# Ridiculous portrayals of professions on TV **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 31, 2011, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375 "2011-10-31T13:52:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/61 "2011-10-31T22:11:50Z")
> [@Agent\_Foxtrot](#): > > In the case of forensics, I know nothing about the profession, but I’ve always been amused at how the technicians on NCSI, etc. always have the time and technology to run any test the cops ask for at a moment’s notice. > > “We need you to find out which tailor from the Garment District this cotton fiber came from. Once you do that, cross reference that tailor with any emails containing shipping manifests going into or coming out of Mauritania. My hunch is that there was only one ship sailing out of Nouakchott which uses pine deckrails instead of ash. Find that ship and we’ve found the drugs we’re looking for. I’ll pick up the results after lunch.” > > RL response: > “The best I can do is get you a pair of cotton underwear that might’ve had some drugs stuffed in them at some point. Fill out this ream of paperwork and come back in eight months after I’ve fulfilled the requests for the 42,593 New York City homicide cases in front of you.” I’ve been watching _Criminal Minds_ lately and they really go overboard on this. They’ll call their computer person with a request for something like “We need to know every sex offender who’s ever lived in the Cleveland area, has dark hair, and drives a blue van.” And they’ll stay on the line as the computer person provides them with a list of names within seconds. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/62 "2011-10-31T22:26:09Z")
> [@Inthewater](#): > > I liked the casting in Predators of Adrian Brody, as well as some of the non-Stalone actors in the most recent Rambo film, for these reasons. > > Not everyone looks like Ah-nahld and Apollo Creed. I loved that they cast a short, wiry guy as the CIA’s weapon expert [Mike Vickers](http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Michael_G._Vickers) in _[Charlie Wilson’s War](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472062/)_. Bulk is not a particularly helpful attribute in a war zone. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/63 "2011-10-31T22:27:58Z")
People I know who work in law enforcement say that cops/detectives/etc. laugh about how much credence is given criminal profilers in movies and on TV shows. For one thing they tend towards the extremely specific (“Best analysis is that the murderer is between 30-37 years of age, served in the military, has a tattoo of a dancing Chihuahua, probably works in catering, and may go by the nickname Butch”) and for another the real profiles usually contain at least as much totally wrong info as they do correct info (and the correct info is usually the most basic- if it’s a bloody crime it’s usually a younger male, if it involves weird crap with the body parts then probably a younger white male, and if it’s an obvious home invasion killing then there’s a better than good chance the culprit either knew the person or is on drugs). [QUOTE=Little Nemo] I’ve been watching Criminal Minds lately and they really go overboard on this. They’ll call their computer person with a request for something like “We need to know every sex offender who’s ever lived in the Cleveland area, has dark hair, and drives a blue van.” And they’ll stay on the line as the computer person provides them with a list of names within seconds. [/QUOTE] “DNA results while you wait” are another mainstay. IRL it can take weeks to get the results even from a textbook perfect DNA sample. ---
**Author:** ![Waenara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@Waenara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waenara)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/64 "2011-10-31T22:37:45Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Medical lab techs. Actually, the portrayals aren’t ridiculous so much as they aren’t seen on tv AT ALL - in the real world, anyone taking your blood and running tests is most likely a lab tech. On tv and in movies, they’re always doctors and nurses. The idea of a doctor coming into the lab and running their own tests - hi-frickin-larious! I guess someone picking up a phone and calling down to the lab to get someone to come up and draw blood doesn’t play as well as the doctor just drawing a couple of samples. I think generally any medical-related shows are horrible about their portrayals of non-doctor roles. Where are the lab techs, respiratory therapist, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, etc? If they’re shown at all on a tv show, it’s usually as an extra that’s there for 10 seconds or less. I’m a 4th year nursing student and I work on a medicine unit, and all of those other health care professionals are actually on the unit and interacting with patients far more often than the doctors are. Doctors show up for rounds once a day and might be on the unit for an hour or two, but they only talk to each patients for maybe a couple minutes on average. Sure, doctors are available to be called or paged if needed, but they’re not actually on the unit very often. As a future nurse, it’s strange watching almost all medical shows, since they usually have very few characters that are nurses. Shows like _House_, that show all the doctors doing the regular patient care are hilarious. There’s no way in hell a doctor will be giving a non-ER patient their medication, or helping them into a wheelchair or do rehab exercises, or draw their blood, or run the MRI machine. It would be the nurses/physios/lab techs/MRI techs who do all of that. ---
**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:** [October 31, 2011, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/65 "2011-10-31T22:52:20Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > …Not to mention that store clerks _always_ identify