Why is Mexico always depicted as having a yellow filter in movies/shows?

[Bor Gullet]

There's tons of examples of this in movies and shows, it even has it's own meme page!

Mexican Filter

Mexican Filter or Mexico Filter refers to parodies of a trope in American film and television in which scenes taking place in Mexico are often shown through a sepia or yellow-colored filter. The cliche began garnering attention in the early 2000s, increasing over the following years through...

knowyourmeme.com

An example of this is the opening scene from Spectre, which is in Mexico.

 

[Kolya]

Because it creates a warm colour tone. Mexico = warm.

 

[FantasticMrFoxdie]

Thats the usual Desert aesthetic i guess

 

[fluffydelusions]

They did the same thing with a lot of movies set in California back in the early 00s

 

[TeenageFBI]

Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul do this. It's kind of annoying. I guess it's shorthand for Mexico though.

 

[RavFiveFour]

It's the perfect filter for that country.

 

[Deleted member 1086]

It invokes the setting is hot and dry and dusty

 

[Cookie]

Because it creates a warm colour tone. Mexico = warm.

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One and done. This is literally the answer.

 

[IDreamOfHime]

Same reason cold countries get a blue tint.

 

[5taquitos]

Same reason every middle east location gets a yellow filter.

 

[Ravensmash]

The same reason why colder climates have a blue filter.

 

[Illusion]

I think it had to do with giving a visual cue to audiences to explain the story is currently in Mexico. Then some filmmakers took it as a artistic representation entirely and just copied it then applied it to everything because they thought it looked cool.

 

[Bisha Monkey]

Not just Mexico, most South American countries get that piss filter on.

 

[Speevy]

Because you have been kidnapped by the drug cartel and it looks scary and otherworldly.

 

[PBalfredo]

Traffic was the worst about this, though at least America was drenched in blue, instead of just being unfiltered.

 

[TorianElecdra]

Because racism.

 

[Einchy]

I can confirm Mexico is yellow.

 

[Praxis]

I was thinking the same thing recently when watching Ozark. It doesn't bother me though

 

[Deleted member 8860]

Also the filte for India/Bangladesh:

 

[EN1GMA]

Hot humid sandy weather. You only see yellow!

 

[Septimus Prime]

I remember when I used to watch all the CSI shows, each one would run a different color filter (green for the original in Vegas, yellow for Miami, and blue for New York). Those were the days.

 

[perfectchaos007]

Mad Max is yellow too. Australian outback gets the same treatment

 

[FernandoRocker]

But here in Mexico we have tons of ecosystems. Jungles, forest, beaches, desert, mountains. It's a huge country.

Mexico is not as big as the USA, but we are the 13th largest country in the world.

 

[AlexBasch]

You know what's more annoying than the piss filter? The random ass Latin American surnames.

There's Hernandez, Morales, Gutiérrez, Martínez, López, Ramírez, I can go on. Nah, let's name some motherfucker Guerro.

Better yet, let's create a fictional town, like Las Cruces de Santo Pueblito down in some part of "MEXICO". Just open up Google Maps, you lazy ass screenwriters, here, let me help. You want something near the US? Ciudad Acuña, you want something near the southern part of Mexico? Penjamo, you want something close to Belize? There's La Misteriosa in Campeche. I did this shit just looking at random points in Google Maps.

I just want to create a story placed in Bunkerton, Ohio, with police detective Joun Blasterson and his deputy Reeck Willbergnemheim.

 

[Lionel Mandrake]

I think Breaking Bad is the most iconic example of this.

I'm pretty sure they did it because Albuquerque and Mexico look so similar that they needed some sort of visual cue to let the audience know when events were taking place outside of the main setting. Since so much of the supporting elements of the plot revolve around Mexico, using text or establishing shots to show where people were would have been too much whiplash.

 

[softtack]

Sicario is one of the few films that doesn't do this.

 

[Swiggins]

But here in Mexico we have tons of ecosystems. Jungles, forest, beaches, desert, mountains. It's a huge country.

Mexico is not as big as the USA, but we are the 13th largest country in the world.

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It's a damn shame. Mexico is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, it's got a little bit of everything.

Guadalajara is an absolutely gorgeous city, I wish I'd gotten to see more of it while I was there a few years back.

 

[CrazyDude]

It's a damn shame. Mexico is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, it's got a little bit of everything.

Guadalajara is an absolutely gorgeous city, I wish I'd gotten to see more of it while I was there a few years back.

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Similar to how Iran is depicted as one big desert country.

 

[Serpico99]

Artists trying to convey a feeling/tone? I feel like this is a crossover thread with gaming's side of the weekly chromatic aberration topic.

 

[modoversus]

Racism, maybe. The idea that all of Mexico is an arid yellow desert, when it has cities, woods, beaches, jungles etc.

 

[Scottoest]

But here in Mexico we have tons of ecosystems. Jungles, forest, beaches, desert, mountains. It's a huge country.

Mexico is not as big as the USA, but we are the 13th largest country in the world.

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And parts of Canada are further south than the north-eastern United States. Our summers can hit over 100 F. But when you think of Canada, you think cold, and snow.

