speaker 1: kind of not really high speed, you know, running speed.
2:16
Speaker 1: It's not like a yeah, he's in pursuit. He's in
2:19
Speaker 1: pursuit hot pursuit of some sort of batty Again, don't
2:23
Speaker 1: don't really remember the deeds of the plot. But he
2:26
Speaker 1: ends up bobbing and weaving through this massive Dia Dellas
2:30
Speaker 1: Muertos parade festival, surrounded by giant floats adorned with skeletons
2:37
Speaker 1: with like puppet type rods attest to the hands. So
2:39
Speaker 1: they're going no, no, no, and then you know sugar
2:42
Speaker 1: skulls and yeah, one of the skeletons has like a
2:45
Speaker 1: big cigar in his mouth and a and a top hat,
2:47
Speaker 1: and it's you know, very festival. In streets are packed
2:50
Speaker 1: Marty Graws level and their Bond is trying to stop
2:55
Speaker 1: a terrorist bombing. God, So he's trying to find the
2:59
Speaker 1: needle in the haystack here right now, it's coming back
3:02
Speaker 1: to me and because this is the beginning of the movie.
3:06
Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to ruin it for any
3:09
Speaker 1: of us out there when we say he survives. Yep,
3:13
Speaker 1: it's not. It's it's not setting the record for the
3:16
Speaker 1: shortest Bond movie. It's weird. This is he is. He's
3:18
Speaker 1: sort of like a Doctor Who type situation that whenever
3:20
Speaker 1: they're the new James Bond, is it like just like
3:22
Speaker 1: a cold reboot. Are we supposed to believe that this
3:25
Speaker 1: is the only James Bond and you know, no one
3:28
Speaker 1: acknowledges that the Bond has changed. It's like when they
3:31
Speaker 1: recast a character in a sitcom and and it throws
3:35
Speaker 1: me off, like the character and family matters when they
3:38
Speaker 1: switched out which one, Kimmy it was the uh Judy Winslow,
3:44
Speaker 1: I think, oh, that's right, okay, yea, I'm sorry. I
3:47
Speaker 1: always confuse family matters in Full House. In my mind,
3:49
Speaker 1: they had very similar themes songs, but you know, are
3:51
Speaker 1: like in Rosanne whatever. We digress, however, because James Bond,
3:54
Speaker 1: he did you know, he diffuses the terrorist bomb. But
3:57
Speaker 1: here's the thing. This parade that he was a part
4:00
Speaker 1: of in the streets of Mexico City not not a
4:03
Speaker 1: thing does not exist, man manufactured did not exist. And
4:08
Speaker 1: I just want to show you know, I think you'll
4:10
Speaker 1: enjoy this. This is the suit that James Bond is wearing. Yeah,
4:14
Speaker 1: he's got a he's got a top hat. He's got
4:17
Speaker 1: a cheeky little uh vest on with a with a
4:22
Speaker 1: rib motif, and it looks like he's wearing like sort
4:25
Speaker 1: of a black and white striped shirt underneath it, but
4:28
Speaker 1: it's kind of peeking through just so that it looks
4:31
Speaker 1: like a center, like a spine, like a vertebrae. He
4:34
Speaker 1: is very dappered up and he's of course got a
4:36
Speaker 1: skeleton mask on. Um here's the thing, though little culturally
4:40
Speaker 1: appropriated perhaps, Oh yeah, what do you think? What do
4:44
Speaker 1: you think? Man? So how about this, Let's step back
4:47
Speaker 1: a little and look at what the Day of the
4:50
Speaker 1: Dead actually is. What do you say? Let's do? Alright?
4:54
Speaker 1: So the Day of the Dead, in a sentence, is
4:59
Speaker 1: a holiday that celebrated throughout Mexico, the Mexican diaspora, including
5:04
Speaker 1: Central and South regions of Mexico and Latin America in general.
