For those living in locales that were used as the setting for videogames, TV, or movies, what was the media piece, and how accurately does it capture the local culture, lifestyle, or scenery?

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GratefulTrails@reddit

I live in alaska. Ive have multiple friends on Alaska reality tv shows.

Unless its a nature doc, its msot certainly not reality 😂

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Everybody in Chicago giggle when they saw that S1 episode of The Bear where they were afraid of their neighborhood gentrifying when the restaurant is supposed to be in Lakeview. That ship sailed about half a century ago

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redjeremiah@reddit

The only videogame that has ever featured my area is wasteland 3. It's got the landmarks but I don't think it's meant to be a perfect representation. I did a little quick googling because the building with sheriff Daisy made me think of the Pioneer museum. Even though I've never been inside, it's one of very few buildings that have a large set of outer stair(stairs that wrap around a good chunk of the building). But it turns out, that the pioneers museum IS in the game, that's just not it, it's been converted to the heritage museum which is where you can learn about the extreme patriotic pro patriarch propaganda history and there's a robot hiding amongst the animatronics for a quest I forget what they call them.

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ShoddyCobbler@reddit

I'm from the Washington DC region and I'm pretty sure not one single piece of media set in DC has ever been accurate

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JoshHuff1332@reddit

99% of Louisiana based content is not accurate to regular, daily life. Except for Duck Dynasty among the country, rural folk, that is (particularly in North LA)

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iamasecretthrowaway@reddit

So... you're saying True Blood wasn't accurate?

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DiscontentDonut@reddit

The books are much more lore accurate. Particularly the wererats and wereswans.

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JoshHuff1332@reddit

God, that was the worst, and it wasn't even the right part of the state for what it was representing poorly, lol

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Tacoshortage@reddit

However, Red Dead Redemption 2's depiction of part of New Orleans down near the French Market was pretty authentic.

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HorrorAlarming1163@reddit

Are you sure there’s not a shack out in the bayou with a family of mold monsters? That sounds believable for LA to me

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Master-CylinderPants@reddit

Fallout 4- yes, we have mindless ghouls shambling around the North Shore and poor infrastructure.

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ucbiker@reddit

Fallout 3 accurately captured the hidden cannibalism and Lovecraftian occult of Northern Virginia, as well as the gigantic mutants rampaging through DC.

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Quirky-Invite7664@reddit

Also, the Exorcist stairs in DC (Georgetown)

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ClumsyRaccoonPants@reddit

The amount of times I ran up and down those stairs drunk and in heels while in my twenties and didn’t break my neck needs to be studied. For context, I’m clumsy af and I have fallen over while just standing in flats with no alcohol. 😂

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BipolarSolarMolar@reddit

I'm from IL and North Shore typically refers to the NW suburbs of Chicago that are on Lake Michigan (which is ironic because it is actuallythe SW shore of the lake).

Are you referring to this North Shore?

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TankDestroyerSarg@reddit

Not Northwest suburbs. Just North. Northwest would go Des Plaines, Barrington, McHenry... along Metra UP NW or US-14.

They're talking about suburban Boston, Mass.

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BipolarSolarMolar@reddit

Look at Chicago on a map. Now look at Wilmette, Winnetka, Lake Forest. Are they directly North of Chicago? No, because the shore of Lake Michigan pushes extends North and... you guessed it... West.

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Master-CylinderPants@reddit

Yes, yes in a game based in Boston, Massachusetts I'm referring to the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.

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BipolarSolarMolar@reddit

No need for the rudeness. I didn't know it took place in Boston. Hence the question.

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Master-CylinderPants@reddit

Im from New England, the rudeness is mandatory.

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improbdrunk@reddit

Do they have a license plate for that? Like a handicap plate but when you're an asshole driving people can be like, okay, it's not his fault he's just from the northeast?

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riarws@reddit

It’s called the Massachusetts plate

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Radar1980@reddit

We’re not called Massholes for nothin’.

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alxfx@reddit

huh, that's weird, we always called it the Maryland plate

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omnipresent_sailfish@reddit

North Shore is also an area along the coast north of Boston and south of New Hampshire

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improbdrunk@reddit

You can just call them Patriot fans, no need to get so personal.

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Lugbor@reddit

I've been there. I was shocked by how accurate it was.

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gardenofthought@reddit

The Night Shift was set in my city of San Antonio, but filmed in New Mexico. San Antonio is a huge city, lots of green spaces and quite humid . The show made it seem like a dry, rural town.

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DiscontentDonut@reddit

My Mom visited San Antonio on a business trip once. Came back saying it was nothing like it's pictured in media. The Alamo most of all. She said she was shocked it's in the middle of town.

