# Misrepresented cities in TV/movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 19, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047 "2010-03-19T18:58:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![TheFaerie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TheFaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheFaerie)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/81 "2010-03-25T14:05:18Z")
The Bob Hope movie “Alias Jesse James” is supposed to be set in Missouri, a Missouri supposedly full of dry mountain deserts and rolling California-style hills. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/82 "2010-03-25T14:13:31Z")
The fictional Pawnee, Indiana in _Parks and Recreation_; so obviously Los Angleles it’s ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/83 "2010-03-25T15:36:35Z")
_The Battle of the Bulge_ - Belgium in winter sure looked like California in summer. ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/84 "2010-03-25T17:29:55Z")
_Wayne’s World_ features a hip dance club located in Aurora, Illinois. This causes me, and anyone else who grew up in that part of the Fox Valley, laugh bitterly. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/85 "2010-03-25T17:45:54Z")
> [@](#): > > Books? “How can you misrepresent a city in a book,” I hear you ask. Salt Lake City gets a lot of this. From the very first Sherlock Holmes story (_a Study in Scarlet_), where the Salt Desert lies to the _east_ of the future Salt Lake City to Robin Cook’s _Tabernacle_ (which gets the geography wrong) to many of the true crime books about the Hoffman Documents Scandal, most non-Utahns obviously don’t know Utah. The only one I’ve read who got it right was Robert Irvine, in his _Moroni Traveler_ mysteries. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/86 "2010-03-25T18:03:52Z")
I watched _Queer as Folk_ until it got too embarrassing. They’d obviously never even seen a picture of Pittsburgh. There are, like, _no bridges_ in the show at all. None. We never saw one. Let alone a hill. Then they went to NYC on a road trip and obviously actually bothered to go to New York and it was hilarious. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/87 "2010-03-25T18:05:36Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Sampiro writes: > > \> I didn’t realize Lima, Ohio (the setting of Glee) was a real place until recently. > \> I’m guessing it’s a bit Californiaized- anyone know? Bueller, Bueller? > > I grew up twenty-five miles from Lima. I E-mailed my brothers and sisters recently to ask them if they thought that there is anything realistic about the show. They said that they found it to be completely unrelated to the real city. At least once on the program somebody in the school mispronounces the name. It’s pronounced like the bean, not like the city in Peru. The only thing that has some slight reality in it is that show choirs are indeed big in the area. I’ve never been to Lima, Ohio, but I can wager a guess that they don’t build high schools with a bunch of open corridors in snow country. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/88 "2010-03-25T18:42:20Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > I watched _Queer as Folk_ until it got too embarrassing. They’d obviously never even seen a picture of Pittsburgh. There are, like, _no bridges_ in the show at all. None. We never saw one. Let alone a hill. A co-worker who had lived in Pittsburgh also said there was no such equivalent as the gay ghetto on the show. There are gay bars of course and as in most cities downtown lofts are popular with childless yuppie couples, but it’s not the Little Castro with gay restaurants/gay law firms/gay newspapers/gay everything like in the show. He was also irked that the newspaper machines were from a paper that had ceased publication years before. He said he did know someone who reminded him of Sharon Gless’s character but she was homeless and deranged. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/89 "2010-03-25T18:45:56Z")
The first few scenes of _Stuck on You_ took place on Martha’s Vineyard. It was filmed in Rockport, MA, though. Being that those are my two favorite places, they really didn’t fool me. Rockport was also used as Sitka, Alaska in _The Proposal_. There’s one building that has a sign on it that says Sitka. Funny, because it’s supposedly the most painted and photographed building in the world. I think the funniest one was an interesting use of Gloucester, MA. A few years back there was a scandal because a bunch of high school girls made a pact to get pregnant. Lifetime made a movie out of it. Some of the establishing shots of the town were clearly authentic, as I’ve been to those places. But they made little attempt to reflect the local culture. The only lipservice they paid to it is when a man greets a high school boy who’s on the baseball team. “Hi Mark! How’s your wicked arm?” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/90 "2010-03-25T19:50:23Z")