5:08
Speaker 1: I believe they do it in Aruguaya and yeah, and
5:11
Speaker 1: in Brazil. And it's also celebrated in the United States
5:16
Speaker 1: and many other cultures. It's acknowledged. It's not one of
5:20
Speaker 1: those hearing gone holidays. It actually lasts for multiple days. Yeah,
5:27
Speaker 1: So that span of time is October thirty one is
5:30
Speaker 1: All Hallow's Eve or or Halloween. Then on November one
5:34
Speaker 1: you have Dio della's in Ascentis or All Saints Day.
5:37
Speaker 1: I've also heard it referred to as the Day of
5:39
Speaker 1: the Children. Um. And then you've got the kicker on
5:43
Speaker 1: November two with the Day of the Dead or All
5:46
Speaker 1: Souls Day or Dio dellas Muertos. And this is a
5:50
Speaker 1: very community based, family driven kind of celebration, traditionally all
5:55
Speaker 1: about family, right, right, You build private altars called and
6:00
Speaker 1: does you're honoring your loved ones who have passed on,
6:04
Speaker 1: not worshiping, mind you honoring very very important difference. And
6:09
Speaker 1: you some of this honoring includes leaving their preparing their
6:12
Speaker 1: favorite foods or bringing them their favorite beverages, visiting grays.
6:17
Speaker 1: With these gifts, you will also leave possessions of the
6:21
Speaker 1: ones who have passed. Did you say photographs, No, we
6:24
Speaker 1: didn't say photographs. That is very important, right, because in fact,
6:27
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've seen the movie Coco, the
6:29
Speaker 1: Pixar movie. UM, it's it's a wonderful, wonderful movie. UM.
6:34
Speaker 1: It surrounds that this whole Day of the Dead tradition,
6:37
Speaker 1: and the device they use in the in the movie
6:39
Speaker 1: is that as soon as people stop remembering you in
6:42
Speaker 1: the afterlife, you disappear, you cease, you cease to exist.
6:46
Speaker 1: And on the Day of the Dead in the movie,
6:49
Speaker 1: all of these loved ones get to come back and
6:52
Speaker 1: visit with their family members. They don't they can't speak
6:55
Speaker 1: to each other, but they're there and then you know,
6:57
Speaker 1: the family members know they're there, and it's personified beautifully
6:59
Speaker 1: in this film them. But the way they get their
7:01
Speaker 1: ticket across the Bridge of Souls or whatever it's called, um,
7:06
Speaker 1: which is they're guided by merry gold pedals. That's another
7:09
Speaker 1: another tradition. UM. And this all lines up with the
7:12
Speaker 1: truth because in Latin America they go to graveyards at
7:16
Speaker 1: night and do this. But it's not a spooky affair
7:20
Speaker 1: because many of these graveyards are are not owned by
7:22
Speaker 1: private companies like they are here in the States, but
7:25
Speaker 1: they're owned by the community, so the community has to
7:28
Speaker 1: keep them up. So every year they'll pull weeds, they'll
7:32
Speaker 1: beautify the area around the graves, and you know, do
7:35
Speaker 1: all the things we talked about. Put these little trinkets
7:37
Speaker 1: and pictures. But pictures are important in the movie, at
7:40
Speaker 1: least in Cocoa, because that's what gives them their ticket.
7:43
Speaker 1: And if you don't put the picture up, you can't
7:45
Speaker 1: come back and visit. So so this is this is amazing.
7:49
Speaker 1: I think that's beautiful. When I've encountered this sort of
7:54
Speaker 1: cultural relationship with death, it seems I'm gonna go out
7:58
Speaker 1: on a limb here. This is just in Guy's opinion,
8:00
Speaker 1: it just seems like a more healthy way to approach mortality,
8:04
Speaker 1: very grounding, as opposed to it being something to fear
8:08
Speaker 1: um and and to mourn, and certainly an element of mourning,
8:12
Speaker 1: but it doesn't feel yeah, yeah, there's there's more of
8:15
Speaker 1: a it's I miss you, but it's more about I
8:18
Speaker 1: love you, right, honoring. Yeah. And it's also a very
8:22
Speaker 1: old practice, or at least the predecessors, right. This is
8:25
Speaker 1: this dates back three thousand years into pre Columbian cultures.
