It is far too easy to find examples in television and the movies of your profession being depicted inaccurately, but are there any examples where you thought to yourself(or yelled so loudly that the neighbors called the cops 
) “Holy shit, they got it right!”?
Not my profession, but I’ve heard over the years that cops think Barney Miller was pretty accurate.
“Hacker” isn’t exactly my profession, but Mr. Robot shows some reasonably realistic computer security exploits. And they show actual realistic Linux command line interfaces rather than the usual fake made for TV computer interfaces.
I’m not sure about that. I think The Wire did a good job of showing some of the attitudes. Like showing different agencies arguing about who would take a messy case. Not being pissed because those damn feds are trying to steal the glory but actively trying to make someone else do the work.
I think it was more the minor cases Barney Miller mostly dealt with and seeing the same people.
Real Genius and The Big Bang Theory are both obviously exaggerated for comedic effect, but amazingly both nonetheless end up as reasonable depictions of physicists in academia.
I wish that I could give a good, accurate example for advertising, but all of the examples I can think of (Mad Men, thirtysomething, The Crazy Ones, Crazy People, What Women Want, even Bewitched) are all pretty inaccurate.
You’re not kidding about how bizarre it seemed “back in the day”. After watching Darren Stevens have to lose at golf to land a big client, I grew up assuming that everyone in the field was shallow.
But I loved the ad agency that a young Tom Hanks worked at in Nothing In Common. He had a great line that he didn’t have a half-finished screenplay in his desk… he actually loved writing ads.
And then they did a really creative commercial pitch that changed my attitude. Suddenly people in “the ad game” were clever, and fun.
I’ve never actually seen that film – I may have to give it a look. Thanks!
My wife (former on-air radio and radio producer) tells me she recognizes a lot of the personalities on WKRP, if not necessarily the situations.
My profession? OK I am not a delivery boy but Futurama’s depiction of Philip J. Fry as a lazy slacker is fairly accurate.
There aren’t a lot of depictions of grant writing, or even nonprofit work, on television. The closest to my profession is what Leslie Knope does on Parks & Rec – she uses grant funds to develop projects and programs. They do at one point show her with a grant application which she has cross-referenced in a multi-tab binder. It’s meant to be a joke, but it’s really not. A lot of municipal or government grants contain a ton of attachments and require that level of organization and presentation. When I worked for a community development organization, for a county grant, I remember delivering by hand, as required, eight copies of a few hundred pages stuffed into eight 3-ring binders and tabbed for reference. We packed them in a cardboard box to deliver to the county office.
After further thought, Office Space is probably the most accurate portrayal of my job.
I have never seen an accurate portrayal of lawyering - not in the office, not court - at least as I experience it. Maybe Rumpole? Mrs Piper, also a lawyer, says maybe LA Law?
Not Better Call Saul? I’ve heard it shows a lot of the drudgery there can be.
Not watched it.
So after advertising, I taught at a local tech college. Where my favorite part was insulting artsy Design students (and, to be fair, getting insulted back).
When I first saw A.P. Bio, I got my wife to watch: “Honey, THIS is what I do all day!” [trailer]
I had no idea my students watched it until I recruited them in a plot that would net me an easy extra class to teach. I announced that anyone who wanted to stay after class would get pizza if they helped me, and it would be “Our A.P. Bio Moment.”
Half a dozen of them got the reference, and said “THAT’S what this class is like! You guys, we have to do this!” So we watched episodes of the show while we worked…
…as did my plot.
Hugh Wilson, the creator of WKRP, had previously worked in ad sales at an Atlanta radio station, and is said to have based many of the characters and stories on things he’d encountered in his previous career.
Silicon Valley is a documentary.
I know I started this thread, but as far as participating in it? I worked in private security for the last 35 years or so, and depictions of that profession in the media are almost universally shit-lazy, psycho, idiotic, pretentious…but never competent.