one of the suspects as a customer, even if it item was purchased weeks before. Most store clerks make absolutely no note of any customer unless they do something annoying or especially nice. Someone who comes in and buys a can of paint is not going to be remembered the next day, let alone weeks later. During busy times I had enough trouble remember a customer long enough to give them the paint they ordered 10 minutes ago. > [@CitizenPained](#): > > Carrie on \*Sex in the City \*always had enough cash for posh places and fancy outfits…but she was a columnist…who landed a brownstone in a rent controlled area of the Upper East Side. \ She had a stack of credit cards and charged everything. IIRC they did an episode where she finally realized she was on the verge of bankruptcy. The other ladies all had jobs (or family money) that could realistcly support their lifestyles (though IRL Miranda probally wouldn’t have had that much free time). > [@joebuck20](#): > > That’s a good one. Also many courtrooms you see on TV seem to be these ornate oak-paneled temples to justice, with chandeliers, brass railings and old paintings on the wall. In real life, courtrooms look little different than conference rooms, but with a judge’s bench up front. Think a lot of gray and beige with fluorescent lighting, along with beat up carpeting. Older courtrooms really do look like that. When I jid jury duty at the local county courthouse they had all the entire jury pool assemble in the main courtroom. It was huge Victorian room, with 100+ yr old wood panneling & furniture, paintings, and brass everywhere. It even still had the prisoner’s dock in the center. The actual trial I was assigned was held in the modern annex; that courtroom was _exactly_ like you describe. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/66 "2011-10-31T23:06:37Z")
TV writers are probably only familiar with writing, waiting tables, and professions they come into contact with daily (ie, barista). Everything else they do is pure guesswork. The only fictional depiction of life in the corporate cubicle farm workplace that comes remotely close to the real world is the movie Office Space, which was dead-on. I’ve never seen a TV show environment that looked like my job. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/67 "2011-11-01T00:42:30Z")
Several shows set in hotels (and a disproportionate number of shows are) seem to think that it’s common for hotel employees to live on premises. In fact this hardly ever happens at most hotels; the only exceptions are that a few (generally low budget) hotels have residential managers and a few resort hotels in remote locations (such as an island or a desert not near a population center) may have dorms. In 999 out of 1000 hotels all of the other employees go home (or to wherever they go) at the end of the shift. Of course there’s major disparity between jobs that will pay the bills in TV-Land vs. real life. In movies and TV a waitress at a greasy spoon can still afford a halfway decent house and car and even go out or on vacation once in a while- ditto a hotel desk clerk or a part time bartender or a receptionist. In reality these people would need spouses or roommates to even think about not getting evicted. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/68 "2011-11-01T01:14:14Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I’ve been in Security for over 30 years, and according to television, books and movies I belong to the dumbest, laziest and most incompetent group of people on the face of the Earth. So do you want to talk about a security guard who hooked his external hard drive to a secured terminal at a job site so he could listen to music while on watch or the officer who didn’t know what a strange liquid on an industrial site was so he touched it with his finger? Mrs. Cad has been in security for about the same amount of time. When a guard does something idiotic on TV, she gives a knowing nod. Last year I taught 7th grade and it was amazing how many of our work stories were similar. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/69 "2011-11-01T03:35:47Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > She had a stack of credit cards and charged everything. IIRC they did an episode where she finally realized she was on the verge of bankruptcy. The other ladies all had jobs (or family money) that could realistcly support their lifestyles (though IRL Miranda probally wouldn’t have had that much free time). And didn’t Mr. Big have to bail her out? ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/70 "2011-11-01T03:59:39Z")
Yeah, even Friedman (a real columnist) would have a hard time financing that lifestyle, and he’s pretty loaded. [Some Carrie math](http://the-frenemy.com/post/5366472538/carrie-bradshaw-math) ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/71 "2011-11-01T06:19:45Z")
> [@Pai325](#): > > Teachers. … but we don’t all have affairs with other teachers, … Of course not. You’re far too busy having affairs with your students. 😛 My own contribution – private detectives. They only take cases that interest them, they always get shot at and have to kill someone, and they never seem to present a bill to a client. Not that it matters much, because half the time they end up killing their client anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/72 "2011-11-01T07:48:30Z")
The Huxtable parents, for the win. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/73 "2011-11-01T07:57:02Z")
You can’t “enhance” an image and be able to make out small details that were blurry or grainy before. Totally absurd. If you have the _negative_ of an image shot on _film_, you can get more detail out of it by using a higher-resolution scanner. But with a digital image, what you see is what you get. Now, by monkeying with the contrast, brightness, highlights, etc, it’s conceivable that you could see an important detail that was theretofore unnoticed. But you cannot make a tiny cropped section of an image _sharper_ and _clearer_ by magically “enhancing” it! ---