8:32
Speaker 1: When we say dates back, we mean that there was
8:36
Speaker 1: some sort of celebration commemorating the deaths of ancestors and
8:43
Speaker 1: the festival that forms the basis of the modern Day
8:47
Speaker 1: of the Dead. It occurred around the beginning of August
8:51
Speaker 1: and it lasted for a month. This was in the
8:53
Speaker 1: Aztec and toll Tech cultures and the Nahua people um
8:58
Speaker 1: and this is all these are consider or pre Hispanic cultures.
9:02
Speaker 1: There's a really cool article on the travel section of
9:05
Speaker 1: National Geographic called top ten things you should know about
9:09
Speaker 1: the Day of the Dead. And one of the things
9:11
Speaker 1: I learned on here is that the Day of the
9:12
Speaker 1: Dead has UNESCO Cultural Heritage designation. And I did not
9:17
Speaker 1: know that events or or holidays could get this designation,
9:21
Speaker 1: but it turns out that they can, and it's recognized
9:25
Speaker 1: as having an intangible cultural heritage of humanity, which makes
9:31
Speaker 1: perfect sense when you think about it, because this is
9:35
Speaker 1: another example of a practice that we've talked about on
9:39
Speaker 1: a couple of other shows or episodes of other shows
9:43
Speaker 1: called religious syncretism, and religious syncretism is the idea that
9:49
Speaker 1: differing spiritual beliefs can be incorporated into the same unified
9:55
Speaker 1: belief system or someone. That's why you'll see places that
9:58
Speaker 1: had a lot of Atholic influence in the past retain
10:03
Speaker 1: original spiritual practices, but then have this um, have the
10:08
Speaker 1: names of saints incorporated into the pantheon or something. So
10:12
Speaker 1: now when we look at this celebration in the modern days,
10:18
Speaker 1: before Specter itself, at least, we see a very Catholic
10:22
Speaker 1: celebration and Catholic tinged. But originally we're talking about this
10:28
Speaker 1: meso American experience. The Aztecs, for instance, believed there were
10:33
Speaker 1: multiple planes of existence that were separate but interrelated, sort
10:37
Speaker 1: of what Coco is building off of, and they envisioned
10:40
Speaker 1: a world that had thirteen overworlds layers of heaven, and
10:45
Speaker 1: then nine underworlds in each level had their own different
10:49
Speaker 1: characteristics and particular gods who ruled them. That's interesting too,
10:54
Speaker 1: because that sort of seems in line with like Dante's
10:56
Speaker 1: Inferno and like the circles of Hell, you know, like
11:00
Speaker 1: having different layers of of the underworld, which is funny too,
11:03
Speaker 1: and when the underworld is referred to less as a
11:06
Speaker 1: place of damn nation and suffering and more of just
11:09
Speaker 1: that is the afterlife the underworld. Yeah, and the festival.
11:13
Speaker 1: The original month long festival paid tribute to the Lord
11:16
Speaker 1: and Lady of the Underworld, along with their ancestors mick
11:20
Speaker 1: Lan Techolitti, which I am probably butchering and his wife
11:25
Speaker 1: mick Lan Qtel and they lived in mick Lan the
11:31
Speaker 1: Land of the Dead. It's cool. It's very different from Catholicism,
11:35
Speaker 1: it really is. And I think it's so cool the
11:36
Speaker 1: way you can see the evolution of this this holiday
11:40
Speaker 1: and this tradition up to the current day. So let's
11:47
Speaker 1: talk about some of the uh, the features of this tradition. Oh,
11:51
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you said that. Okay, no, no, you first,
11:53
Speaker 1: you first. Well, there's some really cool stuff. Um. One
11:56
Speaker 1: thing we talked about the the friend as the all
12:00
Speaker 1: errs um that are meant to remember and honor are
12:03
Speaker 1: lost family members. Um. They have these things called literary calaveras,
12:11
Speaker 1: which in calavera actually means skull um. But in the
12:14
Speaker 1: eighteenth the nineteen centuries um that term was used to
12:18
Speaker 1: describe a kind of a little a little poem, like
12:20
Speaker 1: a little limericky kind of thing, sort of akin to
12:23
Speaker 1: an epitaph, but sort of tongue in cheek. So here's
12:26
Speaker 1: an example of one. The idea of the calvera kind
12:29
Speaker 1: of dates back to this idea of uh. The dance
12:33
Speaker 1: macabre in French or the danza macabre in Spanish and
12:36
Speaker 1: Italian Um, which is a type of play that was
12:39
Speaker 1: performed in the fourteenth century where you dance with death
12:42
Speaker 1: and it's sort of this idea of making peace with
12:45
Speaker 1: your relationship with death. Very similar and from that um
12:49
Speaker 1: in Mexico it was developed into these kind of fun,
12:53
Speaker 1: little poignant, little tongue in cheek poems that are meant
12:56
Speaker 1: to sort of poke fun at a cultural figures often.
