Mexico City has announced the date of this year's annual Day of the Dead parade, November 2. You might think that this massively popular Día de Muertos parade through the city streets is an ancient tradition, but in fact it was started in 2016, after a fictitious Day of the Dead parade appeared in the opening sequence of the 2015 James Bond movie "Spectre."
From an article in LA Times by JP Brammer:
On a beautiful street in Mexico City celebratory music plays, people line the sidewalks and giant, ornately adorned paper mache skeletons march toward the historic Zócalo. The crowd wears flowers in their hair and masks on their faces while children peruse the vendors' sweets and toys.
This is Día de Muertos, a colorful, hallowed tradition where the ancestors are honored and welcomed back home. This specific parade, however, is a Hollywood invention. It's the opening scene from "Spectre," the 2015 James Bond movie, a scene so compelling it prompted Mexico City to actually start doing an annual Día de Muertos parade.
The filmmakers concocted the non-existent parade from existing Día de Muertos traditions for its opening sequence because it fit the movie's theme. Director Sam Mendes said, "One of the things that's said about the Day of the Dead celebrations is that 'los muertos vivos están' – 'The dead are alive.' That has a direct bearing on our story."
This may be an example of what has been called "the pizza effect," in which a cultural phenomenon is exported to other cultures, and then re-introduced into the original culture in a modified form.