We constantly talk about how they get Salem, Massachusetts wrong. If you’ve ever been there, a lot of the older streets are incredibly cramped and narrow. But on _Sabrina, the Teen Aged Wicth_ and in the movie_Hocus Pocus_ all the streets are wide and there’s plenty of room. There isn’t a cemetary in the city big enough that you couldn’t comfortably throw a rock at any point from outside the fence – there’s no point in hiding there. Usually, people just take a few establishing shots, then film elsewhere. Pepper Mill is from Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, so when she saw \* Buckaroo Banzai\* she laughed her head off. I think the Yoyodyne plant they show is bigger than the entire section of Grover’s Mill. And there aren’t any palm trees there. The scenes of New Brunswick, N.J. were pretty clearly shot elsewhere, too. The first episode of the tV series _War of the Worls_, though, was actually shot in Grovers Mill. Right in the park that now has the War of the World monument, in fact. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/91 "2010-03-25T20:18:54Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > A co-worker who had lived in Pittsburgh also said there was no such equivalent as the gay ghetto on the show. There are gay bars of course and as in most cities downtown lofts are popular with childless yuppie couples, but it’s not the Little Castro with gay restaurants/gay law firms/gay newspapers/gay everything like in the show. He was also irked that the newspaper machines were from a paper that had ceased publication years before. He said he did know someone who reminded him of Sharon Gless’s character but she was homeless and deranged. 🙂 Well, I’ve been to gay bars. I’ve been to gay bars in bigger cities. I have never been to a gay bar that was on a street with six hundred other gay bars that was crammed to the gills like a particularly ripped Spring Break in Daytona Beach with people dancing, drinking, and getting head in the hallways at 7 on a Wednesday night. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/92 "2010-03-25T20:30:32Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Well, I’ve been to gay bars. I’ve been to gay bars in bigger cities. I have never been to a gay bar that was on a street with six hundred other gay bars that was crammed to the gills like a particularly ripped Spring Break in Daytona Beach with people dancing, drinking, and getting head in the hallways at 7 on a Wednesday night. Well, you’re young yet. Meet me in Midtown Atlanta some Pride weekend and I’ll… Oh, sorry, you meant “in Pittsburgh”. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/93 "2010-03-25T20:54:47Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > We constantly talk about how they get Salem, Massachusetts wrong. If you’ve ever been there, a lot of the older streets are incredibly cramped and narrow. But on _Sabrina, the Teen Aged Wicth_ Sabrina’s not set in Salem, it’s set in the fictional city of Westbridge (although it is in Mass). Although I’m not actually sure where her college is, it seems to still be in Westbridge, though the opening was mostly shot in Boston for those seasons. Given this, actually, it seems Westbridge is meant to be like Boston, not like Salem. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/94 "2010-03-25T21:20:32Z")
In both versions of _3:10 to Yuma_, they show Bisbee, Arizona sitting out on the flat prairie. The real Bisbee is in a canyon in a smal mountain range. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/95 "2010-03-25T21:31:41Z")
San Antonio, Texas. When I moved here, I thought it was going to be like the movies - a flat plain allowing Santa Ana tons of space to roam around as he encircles the Alamo, the overly large sun baking the hot dry land below, the only vegetation being some cactuses and tumbleweeds. Er… that’s more like how it is 600 miles to the west. SA itself has 31 inches of rain a year, slightly lower than the US average of 37 inches per year and a lot more than, say, Las Vegas, which receives fewer than 5 inches of precipitation a year. It’s pretty green here (well, greener than one would expect if your knowledge about the area comes from old John Wayne movies. :o ) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/96 "2010-03-25T21:32:46Z")
> [@](#): > > Sabrina’s not set in Salem, it’s set in the fictional city of Westbridge (although it is in Mass). Yeah, but I’ve always suspected it’s intended to be Salem. They actually did shoot two episodes of the old _Bewitched_ in Salem. I haven’t seen them in ages, but I’ll bet they only used a few establishing shots. You can actually buy a book in Salem about all the films shot (or set) there. Another one that bothers me , even though it’s a cartoon, is Disney’s _Pocahontas_. I want to know where those sheer cliffs and waterfalls are near the Virginia shore. And where the hell are the mosquitos? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2010, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/97 "2010-03-25T21:36:58Z")
One that makes me laugh, though slightly different than the examples in this thread, is the “Raccoon City” that features in the Resident Evil movie franchise - a fictional city, supposedly set in the US, but based on Toronto (and filmed here). The laugh? That, as every Torontonian knows, calling Toronto ‘Raccoon City’ is not inaccurate - there are more Raccoons in Toronto than humans. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/98 "2010-03-26T02:14:47Z")
Many of the planets they visited on the original Star Trek look a lot like Southern Calif. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/99 "2010-03-26T03:34:52Z")
> [@Tengu](#): > > …Although I’m not actually sure where her college is, it seems to still be in Westbridge, though the opening was mostly shot in Boston for those seasons… I thought Westbridge was supposed to be a suburb of Boston and her college was supposed to be in Boston proper. On one hand Sabrina did live on campus, but in the last season her, Roxy, & Morgan didn’t have any difficulties living in the Spellman house and working in Boston. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2010, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047/100 "2010-03-26T14:32:40Z")
The film _Penelope_ with Christina Ricci was filmed in London (and very very obviously so) but was supposed to be set in New York. The bit that confuses me about this is that it had no need to be set in New York, in fact given that quite a few of the characters in the film were British it probably would have made more sense for it to be set in London. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/misrepresented-cities-in-tv-movies/533047.md?page=6)