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brzantium@reddit

Same thing happened to Austin in the movie Frank. the main characters come to play SXSW, but it was all filmed in Albuquerque.

On the flip side, my wife's hometown was the setting for The Long Game. It's a dusty west Texas border town, but they filmed most of it in lush, green Colombia.

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KalamityKait2020@reddit

I noticed that too! The movie felt more like southern CA than San Antonio.

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Sharkhottub@reddit

Im gonna be real here, Miami is a real life video game and GTA: Vice City, Dexter, etc downplay the general craziness that goes on.

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DiscontentDonut@reddit

Used to live in Tampa for a while. Family in Orlando. Can confirm. We were not hard enough for Miami.

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nsbsalt@reddit

I think GTA 6 might get real close.

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DiscontentDonut@reddit

NCIS - Virginia Beach/Norfolk, Virginia

We don't have any palm trees here. It's pronounced Nor-fik (millennial and younger) or Naw-fuk (Gen X and older), not Nor-foLk. Also, military police can't do jack shit. Even the civilians know that. They're basically just security guards who can shop at the commissary.

Our beaches are not pristine and beautiful, in fact every few years the local government makes some half hearted effort to try to drive homeless people away. And we're actually Southern af. We bleed sweet tea and our guts are made of Mac n cheese and collard greens.

There's a store they mentioned at one point, I can't remember off the top of my head, it's been a while. But no one around here has ever heard of it except on TV. It's a West Coast thing, iirc.

I think they did better in later seasons, but it's 100% easily detectable that the people who wrote it lived in Cali most or all of their lives.

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Tron_35@reddit

There was a kpop music video set in my small town, and the replicated our town sign pretty accurately, but thats it, everything else was just wrong, the video looked like Texas, everything was brown and the girls were dressed like cowboys and had six shooters, my town is in rural Virginia, surrounded by blue ridge mountains, everything is green here and we did not have cowboys. The video is cheer up by twice.

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LiquidDreamtime@reddit

I’m from a small town in Indiana.

We have upside-down demons but we don’t have hills or black people.

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Meat_your_maker@reddit

Well that’s because they based it off Durham, NC, where there are plenty of both hills and black folk!

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cephalophile32@reddit

“It’s where Cornwallis and Kerley meet” - I just drove through Mirkwood today, lol.

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Meat_your_maker@reddit

My coworkers used to play disc golf at a course on Cornwallis road. I went a couple of times, but frisbees are one projectile I simply cannot throw well

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Express_Vacation_305@reddit

sounds like a wild place idk seems kinda boring tho

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marchmay@reddit

Can confirm. Was one of the few Black people in Southern Indiana.

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mr_lockwork@reddit

Also from Indiana. All the hills are down here in the south.

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Saltpork545@reddit

They are and I really like it down here, so stay away. I'm trying to buy property.

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riarws@reddit

Black people live in the next small town over, where they are allowed to stay after sundown.

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Fappy_as_a_Clam@reddit

There's a game called Days Gone.

It's a zombie game and it surprisingly good.

Anyway, it takes place in Oregon, around Bend I believe. And theye tion in the game that they can't get rid of the zombies because more just keep coming up from California.

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RachaelReadsaLot@reddit

Nashville, Tennessee. Downtown Lower Broadway is pretty accurate. Pedal taverns and party tractors are everywhere. And bachelorettes. Everyone just roams around like drunk buffalo down there.

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hungaryboii@reddit

Inspector Gagdet and many other things were filmed in pittsburgh, yes our buildings are that cool

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RodneyBarringtonIII@reddit

Mushroom Kingdom reporting in. Please stop stomping on our turtles.

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DJErikD@reddit

Hawaii. Sometimes they film on the wrong side of the freeway (cars traveling westbound in the eastbound lanes).

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Special-Reindeer-178@reddit

Lived in Keene NH for a while. They filmed part of Jumanji there.

Visually, captures small town america well.

Realistically? Its a college town full of bars and hipster coffee places now. Any given night the streets are just a bunch of drunk college kids.

Movie is old enough too that no one even recognizes the downtown as the movie location either

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OJSimpsons@reddit

San andreas is the exact same in real life.

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Practical-Basil-3494@reddit

I'm from Georgia. The Resident was almost unwatchable with how inaccurate it was. Writers, look at a map. Will Trent, OTOH, is excellent, but Karin Slaughter, who wrote the books, is from Georgia. I now live in NC. I haven't watched Outer Banks, but I know how ridiculous it is - again, use a map! - because it's made fun of so much here.

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Imnewhereheyhey@reddit

OBX is filmed in Charleston, LOL. I lived there for 12 years until recently and recognized all the locations. Southern Charmed is laughably nothing like Chas, even though it’s “reality” TV. I’m Also from GA and The Resident irked me, as well. Love that Will Trent makes a seemingly purposeful effort to incorporate the real ATL/GA into the story.

