History Main / TheCapitalOfBrazilIsBuenosAires

* In a loose sense, this trope used to be true in the 16th-17th centuries, as Brazil was technically part of the Iberian Union for almost a century due to King UsefulNotes/PhilipII of Spain having inherited the Portuguese Empire too. However, even back then, both empires' overseas branches were run as their original, separate entities, meaning there was little cultural overlap among them other than their general Iberian hue.

** The worst offender is the most prominent Brazilian superhero, the (very) minor superhero Fire from the DC Universe (better known as member of the ComicBook/JusticeLeagueInternational). Not only her last name is daCosta, pretty much everything on her biography and herself is just plain wrong. Her complete name is Beatriz Bonilla daCosta (née Carvalho; which doesn't even makes sense as married women keep their last names when getting married, only adding their husband's last name ''if they want''), of which only Carvalho and Beatriz are proper Brazilian names (Beatriz is also a proper Spanish name, so it was probably a fortunate coincidence), "da Costa" (not "daCosta") being a kinda common surname. Her father name is Ramon, again a name more common outside of Brazil. She was an agent for the Espiães (sic; correct spelling "Espiões") Nacionales (Yup, seems like Brazilian institutions have Spanish names) de (sic; "do") Brasil (ugh, we should be happy it wasn't "Espiones", which, by the way, wouldn't even be Spanish). By the way, the Brazilian intelligence agency is called ABIN (Agência Brasileira de Inteligência), which was known as SNI (Serviço Nacional de Informações - "National Information Service") when she was created in 1979 (still during the dictatorship), much like CIA isn't named "National Spies of the United States". Some of this was thankfully retconned, but there's too much wrong that's too deep to retcon there.

** The Brazilian names [[http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Brazilians cited in Marvel Wikia]] are a bit better, citing Iara dos Santos (Shark Girl of the Comicbook/XMen) and Francisco Araujo da Costa (a mob hitman who was killed bt Comicbook/{{the Punisher}}), a rare example with two surnames, both accurate. On the other hand, there are some Spanish ones, like Aguillar, Pepe Manero and Omar Barreños (Portuguese language doesn't have the 'ñ'). The worst offender is Captain Forsa: his codename, in Portuguese, should be "Capitão Força" (Captain Strength). The word "forsa" isn't Portuguese... neither Spanish, in which the corresponding word is "fuerza".

** "Blame It On Lisa" is full of these, deliberately used for humorous effect in its portrayal of Brazil, however they did lampshade one of the popular misconceptions by having Bart painstakingly learn Spanish for the trip... only to learn Brazilians speak Portuguese. A few things were brilliantly correct, such as the steakhouse with meat in swords and the colorful currency. ("Ahh, look at all that pink and purple".[[note]]Respectively R$ 10 and R$ 5; other banknotes include R$ 2 (blue), R$ 20 (yellow), R$ 50 (amber), R$ 100 (teal) and R$ 200 (white, which was introduced in 2021); the only green Brazilian Real banknote was R$ 1, which has since been discontinued[[/note]] "Our money sure is gay.") At least they don't specifically use the Amazon, but the jungles that actually are in Rio.

* ''VideoGame/MaxPayne 3'' scared a lot of fans of the series with its radical change of setting to UsefulNotes/SaoPaulo. In Brazil, however, it gained a lot of attention because Brazilians were wondering how much it would completely misrepresent them. The trailer seemed to show Hispanic people speaking in Spanish accents, in what seemed like a pretty standard [[TheCartel Mexican drug lord]] plot set in California. With the game out, it's actually pretty good - we get to see both the luxurious modern locales of the superrich and the favela squalour, racial variation, Portuguese use and [[PoliceBrutality Brutal Police]] CaptainErsatz of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batalh%C3%A3o_de_Opera%C3%A7%C3%B5es_Policiais_Especiais BOPE]] (made famous worldwide by ''Film/TheEliteSquad''; though the squad that fulfills these duties in São Paulo is called [[http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rondas_Ostensivas_Tobias_de_Aguiar ROTA]]). Max does make the soccer player goof, though, and the confusion of this trope is invoked with [[spoiler: Passos: he's revealed to be Colombian, not Brazilian, in order to lure Max to Brazil as hired muscle. Max even comments on his phony accent after it seems Passos betrays him.]]

Some country somewhere in LatinLand; the spoken language is Spanish, like everywhere in Latin Land. It is composed of only one state (which is overrun by the Amazon forest) called São Paulo, whose capital is Rio de Janeiro, but it is also called Buenos Aires. Every Brazilian woman is stunningly beautiful, and has a beautiful ''bunda'' (that's Spanish for "ass", right?).[[note]]It doesn't. It indeed means ass, but in the Brazilian dialect of Portuguese, not in Spanish (or even in European Portuguese, for that matter). [[LampshadeHanging But hey, it's not like a whole continent would speak more than one language, riiiight...?]][[/note]] By the way, whenever you're in a Brazilian city, it'll be a ''favela'' (what Brazilian people call shantytowns), which is a place that makes the industrial era slums look like bright {{Utopia}}s; there are [[MisplacedWildlife monkeys in the city streets]], and large cats, and alligators ... and the occasional anaconda. The state has no military whatsoever, [[ShouldntWeBeInSchoolRightNow or schools]]; civilization is at a never-ending war against the natives. Finally, everyone is junkyard poor.

** The worst offender is the most prominent Brazilian superhero, the (very) minor superhero Fire from the DC Universe (better known as member of the ComicBook/JusticeLeagueInternational). Not only her last name is daCosta, pretty much everything on her biography and herself is just plain wrong. Her complete name is Beatriz Bonilla daCosta (née Carvalho; which doesn't even makes sense as married women keep their last names when getting married, only adding their husband's last name), of which only Carvalho and Beatriz are proper Brazilian names (Beatriz is also a proper Spanish name, so it was probably a fortunate coincidence), "da Costa" (not "daCosta") being a kinda common surname. Her father name is Ramon, again a name more common outside of Brazil. She was an agent for the Espiães (sic; correct spelling "Espiões") Nacionales (Yup, seems like Brazilian institutions have Spanish names) de (sic; "do") Brasil (ugh, we should be happy it wasn't "Espiones", which, by the way, wouldn't even be Spanish). By the way, the Brazilian intelligence agency is called ABIN (Agência Brasileira de Inteligência), which was known as SNI (Serviço Nacional de Informações - "National Information Service") when she was created in 1979 (still during the dictatorship), much like CIA isn't named "National Spies of the United States". Some of this was thankfully retconned, but there's too much wrong that's too deep to retcon there.

* In one episode of ''Series/{{House}}'', Dr. House surprises every Brazilian to ever watch the show by saying "castanhas-do-Pará" perfectly well in actual Portuguese instead of a Spanish mimic of Portuguese, but then this leads to him diagnosing his patient to be in Brazil because he was somewhere where Carnival was celebrated for a month. Not only is Carnival only celebrated for part of a week in Brazil (or one whole week in the case of the city of Salvador), it would be the rough equivalent of saying the United States doesn't function during the month of Thanksgiving. House was trying to solve a case of apparent radiation poisoning of a CIA agent stationed in Brazil. His handlers screwed up when they switched the location on the file to a Spanish-speaking country. The agent was actually suffering from selenium poisoning because he had been binging on Brazil nuts.