12:59
Speaker 1: So here's one called the Bullfighter. Here lies a good
13:02
Speaker 1: bullfighter who died of grief from being a bad bandaliro.
13:06
Speaker 1: And the bandalero is the one that sticks the flags
13:09
Speaker 1: into the bull with the list of the pointy sword
13:12
Speaker 1: things right, um food at each performance. He has died
13:16
Speaker 1: of a tumble received on the rear, and such was
13:19
Speaker 1: his foolishness that he was already in the tomb turned
13:22
Speaker 1: into skull and bones and fighting the dead. So there's
13:26
Speaker 1: not a nihilism. There's an acceptance here, there's a well,
13:31
Speaker 1: it's happening anyway, kind of recognition of life's passages. It's
13:38
Speaker 1: it's cool too. From a fanatological perspective thanatology being the
13:43
Speaker 1: study of death to see how culture wide this sort
13:47
Speaker 1: of removes to a great degree the stigma associated with mortality. Also,
13:55
Speaker 1: I know we both want to examine this part. The
13:58
Speaker 1: food always there's some good food. Yeah, there's there's traditional
14:03
Speaker 1: food that's often cooked. Tiers say the same way that
14:07
Speaker 1: marigolds are the primary petals used to decorate to grave.
14:12
Speaker 1: The bread of the dead or pandemuto is a sweetbread
14:16
Speaker 1: that has annis seeds and it's decorated with bones and
14:19
Speaker 1: skulls made out of dough and they might be arranged
14:23
Speaker 1: in a circle. There are tiny do tear drops that
14:27
Speaker 1: symbolize sorrow and they're also sugar skulls and some of
14:31
Speaker 1: them have like caramel on them or powdered sugar or
14:35
Speaker 1: different like orange zest I think is one of the ingredients.
14:38
Speaker 1: They kind of look like cala bread from the Jewish tradition,
14:42
Speaker 1: really really beautiful and they've got that really nice shiny
14:45
Speaker 1: egg wash kind of quality. Um so that that is
14:47
Speaker 1: a very popular dish. And then of course there you know,
14:50
Speaker 1: there are traditional Latin American dishes that are often reserved
14:54
Speaker 1: for special occasions that are busted out on diadellasmuertos. Things
15:00
Speaker 1: like um flan caramel flon or so papias or something
15:05
Speaker 1: called calabaza antasha, which is a candied pumpkin dessert. Um
15:09
Speaker 1: enchiladas is the delicious, Oh my gosh tinga pablana del
15:14
Speaker 1: poyo is like a Mexican stew. Um a lot of
15:17
Speaker 1: these things. If you ever find yourself in the Atlanta area,
15:20
Speaker 1: gotta go to Plaza Fiesta and I'll tell you, Um,
15:23
Speaker 1: I can't quite remember the name of the place, but
15:26
Speaker 1: it's it's in one of the back little coves. It's
15:28
Speaker 1: not in the main food court, and it's called something
15:30
Speaker 1: like Tropical Island Delight or something like that makes no
15:34
Speaker 1: sense and doesn't seem to have anything to do with it.