People associate Mexico with warm weather. Warm weather often means warm camera filter in the visual language of TV and film. Same reason blue colour filters are used in cold locations.

 

[Doggg]

Apparently it's like being on another planet.

 

[Toxi]

Because it's a visual shorthand for "ugly foreign poverty". Can't make a place look nasty without an extra layer of piss.

And yes, the racist attitude behind it is just as bad as I phrased it.

 

[Dark Knight]

Racism, maybe. The idea that all of Mexico is an arid yellow desert, when it has cities, woods, beaches, jungles etc.

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Huh? I'm willing to call out racism when I see it as well, but how is stereotyping a landscape racist?

 

[JamRock7]

Uh it's not just Mexico. It's usually for a desert setting to set the tone

 

[Scottoest]

Racism, maybe. The idea that all of Mexico is an arid yellow desert, when it has cities, woods, beaches, jungles etc.

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Canada has all of those things, save the jungles. What's the first thing that immediately pops into your head when you think of Canada's climate?

 

[JamRock7]

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Huh? I'm willing to call out racism when I see it as well, but how is stereotyping a landscape racist?

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Everything is racist

 

[RedBaron17]

It also pisses me off that Hollywood thinks there are chickens running around everywhere in Latin America. Like, wtf, do they think poultry just roams free in the streets?

 

[Common Knowledge]

Huh? I'm willing to call out racism when I see it as well, but how is stereotyping a landscape racist?

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Post above yours explains why it could be considered that.

 

[Toxi]

Uh it's not just Mexico. It's usually for a desert setting to set the tone

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It's not usually used for deserts in the USA and it's just as often used in humid tropical settings for places like South Asia.

It's an ugly filter used to make things look ugly.

 

[Dark Knight]

Post above yours explains why it could be considered that.

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There's seriously a chasm of difference between stereotyping a climate and biome and stereotyping cities as being dirty/foreign...

If it has to do with the latter then sure, but the post I quoted didn't make that connotation. It was talking about deserts.

 

[nihilence]

It may have been yellow on the globe we had in school.

 

[Anacaona]

Yellow = Warm
Blue = Cold
Green = Jungle, Amazonian
etc.

Not hard to understand.

Here's a scene in the Dominican Republic

 

[Deleted member 9932]

artists copy good ones. Soderbergh did the color tint (for different locations) in traffic (being mexico very yellow) and every other followed.

 

[Deleted member 1086]

It's not usually used for deserts in the USA and it's just as often used in humid tropical settings for places like South Asia.

It's an ugly filter used to make things look ugly.

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It's definitely used in productions that depict Arizona, Vegas, parts of Texas, parts of Southern California(Inland Empire) etc.

 

[Halbrand]

There's tons of examples of this in movies and shows, it even has it's own meme page!

Mexican Filter

Mexican Filter or Mexico Filter refers to parodies of a trope in American film and television in which scenes taking place in Mexico are often shown through a sepia or yellow-colored filter. The cliche began garnering attention in the early 2000s, increasing over the following years through...

knowyourmeme.com

An example of this is the opening scene from Spectre, which is in Mexico.

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I've seen this point many times but it ignores the fact that almost the entire movie has a yellow filter, including in London and Italy.

 

[gutter_trash]

sky was blue blue when I went to Mexico

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

Because racism.

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Not really.
The filter is setting a tone,
this especially helps when you have sets and elements that really aren't on location but easily fakes a blend.

This is insanely common for tv.
Stuff like SEAL Team and Hawaii Five-0 will show a real-life establishing shot with a filter applied and then cut to stuff filmed in America with the filter applied to fake it.
Afghanistan gets a tanish grey filter
Mexio a deep yellow tint
Southeast Asia and Brazil had green tints

In 5-0's case the show is set in Hawaii so they heavily used filters to sell the same location as multiple different settings.
Hawaii as Mexio

Hawaii as North Korea

 

[pillowtalk]

The only tint/filter I can accept is desaturation. Everything else hurts my eyes after a while.

 

[CesareNorrez]

Huh? I'm willing to call out racism when I see it as well, but how is a stereotyping landscape racist?

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Because it's trying to other a place where certain cultures exist. Really very easy.

However, that doesn't have to be the case with the use of a yellow (or golden) color filter to signify climate. I see an obsession among some people that visual art has to be presented "naturally". When someone uses the term "piss filter", they are showing how shallow they are and how little they care for artistic expression (and possibly that they are dehydrated). They have an extremely narrow view of what art can be and wish to limit how others express themselves. Rather than say they don't prefer a yellow tint, they link the color with a liquid body waste making sure their audience understands that it's gross to use that kind of tint and anyone that doesn't think so must actually like urine and is consequently gross.

In color theory warm tones are typically used for warm climates or to create a specific mood. It can be done in a racist way, of course, but yellow filter for warm climates is a very old visual shortcut. The shortcut is often used in film because one does not always have the opportunity to shoot outside of single location but the story takes place across more than one diverse location. Accordingly filters are used to quickly establish a different location.