History Main / SymbologyResearchFailure

* Situations where [[CreepyCoolCrosses crosses]] are meant to denote "gaijin" (not ChurchMilitant, just normal European war forces) in some anime/manga.

* ''Film/MissionImpossibleII'' [[CulturalBlending mixes]] [[TorosYFlamenco the processions of the Holy Week in Seville with the "Fallas" of Valencia]] (and throws in some people dressed for Pamplona's [[ItsAlwaysMardiGrasInNewOrleans running of the bulls]] looking at them for good measure), even having a character uttering the line "how crazy Spaniards are, burning their saints to honor them?". The origin of the Fallas is only incidentally religious: they take place in the four days prior to March 19, Saint Joseph's day in the Catholic calendar, who is the patron saint of carpenters. In this day, carpenters would take out and burn the wooden splinters left by their work that could not be reused, and over time it evolved into the confection of elaborate structures over the year for the express purpose of being burned that day. These structures often make parodic references to events of the year and feature caricatures of politicians, actors and other famous people, but never effigies of saints or other figures of worship. And they are not held in Seville.

* David Hewson's ''Semana Santa'' (aka ''Death in Seville'') mixes Seville's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Week_in_Seville Holy Week]], which is religious, and the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seville_Fair Fair]], which is not and is held a couple of weeks after the Holy Week. The result couldn't be more blasphemous. Religious processions are described as "parades" attended by people out of amusement rather than devotion, there is a lot of drinking, women wear mourning [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantilla Mantillas]] and polka-dotted [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traje_de_flamenca Flamenco dresses]] at the same time, and there is a "great bullfight" to mark the end of the "festival". Even the killer himself wears [[spoiler: a ''Nazareno'' suit during his crimes and inflicts bullfighting-mimicking wounds on his victims.]]

* UsefulNotes/{{Cult}}s are these by default, given their rejection of or additions to their own doctrines of their base religions. If the leader claims to be Jesus reincarnated or something similar ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Xiuquan Hong Xiuquan]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Divine Father Divine]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoko_Asahara Shoko Asahara]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones Jim Jones]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Applewhite Marshall Applewhite]] just to name a few), the resulting cosmology is ''guaranteed'' to be bizarre.

** Also partly justified in ''Red Alert 2'' as the Soviet leader is a descendant of [[UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia the Romanov family]], and he may have restored some of the pre-revolutionary antics as long as it doesn't contradict the Soviet socialism. it also may have ''something'' to do with the fact that, if you showed people a photo of buildings in Moscow and asked them to point to the Kremlin (a fortified former palace strongly associated with the government of the USSR/Russia in much the same way as "White House" is used metaphorically to refer to the Executive Branch of government in the US) they'd be much more likely to point to St. Basil's Cathedral (the building with all the onion domes in Easter egg colors, which is just across Red Square from the Kremlin) than to the Grand Kremlin Palace itself (which looks more like a rather nice hotel).

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0maaH2gUWa4 This]] {{Advertising/GEICO}} ad parodying the Running of the Bulls as the "Running of the Bulldogs" shows the crowd waving a zillion flags of Spain (which is not nearly [[CrossCulturalKerfluffle as common]] in reality) and of Catalonia, which has no excuse because it is nowhere near Pamplona. At least it's not the flag of Barbados like in ''Series/CarolineInTheCity''...

* The UrbanLegend of [[http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/santacross.asp a smiling, crucified Santa Claus in Japan.]] For that matter, the general, and very real attempts described in the previous link to market [[UsefulNotes/ChristmasInJapan Christmas]], St Valentine's, St Patrick's, and Halloween for the Japanese market, all of which had virtually no similarity to their Western versions.

** The same cars bear a griffin seal that looks nothing like either the Madrid or National Police seals, but somewhat like the seal of the G.R.I., an obscure riot police of the Madrid local police, who doesn't actually use that seal in car or uniform (they have the normal Madrid local police seal instead).

* The UrbanLegend of [[http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/santacross.asp a smiling, crucified Santa Claus in Japan.]]

** The same cars bear a griffin seal that looks nothing like either the Madrid or National Police seals, but somewhat like the seal of the G.R.I., an obscure riot police of the Madrid local police, who doesn't actually use that seal in car or uniform (they have the normal Madrid local police seal isntead).