15:37
Speaker 1: And you know, it's kind of like the Spot because
15:39
Speaker 1: it's always crowded, but not overcrowded, because you know that
15:42
Speaker 1: like it's it's kind of like a hidden jewel. And
15:45
Speaker 1: that's what I like about it. But amazing Tomali's um
15:48
Speaker 1: and all of this stuff, red chili and pork tomales pezzole,
15:52
Speaker 1: which is like a chicken soup with hominy in it.
15:55
Speaker 1: So good, so good. They're also traditional beverages. This is
16:00
Speaker 1: no no, we said that this parade didn't exist when
16:03
Speaker 1: it was depicted, inspector. But that's not to say that
16:06
Speaker 1: Day of the Dead is not a social holiday. People
16:09
Speaker 1: do go out in the streets, they greet each other,
16:12
Speaker 1: they will you will see people who might be wearing
16:14
Speaker 1: a skeleton costumes. Absolutely, and you know, one of the
16:17
Speaker 1: officials in the Tourism department of Mexico City was quick
16:21
Speaker 1: to say that this is a festival. This is not,
16:24
Speaker 1: you know, the replacement for the very personal traditions of
16:28
Speaker 1: Day of the Dead. There's also not to say that
16:30
Speaker 1: Day of the Dead wasn't happening in Mexico City. That's
16:32
Speaker 1: not true at all. It's just much more of a
16:34
Speaker 1: thing you do at home with your families, or a
16:37
Speaker 1: thing you do where you go visit the grave sites,
16:38
Speaker 1: as opposed to some sort of Marty Gras esque parade,
16:42
Speaker 1: which is what was depicted in the film and what
16:44
Speaker 1: has since been recreated in Mexico City. That's right. In
16:48
Speaker 1: the article for The Guardian, journalist David agrin Uh discusses
16:53
Speaker 1: this phenomenon. You can find it with the headline Mexico
16:56
Speaker 1: cities James Bond inspired Day of the Dead parade. It's
17:00
Speaker 1: mixed reviews. Yes, well done, good time, good time, you
17:05
Speaker 1: on the sound cue, because after Specter, a lot of
17:08
Speaker 1: people who watched this film around the world just assumed
17:12
Speaker 1: that this parade happened. And I think that's where I
17:16
Speaker 1: kind of have a bone to pick with this cultural appropriation,
17:18
Speaker 1: like turning a beautiful, uh tradition, a cultural tradition, into
17:22
Speaker 1: a set piece for a foot chase. And it's very
17:25
Speaker 1: it's a serious tradition, that's the thing. And and and
17:29
Speaker 1: what we're seeing in this article is that is what
17:31
Speaker 1: I was saying a minute ago. It's not to say
17:32
Speaker 1: that Mexico City was not celebrating Day of the Dead,
17:35
Speaker 1: but it was much more personal, a very deeply spiritual
17:40
Speaker 1: tradition in Mexico um and they decided to turn it
17:44
Speaker 1: into a festival. And Enrique Della Madrid, who's the secretary
17:48
Speaker 1: of Tourism for Mexico, he kind of defends it when
17:51
Speaker 1: he says this. He says, David, that is always something
17:53
Speaker 1: in Mexico City that is celebrated, though in a more
17:55
Speaker 1: serious way. What we decided to do here is a festival.
17:58
Speaker 1: So yeah, it seems like there's a little bit of
18:01
Speaker 1: lip service being paid there. I don't know. He's they're
18:04
Speaker 1: trying to get those tourist bucks. Well we yeah, we
18:06
Speaker 1: should also point out, just to just to highlight this.
18:10
Speaker 1: It is not as if some sort of outside group
18:14
Speaker 1: came in and said we're going to produce a festival
18:17
Speaker 1: every year. It is the city of Mexico City itself,
18:21
Speaker 1: their actual government, and thousands of people came to this parade.
18:26
Speaker 1: Of people participated in it. The many people said, you
18:30
Speaker 1: know what, this is fine. I I enjoy this and
18:34
Speaker 1: I can still do the traditional serious stuff. But people
18:38
Speaker 1: on social media saw this as a symptom of an
18:42
Speaker 1: ongoing larger problem with the government of Mexico City. That's right.
