They always expect the Spanish Inquisition: Why Madrid is fed up with film portrayals

It is not just the British who are annoyed at the way they are depicted in movies and on TV. A Spanish author has just written a book on things that upset Madrid about Hollywood, writes Graham Keeley

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Disney/Kobal/Shutterstock)

Religious fanatics, merciless conquistadors or pillaging pirates: this is how Hollywood has chosen to misrepresent Spaniards through the ages, a new book claims.

From Pirates of the Caribbean to Monty Python or even Harry Potter, they have all made Spaniards out to be the bad guys.

For decades, Hollywood has bent historical reality to fit an Anglo-Saxon myth about Spain’s past and present in films, videogames and television series, it claims.