**Author:** ![JessMagic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c0e974/32.png) [@JessMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JessMagic)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/74 "2011-11-01T09:08:50Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’ve seen a room full of prisoners watching cop shows and laughing about the way the writers got the criminals wrong. > > “You see that? He just walked into the liquor store without a mask and never even looked to see where the security camera was. The writers on this show have obviously never committed an armed robbery in real life.” Brilliant! “Hey, that guy sucks at being a criminal! Right, time to go back to my cell, I guess.” ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/75 "2011-11-01T09:26:09Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > As a tester, I found that hilarious. I’d love to enter that bug: “Level 3 needs tighter graphics”. > > Yes, games need to be tested. No, testing games doesn’t mean sitting there playing games with your buddies. Well, some testing does involve running it past testers who do play it, and make reports about bugs and other issues when playing it. Alpha testers tend to be employees, beta testers can be a combination of employees and unpaid gamer volunteers and comes in open to all tests and closed testing. I frequently test games and game updates for a few companies. Other companies run a test server that their players can log into and play the upcoming patches [EVE Online has a lovely test server.] Testing a server to overload can be fun - pile everybody into the server into one zone and see how many people it takes before lag is too high for gameplay can be a blast. In EVE when they do certain types of test they load your character in and give you every skill in the game sometimes, it is a blast getting into a titan and mining =) Makes me feel like Chribba! [working your way up the beta tester crew is a decent way to get experience in game production if you are interested in possibly going to work for a game company - they like people who can make clear and concise bug reports.] ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/76 "2011-11-01T09:28:29Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > The worst thing about the CSI shows (and similar programs) is the lighting. Every time I flip past these programs, the lab is always dimly lit when they’re doing there work. Not just the labs. I can channel flick past vast quantities of formulaic US TV copshow dreck the instant I can see an image on the TV screen, simply from the fact that every single interior shot in every one of them has utterly unrealistic indirect, moody lighting in the same warm tones. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/77 "2011-11-01T11:30:39Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > You can’t “enhance” an image and be able to make out small details that were blurry or grainy before. Totally absurd. If you have the _negative_ of an image shot on _film_, you can get more detail out of it by using a higher-resolution scanner. But with a digital image, what you see is what you get. Now, by monkeying with the contrast, brightness, highlights, etc, it’s conceivable that you could see an important detail that was theretofore unnoticed. But you cannot make a tiny cropped section of an image _sharper_ and _clearer_ by magically “enhancing” it! That’s the one that bothers me the most. An episode of ST:TNG (I believe) was the most eggregious at this, taking a sliver of a person behind someone else, then “extrapolating” the rest of the person. WHAT THE FUCK? Computers cannot deduce factual information that isn’t there. But yeah, we see it in movies and cop shows all the time. “I’ve enhanced this smudge into a perfect image of our suspect.” Unless you used Photoshop, the fuck you did. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/78 "2011-11-01T11:44:07Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > TV writers are probably only familiar with writing, waiting tables, and professions they come into contact with daily (ie, barista). Everything else they do is pure guesswork. Which comes back to my original point: TV writers get _writers_ wrong consistently. > [@](#): > > The only fictional depiction of life in the corporate cubicle farm workplace that comes remotely close to the real world is the movie Office Space, which was dead-on. I’ve never seen a TV show environment that looked like my job. **Better Off Ted, The Office**. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/79 "2011-11-01T11:47:39Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > You can’t “enhance” an image and be able to make out small details that were blurry or grainy before. Totally absurd. If you have the _negative_ of an image shot on _film_, you can get more detail out of it by using a higher-resolution scanner. But with a digital image, what you see is what you get. Now, by monkeying with the contrast, brightness, highlights, etc, it’s conceivable that you could see an important detail that was theretofore unnoticed. But you cannot make a tiny cropped section of an image _sharper_ and _clearer_ by magically “enhancing” it! Not entirely true. Filters using Fourier Transforms can improve things but not to the degree that it is used in films and TV. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/80 "2011-11-01T11:51:06Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > Not entirely true. Filters using Fourier Transforms can improve things but not to the degree that it is used in films and TV. If it’s information taken from a series of images (e.g. CCTV footage) is can be possible to use other frames as a reference for a particular image to fill in gaps. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375.md?page=5)