18:46
Speaker 1: Esteban Elade has tweeted, this is a cheap stunt. He's
18:50
Speaker 1: the editor of a magazine called Exos. They filmed James
18:53
Speaker 1: Bond here and now we have the traditional Day of
18:55
Speaker 1: the Dead parade. Yeah, let's see what happens when the
18:58
Speaker 1: mayor finishes reading the Da Vinci Code. Oh that was
19:01
Speaker 1: a sicky burn aloe for that one case. Can we
19:05
Speaker 1: get a sizzle sound cube. This also was seen as
19:19
Speaker 1: um just another scheme by the same people who opened
19:24
Speaker 1: the world's biggest ice rink built urban beaches and this
19:29
Speaker 1: this is again is the journalist the journalist quotation here,
19:33
Speaker 1: but I love it and having a fetish for setting
19:36
Speaker 1: world records, such as taking the biggest ever selfie, the
19:41
Speaker 1: biggest like largest in size or I guess the biggest
19:45
Speaker 1: the largest amount of people. It's not like Mexico City
19:47
Speaker 1: as an army can hold out. It's not really a
19:49
Speaker 1: selfie if it's a group though, that's true, is it
19:53
Speaker 1: the tallest man in the world is selfie the giantest head? Yeah?
19:59
Speaker 1: Let us and yeah right to the you know, put
20:03
Speaker 1: us in touch with the folks at Guinness. Tell them
20:05
Speaker 1: we did an episode on them. Have you heard the deal?
20:07
Speaker 1: How Guinness is now more in the business of like
20:10
Speaker 1: they will come to you and do an event where
20:12
Speaker 1: you can attempt to break a record. Like it's become
20:14
Speaker 1: much more of a destination like like a wedding or
20:17
Speaker 1: like a party that they they throw and there's different packages,
20:21
Speaker 1: so it's a it's a lot easier to get the
20:23
Speaker 1: record if you have bookoo bucks to throw at Guinness
20:26
Speaker 1: and have them come do this event. It's really interesting.
20:28
Speaker 1: That might be an episode unto itself. That's yeah, everything's
20:31
Speaker 1: been co modified increasingly. At least that's what the opponents
20:36
Speaker 1: of the Day of the Dead parade would say. And
20:39
Speaker 1: we also want to know where you fall on this,
20:42
Speaker 1: on which side of this debate you fall and do
20:44
Speaker 1: you feel like this is a soulless uh rush to
20:48
Speaker 1: monetize something or do you think that this is another
20:53
Speaker 1: step in the evolution of Day of the Dead. I mean,
20:56
Speaker 1: we barely touched upon the Spanish influences. I know, touch
21:00
Speaker 1: on some for me, all right, as you can find
21:03
Speaker 1: in an MPR ratcle Decoding the Food and Drink on
21:07
Speaker 1: a Day of the Dead Altar by Karen Castillo Farfen.
21:10
Speaker 1: The Spanish conquest put Catholic leaders in a what we've
21:16
Speaker 1: said before on the on the show is a very
21:19
Speaker 1: terrible mindset. The idea that they would assimilate these people
21:23
Speaker 1: and by leading them to what they saw as the
21:26
Speaker 1: truth of Catholicism, any means they took justified that noble end.
21:32
Speaker 1: So they exerted their influence on everything. It was very
21:35
Speaker 1: ideologically based, and one of those was their influence on
21:38
Speaker 1: the tradition that was meant to honor the dead. So
21:44
Speaker 1: they ended up they ended up saying this would this
21:48
Speaker 1: would overlap with pre existing Catholic holidays, and that's why
21:52
Speaker 1: you see this all Soul's Day stuff going on, that's right,
21:56
Speaker 1: That's why they line it up with those calendar days, right,
22:00
Speaker 1: and that affects it. But also you know this is
22:03
Speaker 1: this is a region that, despite having these Mesoamerican pre
22:07
Speaker 1: Columbian practices, is still largely very Catholic in terms of
22:12
Speaker 1: demographic these are not seen as contradictoris. So the evolution
22:17
Speaker 1: was par for the course because this started off as
22:20
Speaker 1: a pre Hispanic tradition and then you're talking about that
22:23
Speaker 1: influence on these indigenous people of the region by the Spanish.
