# What TV show or movie gets your profession the most right? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 28, 2020, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688 "2020-11-28T19:14:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/21 "2020-11-29T06:41:16Z")
Lawyer here and yes it’s very accurate as to how a sole practitioner or a small firm life is. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/22 "2020-11-29T07:35:48Z")
The closest I can think of to an accurate depiction of what a mathematician does is one scene in the 1980 film _It’s My Turn_. The opening sequence shows a mathematics professor (Jill Clayburgh) explaining a theorem called the snake lemma of homological algebra to a class that includes a student played by Daniel Stern. Not only does Clayburn explain it correctly (as far as possible in the short time that this opening lasts), but Stern makes the sorts of valid objections you might expect a bright student to make and Clayburgh makes the correct reply to his objections. You can see it in [It's My Turn (1980) Snake Lemma - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etbcKWEKnvg) where it’s obvious that a mathematician was a consultant on _It’s My Turn_ and showed Clayburgh and Stern precisely what to say. Other than this, there’s nothing in the film that can be considered a good depiction of what a mathematician does. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/23 "2020-11-29T07:36:49Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > 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. Yet another not-so-reliable but fun as all get-out ad romp is _How To Get Ahead In Advertising_ > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > 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_ ? Haven’t read this [abstract,](https://www.jstor.org/stable/3481150?seq=1) so I’m not sure if this is up your avenue or not, but it compares three Hitchcock films to two books on the varying relationships between law and film. I havent seen, myself, the Hitchcock films _The Paradine Case_, _I Confess_, or _The Wrong Man_, but I’m sure they set a higher um, ahem, bar, than, say “…And Justice For All”. Olivier, Day-Lewis, O’Toole, Pacino have all had their hand in lawn-mowing at some point in their films, much to their detriment. Ill-equiped, ill-prepared, somewhat fey, flailing…just stay on the more thespian-y side of things, fellas. Feff Fahey in _Lawnmower Man_ does not mirror my situation either. I understand _The Constant Gardener_ is very good and I’ve been meaning to see it, but again…no murder/love story intertwined with the hedgetrimming. I’ve often experienced deep-rooted fantasies of cultivating a screenplay about lazy deadbeats hanging out in the golf course maintence sheds, discussing politics and love. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/24 "2020-11-29T07:42:02Z")
I’m pretty sure there has never been a single media presentation in any form of what the job of a Certified Public Accountant is like, regardless of the size of firm they’re with. At least, I’ve never heard of any. There might be various office jobs in some shows where people might be called an accountant, but they’d be someone in corporate practice, not in public accounting. While there are clearly angles for drama in lawyer shows, there’s aren’t really any when it comes to accounting. There’s a reason that it’s generally perceived as dull; about the only really interesting thing that might happen is uncovering a significant fraud, and that’s extremely rare and still pretty dull. Certainly there are lawyer specialties that would be just as dull, but at least there are some lawyers who would routinely get interesting cases. CPAs generally don’t. We have work to do for our clients, and we do it. ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/25 "2020-11-29T08:46:11Z")
I remember watching a movie (for a corporate traininig) about a real-life scandal where an insurance company had faked insurance policies, and they showed the acountants checking up on policies and going through files. That part seemed fairly accurate to me. Forgotten the name, though, should have been a 70s or 80s movie. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/26 "2020-11-29T09:46:56Z")
_Community_ is obviously a ridiculous and semi-surreal comedy, and the behind-the-scenes shenanigans are absurdly exaggerated. But from my experiences going to a Technical College, the clash of personalities and the regular gathering around tables and pairing up to get the work done was pretty much right. I’ve had an idea for ages to write my own sitcom about a community AmDram theatre, because my experiences there were just a soap opera of dramas, comedies, and tragedies. I think it would take barely any exaggeration to make it a good show. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/27 "2020-11-29T11:57:06Z")