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Meat_your_maker@reddit

Have you ever watched Kiss the Girls? It is actually set and filmed in Durham, and many of the accents are pretty solid (sadly, not Cary Elwes, though, bless his heart).

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casapantalones@reddit

The Resident was unwatchable due to the inaccuracy of the medical content as well.

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billwoodcock@reddit

I spent much of my life in the neighborhood used as the background of Pixar movies. Which aren’t known for their verisimilitude.

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BookLuvr7@reddit

I'm currently in a small town in Utah that was used for a progressive Disney channel show. They put a flower shop on top of a bulldozer, and it was perfect symbolism. The town has many people who are proudly rednecks and the reading level is as sad as the lack of Sex Ed classes.

It was closer to the Stephen King movie, or maybe the recent post apocalyptic story.

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TheMaroonHawk@reddit

Not there now but I went to school in Greeley, CO. Yes, it truly is the opposite of Hawaii

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n00bdragon@reddit

King of the Hill is basically a documentary. The representation of suburban Dallas/Ft. Worth (particularly Richardson and Plano) is spot on.

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killingourbraincells@reddit

Florida Project. Setting 100% accurate. My childhood was similar, perhaps a bit more traumatizing than what can be shown on cinema.

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sonic_dick@reddit

Florida project was surreal to watch. Im from an hour east of Kissimmee but we were poor so we'd always stay in those cheap hotels on 192.

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Folksma@reddit

Its always such an odd feeling when you see you unusual/out of the norm childhood shown in media

The first few season of Shameless had plotlines/scenes that hit a bit to close to home as someone who grew up in extreme poverty in northern Midwest city

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QueenKeyrona@reddit

As far as I'm aware, Kansas City is not in a zombie apocalypse. So The Last of Us (show) is very inaccurate.

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sonic_dick@reddit

I live in Jackson Wy, and the TLOU games and tv show look NOTHING like the real place.

They did a pretty good job with Seattle though.

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tasteofflames@reddit

Not on the MO side, but I'm not so sure about the other side of the river... /s

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voltairesalias@reddit

Yeah it's a much more accurate depiction of the locations that the show as actually filmed in, rather than depicted (Alberta, Canada).

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ALoungerAtTheClubs@reddit

It's very inaccurateso far

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PrairieFireFun@reddit

Somebody Somewhere on HBO does a good job of presenting Manhattan, KS, even though it wasn’t filmed here. The main character actually grew up in Manhattan and she wanted it to be accurate.

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Head_Razzmatazz7174@reddit

I'm from a small town in Texas. Yes, we have several older abandoned buildings downtown, but we don't have zombies.

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Ok-Ad8998@reddit

I lived in Cincinnati when Rain Man was filmed there, but it only hit a couple of landmarks there. I did bowl on a team sponsored by the restaurant (Pompilio's) where they filmed a big scene. Apparently there has been an increase in movies filmed there since I left, partly because of many blocks of housing that resembles mid-century NYC.

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JuanMurphy@reddit

Yellowstone is a Far Cry from reality

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Common_Cut_1491@reddit

GTA Vice City/Miami. I was away in college when the original game released. I used to play it when I got homesick, especially because it spoke to the era I grew up in and not the actual time of its release. I hear the newer one is even better.

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WarrenMulaney@reddit

I live in a maze filled with light dots and ghosts. I would say it was captured accurately.

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RollingTheScraps@reddit

waka waka

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Ok-Ad8998@reddit

I live in a small tourist town that was featured in a Lifetime-style holiday movie a couple of years ago. The storyline was a soap-opera-ish family rivalry that was complete fabrication, but they did get pretty close on the other stuff, particularly concerning the most touristy parts of town. Hired locals for extras and filmed a lot of it in town.

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KJHagen@reddit

They filmed several episodes of Yellowstone near my home in Montana. They did a good job with the scenery, but got much of the rest wrong.

People here are pretty laidback and keep to themselves. Things move slow. The violence and profanity of the TV show is not realistic. The was a big local backlash to some of that. (It was probably good for the local economy though.)

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SkyerKayJay1958@reddit

You don't shoot strangers and throw them off a cliff ? (I live a state over(

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KJHagen@reddit

We take them to the train station. 😆

You can hardly go anywhere without seeing someone carrying a sidearm openly, but people are polite.

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Kestrel_Iolani@reddit

Sleepless in Seattle is hilarious.

He casually takes a boat ride that would take a couple of hours each way in a boat that's unsuitable for the crossing.

