007 deliv­ers Day of the Dead parade to Mex­i­co with mixed results

Tom Cruise recent­ly revealed that Japan has intro­duced a Tom Cruise Day to cel­e­brate his role in The Last Samu­rai, telling The Gra­ham Nor­ton Show that ​“they start­ed study­ing their own cul­ture again” in ref­er­ence to the rein­tro­duc­tion of bushi­do into the nation­al cur­ricu­lum. Now it tran­spires that the film indus­try has stamped its mark on anoth­er cul­tur­al tra­di­tion, with Mex­i­co City recent­ly host­ing its first Day of the Dead Parade as inspired by Spec­tre.

The mem­o­rable open­ing scene sees Bond blend into the masked swell of locals paint­ed with calav­era, the ​‘sug­ar skull’ style trade­marked by the Day of the Dead. In the cen­tral square, thou­sands of rev­ellers hoist skele­tal pup­pets and clam­our with fun-lov­ing dancers who motion their respects to the dead. It’s a sat­is­fy­ing­ly indul­gent spec­ta­cle. Only, the scene is pure fiction.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly the Day of the Dead cer­e­mo­ny is held to hon­our loved ones that have passed, and the addi­tion of a block­bust­ing parade has been met with fierce oppo­si­tion from locals. Este­ban Illades tweet­ed his dis­plea­sure: ​“James Bond filmed here and now we have tra­di­tion­al ​“dead” parade. Let’s see what hap­pens when Mancera [the may­or] fin­ish­es read­ing ​‘The Da Vin­ci Code’.”

This doesn’t mean the parade wasn’t a suc­cess, though. Bond imag­ined a street par­ty of thou­sands, and thou­sands appeared, com­pris­ing cos­tumed enter­tain­ers, acro­bats, dancers and deca­dent ​‘dead’ flotil­las. Sparked by the film’s intox­i­cat­ing flam­boy­ance, the inau­gur­al parade suc­cess­ful­ly turned fan­ta­sy into reality.

Yet the com­ments of Illades and oth­ers demon­strate how Spec­tre has inad­ver­tent­ly exploit­ed an inti­mate and intro­spec­tive tra­di­tion. It begs the ques­tion: does film have a place influ­enc­ing real world cul­ture? Or should we strive to pro­tect the integri­ty of cer­tain tra­di­tions by eschew­ing Hol­ly­wood largesse?