As someone who works in technology / management consulting, Office Space and Silicon Valley (both by Mike Judge) get a lot of stuff right. As does the show House of Lies (based off of a book by a former Booz Allen Hamilton consultant. Up in the Air and Fight Club (the parts about Ed Norton’s job…not the fight club) probably feel closest to what a consultant’s life is actually like. House of Lies does ring true sometimes about consulting in the early to mid 2000s. What it tends to get wrong is it tends to over-glamorize their work. Yes, we used to go to strip clubs and expensive restaurants and drink a lot. But there is a lot of tedium, And the show tends to gloss over the actual job of management consulting, which involves weeks of long nights grinding through numbers to put together boring Powerpoint decks that no one reads. HoL tended to just show the “pod” flying in, taking the client out to a strip club or something, working all night tossing around buzzwords incorrectly (like “data lake”), and then they deliver some miraculous insight in the morning and breeze on out with some “look at what we just did there” commentary by Don Cheadle. That might be closer to how a sales pitch for the actual work might happen. But generally management consultants tend to stay enmeshed at their client for long periods of time, not breeze in and out of a new client each week. And I’ve never seen a firm where they travel in a fixed “pod” for years. Usually they are assembled for each client, based on skill sets, availability, etc. And they aren’t aggressively obnoxious like the characters in HoL. That’s closer to Hollywood’s interpretation of investment bankers. Up In The Air and Fight Club are probably closer. Lot’s of time spent sitting in airports and office parks in random, uninteresting cities, doing unglamorous work. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/28 "2020-11-29T16:28:25Z")
Super Troopers got it dead on about all the pranks, harassment, and hazing the new officers are subjected to. At least back when I got on the job. Right up until the day you passed your probation period you got hammered. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/29 "2020-11-29T17:29:18Z")
As a high school teacher with 35 years experience, I found _[Boston Public](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Public)_ to be a pretty accurate portrayal of what goes on in a public high school. Just… **concentrated**. All the stuff in the first episode happens, just not in the same school on the same day! Same same with the movie [Teachers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teachers_(film)). No show has ever gotten high school speech/debate remotely close except _The Simpsons_. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/30 "2020-11-29T17:43:27Z")
“The Last Detail”, with Jack Nicholson pretty much nailed some aspects of Navy life. The language that they used and the attitudes rang very true to me. I knew guys exactly like that. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/31 "2020-11-29T19:40:33Z")
Back when I did computer forensics consulting, it often was a series of very short client site engagements- we’d show up, determine what data sources we needed, get that data, and go home. Then we’d grind on that stuff for days or weeks on end in our own office, and the product of that would be a data set that we’d give to the attorneys who hired us, or to the forensic accountants working on some aspect of the case (the guys who were at the client site for weeks on end). And we’d get follow-on requests, etc… Can’t say that I ever went to a strip club as an official part of that gig. We went to plenty of absurdly fancy and expensive restaurants though; it seemed like the job was often an excuse to find the most expensive and fancy places within about 20 miles of where we were and go eat at all of them. As for the rest of my career in in-house corporate IT, I can’t recall a depiction on TV/film, much less a good one. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/32 "2020-11-29T20:02:17Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > _Silicon Valley_ is a documentary. I’m retired from being a data center tech, but Henry Phillips’ character was a pretty accurate portrayal of being a server-servicing drone. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/33 "2020-11-29T21:04:28Z")
My current job (logistics for a lab company) is not at all cinematic. It was briefly alluded to in an episode of _Law & Order_, and from what I remember it was accurate as far as it went (yes, we often pick up medical specimens from a lockbox just sitting unattended and unmonitored outside the office door). For my (relatively brief) military career, what I actually did, I don’t think I’ve ever seen depicted (again, not cinematic). For what I was _trained_ to do and my MOS was, an episode of _Burn Notice_ got a lot right, in very different circumstances. There have been a lot of military movies that have been more or less accurate in general. _Black Hawk Down_ depicted events before I joined, and I was not Combat Arms, but it was pretty darn accurate, from my very limited first hand experience, and from what I’ve been told by guys who were in similar situations. _Battle: Los Angeles_ depicted Marines (I was Army), depicted combat infantry (which I was not), and of course depicted extraterrestrial cyborgs, but the “realistic” parts actually seemed pretty accurate to me (at least up until the final scene). ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/34 "2020-11-29T23:44:48Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Back when I did computer forensics consulting, it often was a series of very short client site engagements- we’d show up, determine what data sources we needed, get that data, and go home. > > Then we’d grind on that stuff for days or weeks on end in our own office, and the product of that would be a data set that we’d give to the attorneys who hired us, or to the forensic accountants working on some aspect of the case (the guys who were at the client site for weeks on end). And we’d get follow-on requests, etc… > > Can’t say that I ever went to a strip club as an official part of that gig. We went to plenty of absurdly fancy and expensive restaurants though; it seemed like the job was often an excuse to find the most expensive and fancy places within about 20 miles of where we were and go eat at all of them. > > As for the rest of my career in in-house corporate IT, I can’t recall a depiction on TV/film, much less a good one. Yeah, that sounds pretty familiar from my forensic consulting days. I didn’t do much with the collections. Mostly I managed either the processing of the documents or worked with the forensic accounts using SQL and other BI tools to extract the info we needed. Usually when I went to a client site it was for a sales pitch or engagement kickoff. Strip clubs weren’t part of client engagements (at least not such that we could expense it). Our leadership had a kind of Boiler Room frat house mentality so every happy hour (which we seemed to have every other week) ended up at some Manhattan strip club. That tended to carry over to when we were on the road. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2020, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/35 "2020-11-29T23:51:40Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Mrs Piper, also a lawyer, says maybe _LA Law_ ? It’s been decades since I watched it, but as I recall they round-tabled new cases Monday morning and were in trial the next day or so. My vote is for _The Verdict_. Plaintiff attorney works hard against well funded defendant, who employs all sorts of questionable tactics just inside the line (usually). The case costs are killing him, his expert has “issues,” and he drinks too much. The judge, also (sadly) rings true. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2020, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/36 "2020-11-30T02:59:52Z")
Are you saying [The Accountant](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2140479/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_15) wasn’t an accurate depiction your profession? 😲 ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2020, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/37 "2020-11-30T15:42:52Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > 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. So, are you saying the depictions are accurate? ---
**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:** [November 30, 2020, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/38 "2020-11-30T16:00:01Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > 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. It’s not exactly my job, but another film that came out about the same time as Real Genius felt like it hit the spot about grad school – Ivan Passer’s movie based on Jeremy Leven’s novel **Creator** , starring Peter O’Toole as a Nobel Laureate who is, among other things, trying to clone his dead wife. It got the details of grad school (which I was then in) pretty much right, including the Pauline Baynes poster of The Lord of the Rings up on the lab wall, the infighting, and the frequent weirdness (“Sid may have the only biology lab in the world that has nothing _alive_ in it.”) ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2020, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/39 "2020-11-30T16:27:19Z")
Another lawyer voting for Better Call Saul. -At least some of the actions take involve huge delays - as opposed to the all-too-common 1-day trials portrayed elsewhere. -And they focus on both small and large firms’ focus on fees, and attempts to intimidate other firms/opposing clients. -Many lawyers IRL do not hesitate to at least skirt ethical considerations. -The supposed “I love the law” idealists are as uncommon as I’ve experienced in real life. ---
**Author:** ![Dark\_Sponge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dark_sponge/32/121_2.png) [@Dark\_Sponge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dark_Sponge)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2020, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688/40 "2020-11-30T16:34:09Z")
If you take away the humor the British version of “The IT Crowd” is amazingly accurate for those working in IT. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-tv-show-or-movie-gets-your-profession-the-most-right/926688.md?page=3)