** In "American Optimism", Spanish National Police cruisers are yellow and the sign "National Police - Madrid". They obviously based them on Madrid Local Police cars, which are yellow and read "Local Police Madrid", while National Police cars are navy blue and say "National Police" regardless of city.
** The same cars bear a griffin seal that looks nothing like either the Madrid or National Police seals, but somewhat like the seal of the G.R.I., an obscure riot police of the Madrid local police, that doesn't actually use that seal in either cars or uniforms (just the normal Madrid local police seal).
* ''Series/AgentsOfShield'': "Who you really are" features a "Regional Police" in Faro, Portugal. No such corps exists in Portuguese law enforcement; closest is a "Regional Command" of the PSP in Madeira and another in the Açores, which are the only parts of Portugal with some devolution. All Portuguese speak either Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese.

Compare SadlyMythtaken, SquatsInAName, and FamousNamedForeigner.

* At the beginning of ''Film/TheWorldIsNotEnough'', Franchise/JamesBond sees out of a window in Bilbao and sees Spanish National Police cruisers coming. But when the police enter the room, they are wearing the uniforms of the Basque regional police (''Ertzaintza'').

* ''{{Series/Vikings}}'' was criticized for using [[AnachronismStew anachronistic]] Scandinavian stave church architecture to depict the great pagan temple at Old Uppsala.

Compare SadlyMythtaken and SquatsInAName.

* ''Series/CarolineAndTheCity'': The gang travels to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls. The streets are full of flags, none of which look like any Spanish flag. The only one that looks like a real flag is a flag of Barbados, of all places.

** The native Sufi Mosque is based on Afghan religious architecture and appears in all south Asian maps because it is the only way for non-Indian players to get WarElephants. Including Indochina... and Mongolia, for some reason. The non-interactive religious men at the Mosque, however, use the model of Hindu Brahmins.

* ''Film/BlackKnight'': The English Medieval castle that FishOutOfTemporalWater Jamal travels to has early 20th century Hungarian flags. Presumably, the crown looked [[TheCoconutEffect too Medieval]] to pass on. [[spoiler:But then it's revealed that it's AllJustADream.]]

* The ''[[NotSoDifferent real]]'' Fallas ran into trouble in 2013 when one participant made one that included depictions of two Hindu gods, Shiva and Ganesh. Following protests from the Hindu community, the ruling council made the author take out the figure of Shiva, which was donated to a Hindu temple, and the crown and extra arms of Ganesh, thus turning it into a common elephant, before the structure was burned down.

* In the 1959 movie ''Thunder in the Sun'', about a group of 19th century Basque immigrants in California, the characters use [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jai_alai jai alai]] baskets as weapons and the ''irrintzi'' (a traditional high-pitched yelling used by Basque shepherds to denote happiness) as a coded language. The latter may or may not have been inspired by [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbo_Gomero Silbo Gomero]], a pre-Hispanic whistling language in the Canary Islands (which naturally has nothing to do with Basque culture, but neither does the [[TorosYFlamenco Flamenco]] danced by the characters in another scene).

* The first ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' series had the Running of the Bulls taking place [[ArtisticLicenseGeography in Lisbon]] (it looked [[TorosYFlamenco nothing like Lisbon]], of course), and also made the error of mixing the Running with the Holy Week processions (not by having processions around the same time as the Running, but by having "processions" of bull and matador figures).

* In Christianity, the inverted Latin Cross is called the Petrine Cross because, according to tradition, St. Peter requested to be crucified on one due to feeling unworthy of dying in the same way as Christ. It is thus used as a symbol of St. Peter, Christian humility, and the Papacy. However, in TheSeventies it was appropriated by Death Metal bands as a satanic and anti-Christian symbol, and the movies and Satanic Panic of TheEighties codified it as one. Nowadays, even the average lay Catholic has the inverted cross for a symbol of Satan.

* In Christianity, the inverted Latin Cross is called the Petrine Cross because, according to tradition, St. Peter requested to be crucified on one due to feeling unworthy of dying in the same way as Christ. It is thus used as a symbol of St. Peter, Christian humility, and the Papacy. However, in TheSeventies it was appropriated by Death Metal bands as a satanic and anti-Christian symbol, and the media and Satanic Panic of TheEighties did the rest. Nowadays, even the average lay Catholic helds the inverted cross as a symbol of Satan.

** The native Sufi Mosque is based on Afghan religious architecture and appears in all south Asian maps because it is the only way for non-Indian players to get WarElephants. Including Indochina.. and Mongolia, for some reason. The non-interactive religious men at the Mosque, however, use the model of Hindu Brahmins.

** The game was pulled for correction when a Muslim player noticed that the Thai temple stage theme remixed the Islamic call for prayer. The unbelievable part is that the temple is very obviously ''Buddhist''.