# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/81 "2011-11-01T12:54:05Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > 1. All these stupid cliches about writers and created . . . by \*writers[/I By \*TV \*writers - who probably envy and resent actual authors (you know, REAL writers). ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/82 "2011-11-01T17:26:02Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > By \*TV \*writers - who probably envy and resent actual authors (you know, REAL writers). Except it may be the other way around. J. Michael Straczynski (creator of Babylon 5) tells stories about how he was continually rejected by the SF writers of America because he wrote for television and therefore wasn’t a “real” writer (though of course he claimed that what he did was far more difficult than what they did). He claims he was told that it was because he got paid thousands of dollars for a script while they only got pennies per word ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/83 "2011-11-01T17:30:04Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > And _three_ ghosts? That’s TV writing, not novel writing. Even given the assumption, why pay three people when one can do the job? > **[Change Your Password Before You Fire Your Twitter Ghostwriter](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/09/change-your-password-you-fire-your-twitter-ghostwriter/337606/)** > > Mark Davidson didn't, so things got drunk and hilarious this morning Sometimes three is one too many. ---
**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:** [November 1, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/84 "2011-11-01T17:48:38Z")
> [@JessMagic](#): > > Brilliant! > > “Hey, that guy sucks at being a criminal! Right, time to go back to my cell, I guess.” Prisons are full of people who are experts at performing crimes poorly. ---
**Author:** ![vislor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vislor/32/5933_2.png) [@vislor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vislor)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/85 "2011-11-01T17:58:16Z")
Another IT person here. All IT people know how to hack past a firewall, write a perfect program, find the exact data needed and put it on a program that can be run from a flash drive. And it only takes minutes! I love how a computer can tell how far along I am in programming something! (If it knows that, it can program it!) My own experience. I had a kidney stone and it was removed this past January. They told me they would call me with the results of what it is made of, to know what to avoid to create more. I haven’t heard from them ten months later. So much for same day results! My own rant: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. As far as I can tell, this went downhill due to writers/actors saying that it “wasn’t real” and that what actually happened in an “SNL” like show couldn’t be done on network TV. None of that was the point of this show and it created characters and situations that I loved. It didn’t get the ratings, though, so it didn’t last. The nature of TV. (30 Rock started at the same time and I finally watched the first five episodes via netflix. I didn’t like it and didn’t think it was funny. It’s not my show. Again, the nature of TV.) In general, I don’t think ANY profession is shown accurately. And it shouldn’t. I don’t watch a TV show about X to watch them sit at their desk most of the time, typing! I want the drama. Sure, a show could talk about that aspect of it and show the crime but as someone else said, how do they only have one crime at a time? So, it’s simplified for the drama. I can accept that. ---
**Author:** ![SecretaryofEvil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@SecretaryofEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecretaryofEvil)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/86 "2011-11-01T18:07:08Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > The OP was watching CSI:Miami and it’s the way _writers_ are portrayed that bothers him enough to post? I’d think the first profession I’d notice portrayed ridiculously on CSI:Miami would be CSI workers. I was going to write the exact same thing. I watched an episode of CSI one time. It had the same guy performing a DNA test, reconstructing a bomb, and kicking down a suspect’s door while carrying a pistol. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/87 "2011-11-01T18:52:35Z")
> [@tanstaafl](#): > > Except it may be the other way around. > > J. Michael Straczynski (creator of Babylon 5) tells stories about how he was continually rejected by the SF writers of America because he wrote for television and therefore wasn’t a “real” writer (though of course he claimed that what he did was far more difficult than what they did). He claims he was told that it was because he got paid thousands of dollars for a script while they only got pennies per word The fact that TV writers make a lot more money than most authors can mean that, in their minds, they’re whores rather than artists. What better way to deal with the guilt of selling out than by claiming that all writers are actually sellouts? ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/88 "2011-11-01T18:53:10Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > But the smoking in the teachers lounge, ala Simpsons, was a fact when I was younger. It was even considered good form to find out your teacher’s brand and give her a carton for Christmas. I remember going into the teachers lounge a couple times while in grade school and having trouble finding my teacher through the cigarette smoke. I’m quite sure that though the room has not been used in years it likely still smells like coffee and cigarettes. ---
