If you've seen "Ferdinand," you know it's a pretty cute movie, and it was probably pretty nostalgic for you if you read the children's book when you were younger. However, despite the cute animation, addition to the original story, and the wonderful performances by the voice actors (I LOVE John Cena); the movie was problematic.
One issue is that the movie took place in Spain, yet of the 26 credited characters in the movie, only NINE of them have any amount of Spanish ancestry, and only ONE of them actually has Spain-Spanish background. One of the characters was a Scottish bull named Angus who was played by Scottish actor David Tennant. Why couldn't they have had Spanish voice actors to play the Spanish characters?
The second issue, which is much greater than the first, is the fact that the characters attended Feria de las Flores in Seville, Spain, but that festival is ACTUALLY a Colombian festival that takes place in Medellin, Columbia every August. At first, I was willing to give leeway for this if the original book spoke of the festival, but the only mention of flowers in the book was that Ferdinand liked to smell them. Therefore, Robert L. Baird, the writer of "Ferdinand," decided to pick a random Spanish festival and shove it into a Spanish movie. That doesn't actually work when the Spanish festival is Colombian, but the movie takes place in Spain. I'm not sure why the man that voiced Juan, Juanes, didn't have a problem with this, considering he actually is Colombian.
I know the intention of the movie was to re-create a classic children's novel rather than creating a culturally accurate movie about Spain, but I don't see why both of these goals couldn't be accomplished. I don't see why the actors couldn't have been Spanish, and I don't see why the writer couldn't have either a) chosen a Spanish festival, b) if he couldn't find a Spanish festival about flowers, he could have made up a flower festival, or c) not include a festival at all and use flowers in some other way.
In a time like this where we are so focused on diversity and inclusion, the media should be more sensitive and intentional about the work they produce. Hopefully, we will see more of that in the future.