22:29
Speaker 1: They kind of had to co opt this tradition and
22:31
Speaker 1: sort of give it a little twist, right yep. So
22:35
Speaker 1: is this parade another step in that ongoing evolution, and
22:40
Speaker 1: if so, is it a step in a good direction
22:42
Speaker 1: and bad direction or neutral direction. One thing we can
22:45
Speaker 1: say for sure, however, is that this is not the
22:49
Speaker 1: only case in which a fictional event has prompted a
22:54
Speaker 1: real world change. Hit me with one. I would love
22:59
Speaker 1: to and we also think and hope that you would
23:02
Speaker 1: love to hear one too, folks, But unfortunately the ones
23:06
Speaker 1: we found are so good. They will have to be
23:09
Speaker 1: their own episodes. One in particular, you know the one
23:11
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about. You're talking about the Sir Arthur Conan
23:14
Speaker 1: Doyle crime busting story. Yes, we are, that's true. The
23:21
Speaker 1: creator of Sherlock Holmes, it turns out, wasn't just talking
23:24
Speaker 1: the talk when you say writing the words, yeah, he's
23:28
Speaker 1: also doing the dirt. He was doing the dirts. There
23:31
Speaker 1: we go, We got there. We hope that you enjoyed
23:35
Speaker 1: this exploration of the relationship that fiction can have with
23:39
Speaker 1: the real world. And we'd like to hear your examples
23:42
Speaker 1: of other other bits about this, and not only that.
23:45
Speaker 1: Have you been to Adadella Smuertos event um, one of
23:49
Speaker 1: the kind of more you know there may be losing
23:52
Speaker 1: the spiritual a little bit we've done of these street festivals,
23:54
Speaker 1: or is this a tradition in your family? I would
23:57
Speaker 1: love to hear some inside information on at please. You
24:00
Speaker 1: can write to us at Ridiculous at how stuff works
24:02
Speaker 1: dot com. You can hit us up on the social
24:05
Speaker 1: meds at the Facebook where we are Ridiculous history Um.
24:08
Speaker 1: Give a look at our Facebook group, the Ridiculous Historians.
24:11
Speaker 1: We are really looking forward to mining it for some
24:14
Speaker 1: future episode ideas. Yes, and we also we also just
24:19
Speaker 1: found the soundbites noisemaker in the studio, so we should
24:22
Speaker 1: probably get out of here. Uh, do you want to
24:25
Speaker 1: hear a sound effects? Sure? Man, Okay, let's go. Okay,
24:29
Speaker 1: there's we'll go see if we'll go applause. Okay. So
24:33
Speaker 1: we'd like to thank Casey Pegram our super producer, Casey sincerely,
24:39
Speaker 1: thank you, of course, thanks to Alex Williams, Christopher Hasciodas,
24:43
Speaker 1: Noel Brown, ladies and gentlemen, and breathe. Thanks to you,
24:48
Speaker 1: we're seeing the whole time. I know it was me
24:51
Speaker 1: the whole time, Like at the very end of the
24:53
Speaker 1: sixth cents when everyone goes, will I know, come on now,
24:57
Speaker 1: no spoilers, No, that was good. I stole that Joe
25:00
Speaker 1: from always studying in Philadelphia. That's true. That was Bruce
25:02
Speaker 1: Willis the whole time. It's true. Um, and we hope
25:04
Speaker 1: you continue being you the whole time because we really
25:07
Speaker 1: like you, We really like hanging out with you. And
25:09
Speaker 1: stay tuned. Next week we're gonna be talking about a
25:11
Speaker 1: thing right, specifically, how the capture of Guam was bloodless
25:15
Speaker 1: and quick entirely due to what misunderstanding. That sounds like
25:19
Speaker 1: a pretty sweet misunderstanding. I can't wait to hear all
25:22
Speaker 1: about it, or you know, tell you all about it.
25:25
Speaker 1: It's yeah, we have it back and forth. All right, great,