**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, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/89 "2011-11-01T19:26:02Z")
> [@tanstaafl](#): > > Except it may be the other way around. > > J. Michael Straczynski (creator of Babylon 5) tells stories about how he was continually rejected by the SF writers of America because he wrote for television and therefore wasn’t a “real” writer (though of course he claimed that what he did was far more difficult than what they did). He claims he was told that it was because he got paid thousands of dollars for a script while they only got pennies per word As a former treasurer of the Science Fiction Writers of America and the one who made decisions about membership during my tenure (and who was on the membership committee for several years after that), I can say with authority that Straczynski is wrong. SFWA is an organization of book and short story authors. If he got a book or three short stories published, he would be we eligible for membership. (Alan Brennert, for instance, makes most of his money as a Hollywood screenwriter, but is eligible for SFWA because he has also published novels and short stories). Further, SFWA makes no judgment on the quality of anyone’s writing. You can be a hack or a Nobel Prize winner, but you still need to meet the qualifications of the organization. Saying he was kept out is like saying that a science fiction book author was unfairly prevented from joining the Writers Guild of America, which Straczynski is a member of. He would never let me into the WGA because I don’t qualify; he can’t join SFWA for the same reason. Straczynski is welcome to join if he meets the qualifications. No one says he’s not a real writer, just that, as a screenwriter, his interests are not the same as that of book and short story writers. SFWA once let someone in and ignored its own rules for qualifications. The resultant shitstorm means that we do not bend the rules for anyone. > [@Alessan](#): > > The fact that TV writers make a lot more money than most authors can mean that, in their minds, they’re whores rather than artists. What better way to deal with the guilt of selling out than by claiming that all writers are actually sellouts? This statement hasn’t the slightest relationship to the facts. As I pointed out, Alan Brennert makes far more money with screenplays and is a member (I seem to recall he was an officer at one point). ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/90 "2011-11-01T19:58:08Z")
> [@Wallenstein](#): > > 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. …which is actually far more interesting then the “Enhance!” crap they do air. Take a few seconds to show the blurry pixels of a license plate being motion tracked, then how the layers are stacked and ultimately how the the higher resolution image is made even though no single frame got the whole thing. And even toss in a reference to how NASA scientists came up with this technology to analyse the Challenger footage (and how [one company](http://www.salientstills.com/) bought exclusive rights to this software the taxpayers **already paid for** …grrrr.) ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/91 "2011-11-01T20:11:32Z")
Ted Mosby as an architect on _How I Met Your Mother_. Apparently he’s designing an entire bank office tower… by himself. I think he’s gotten as far as one exterior rendering and even landed the job with it. He makes Mike Brady look competent. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/92 "2011-11-01T20:50:28Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > The only thing wrong with condensing and shortcuts is that there are an awful lot of people out there who think that is the way it works in real life. As a professional cook, this is why so many TV/movie restaurant portrayals bug the shit out of me. In so many cases, you’ll see the characters enter a cozy little restaurant that seats less than 100 people (which doesn’t require that much space - I used to work in a tiny corner diner and one day I counted the seats and was surprised to discover we could comfortably seat 90). So they’re in this little restaurant, and for one reason or another they’re suddenly forced to flee the restaurant by way of the kitchen. And the kitchen we’re shown is a large, open, gleaming space, all white and stainless steel, filled with all manner of modern restaurant equipment, and staffed by a dozen white-clad chefs. The reality is that the kitchen they show us is not, in real life, attached to the dining room they show us. In reality, that nice, cozy little restaurant has a cramped kitchen with broken-down old equipment and one harried cook, maybe two. This is because restaurant owners always have money to remodel or expand the dining room every couple years, but there’s just never enough money to fix up the kitchen. Of course, I realize why they show kitchens the way they do. You simply couldn’t fit a TV or film camera crew and the necessary gear into many of the kitchens I’ve worked in, so they’ll choose a restaurant with a dining rom that has the look they want, and then film the kitchen scene in what amounts to a banquet facility like the one I work in now at the local convention center, where there’s plenty of room. Where this becomes a problem is that it gives the impression that there’s no problem with people showing up at one of these small restaurants in a party of 30, without calling ahead, because they’ve been subconsciously led to think there’s enough staff to handle that. A couple years ago at the convention center, we hosted a three-day convention for several hundred people from out of town. The group, when they booked (far in advance) elected to not have us prepare three meals a day, choosing instead to leave lunch open each day and have attendees get their own lunches at local restaurants. A couple weeks later we got a letter from the lady who booked the event, _berating_ us because these _other_ local restaurants were unprepared for the large number of convention-goers who descended on them. She thought we should have informed these restaurants so that they’d be ready and could schedule “extra staff”. Aside from the fact that the convention bureau actually _does_ send a schedule of events to local businesses for exactly this reason, once that’s done it’s out of our hands. The lady apparently didn’t understand that a restaurant can’t schedule “extra staff” that it doesn’t have. Like the small deli/cafe directly across the street from us that apparently bore the brunt of this crowd. They’re only open a few hours a day, and it’s probable that their entire staff was already scheduled as normal. It’s not like they’re going to hire extra people just for three days of 2-hour shifts. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/93 "2011-11-01T21:15:11Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > . > > This statement hasn’t the slightest relationship to the facts. As I pointed out, Alan Brennert makes far more money with screenplays and is a member (I seem to recall he was an officer at one point). I was speaking in general terms about how TV writers might feel inferior to book writers, even though they often make more money. Nothing to do with JMS. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/94 "2011-11-01T22:08:27Z")
At very least, do TV and movies portray the production of TV and movies accurately? ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/95 "2011-11-01T22:18:19Z")
No. Because the producers of TV and movies know that the surest way to bore an audience is to accurately recreate real life. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/96 "2011-11-01T23:33:28Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > 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. Yes, but 99% of professional game testing involves incredible amounts of tedious repetition, even if you’re lucky enough to work on a game that has a robust beta testing cycle. Most of your work is on broken half-builds of games that would be pretty unplayable even if they worked properly. Game testers don’t sit on a couch and whale on their friends in _Halo_. Generally, you’re sitting in a cubicle, playing a bargain-rate version of _My Little Pony_ that crashes every fifteen minutes. And you do it for unbelievable hours at very, very little pay. And while game testing is a good entry-level position in the game industry, it also attracts a stunning array of losers, idiots, and outright loons. A friend of mine tells a story about applying for a testing position right out of high school. His first “real” job. He shows up for the interview in a suit and a tie, with his resume in a briefcase. Interviewing for the same job was a guy who showed up wearing a bathrobe, with his resume crumpled up in his pocket. They both got hired - although bathrobe guy got fired in the first week for lighting up a joint at his desk. Anyway, along these lines I offer up the film _Grandma’s Boy_, about a game tester who, in his spare time, creates a triple-A quality first person shooter, using nothing more than his X-Box and a gamepad. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/97 "2011-11-02T05:47:52Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > Because the producers of TV and movies know that the surest way to bore an audience is to accurately recreate real life. But that’s what frustrates me about the “darkly lit labs” thing. I understand that writers have to deviate from reality to entertain people. How does underlighting the lab make the show more entertaining? It just makes the show gloomier and harder to see. Why do shows still always do this? ---
**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 2, 2011, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/98 "2011-11-02T05:56:19Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > But that’s what frustrates me about the “darkly lit labs” thing. I understand that writers have to deviate from reality to entertain people. How does underlighting the lab make the show more entertaining? It just makes the show gloomier and harder to see. Why do shows still always do this? Bright fluorescent strip lighting looks really bad on video. Plus, the people will look bad. IMO it’s not done to establish a mood, it’s done for visual quality. Fluorescents also can interfere with audio recording by introducing a buzz. ---
**Author:** ![Shmendrik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shmendrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shmendrik)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/99 "2011-11-02T05:58:22Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > The idea of a doctor coming into the lab and running their own tests - hi-frickin-larious! . Not entirely. It’s certainly less common than it was a few decades ago, but there are doctors who do still do so, sometimes even in a hospital setting. ---
**Author:** ![dwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwyr/32/363_2.png) [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375/100 "2011-11-02T07:08:46Z")
In 24 years of working in hospital labs I have only ever seen one doctor, an intern, in the lab actually doing something. He was trying to make a Gram stained slide. It was painful to watch. There’s very little in the lab in general that’s not automated to some degree or other nowadays and the running the instrumentation, and knowing if the results you’re getting are valid or not, takes a bit more skill than just pushing buttons. A decent Med Tech wouldn’t let a Doctor anywhere near their instruments, they’re not trained. Why should they be? Lab work isn’t their job. Even the pathologists who are in charge of the lab couldn’t run the instruments. Their area is mainly microscopy, tissue examinations, interpretations, and the like. And finally, anyone who performs any testing in the lab has to be trained and documented as proficient or bad stuff will happen. The accrediting agencies and inspectors do not like that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ridiculous-portrayals-of-professions-on-tv/601375.md?page=6)