But more importantly, at one point Tom and Rob walk down a hill with a big truck in the background. That truck is blocking a sign for a step club that advertised "Fifty beautiful girls and two ugly ones."

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SkyerKayJay1958@reddit

That sign is still up at deja vue in Lake forest park

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Tjayhc24@reddit

Living in San Francisco. Lots of movies/ shows take place here. The thing that bothers me most is the inaccuracy of the car chase scenes. One shot they are careening past The Painted Ladies, the next they are miles away in Fisherman’s Wharf. Shang Chi is a good example.

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SkyerKayJay1958@reddit

The Streets of San Francisco opening scene with the old (galaxy 500?) flying over the humps and bumps of the streets in hot pursuit

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invisiholes@reddit

As a resident of Pittsburgh, I promise you it's not as grey as they make it seem. The accents in some are strong but not everyone has one. Not everyone is a dumb jagoff. There is a big artist population and it's a very colorful place.

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Devilfish64@reddit

Living in Portland, OR. Ironically, movies and shows do just fine, but the news is all fantasy.

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strongly-worded@reddit

Portlandia?

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getElephantById@reddit

Portlandia was truer than fact.

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SkyerKayJay1958@reddit

And please put a bird on it

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Devilfish64@reddit

Okay, MOST movies & shows do fine :P

Portlandia isn't far off, as long as you go into it knowing everything is cranked to 11

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Apprehensive_Fall233@reddit

And honestly when they were filming Portlandia it was much more on point. Then a bunch of people moved here and it is less Portlandia than it was (for better or for worse).

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strongly-worded@reddit

Nothing set in Seattle gets how weird and queer and pretentious it is (I’m not using those 3 words as synonyms - this city is all 3 things, separately and simultaneously). Grey’s Anatomy is particularly bad. I stopped watching after season 8 or so but I remember in an early season, someone commuted to the hospital by ferry WHILE ON CALL. You’re not getting anywhere on a ferry in less than an hour. Commute to work? Sure. Rush in for an emergency? Absolutely not.

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11twofour@reddit

Frasier has pretentiousness and a fair amount of queer. Not so much the weirdness though.

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SkyerKayJay1958@reddit

Everything set in Seattle is a snapshot of a particular set of circumstances that exists then but the area changes so fast and stays the same is crazy. My favorite for being accurate at the time : Cinderella Liberty - back in the day gritty Sleepless in Seattle- the tourist view Singles- that brief moment in time we were the epicenter of music 10 things I hate about you - shoutout to Tacoma Twin Peaks- weird vibes.

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notTheHeadOfHydra@reddit

Also in Seattle and totally agree. Additionally most of the time it’s portrayed in media it is too rainy. Yes winter is dreary and drizzly but I see tons of stuff that is portraying constant downpours and thunderstorms, that just straight up doesn’t happen. And in summer it shouldn’t be raining at all.

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fakesaucisse@reddit

I started watching Greys Anatomy recently and it bugs me every time McDreamy says "ferry boats." We don't call them that here! Say "the Vashon ferry" or "the Bainbridge ferry" etc please.

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Kaurifish@reddit

Oakland is nothing like depicted in “Black Panther.”

Mostly because they shot those scenes in Atlanta.

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nowhereman136@reddit

Clerks was filmed in the next town over from me. Incredibly accurate for its time and characters

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meanoldrep@reddit

Watching Clerks just gives me a rush of nostalgia for hanging with my idiot friends in basements, Wawas, and parks right after highschool in NJ.

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Appropriate-Match160@reddit

I’m in the low country so basically that’s South Carolina into Georgia on the coast.

Most of the docu series about the Murdaughs murders is accurate. There’s been a couple different ones on hbo, netflix, and I wanna say maybe Lifetime. Lots of news coverage when it went down and during the trial. I’ve seen a couple YouTubers do a deep dive as well. The Netflix docu series specifically really captured the police corruption that many locals were aware of. It’s the south and people are really close in community which can be great but it led to certain people covering shit up for money and power. Scenery and landmarks were very accurate as well.

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InsertNovelAnswer@reddit

Some "Cold Case" episodes Some "Always Sunny in Philadelphia" episodes (especially the sports ones and the public pool one)

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FindjeanniePDX@reddit

IRacing used drones to accurately recreate local tracks and it is creepy to play after you have been to th e real locations.

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1337b337@reddit

IIRC Assetto Corsa did the same thing.

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FindjeanniePDX@reddit

And Assetto Corsa is a lot easier to get into than iRacing.

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AuroraLorraine522@reddit

The Pitt doesn’t use the Pittsburgh accent at all, or much of the regional language/slang.

But otherwise, they did their research and it still feels very Pittsburgh. They bring in the local culture and history in a way that I think is very cool. Like Louis and the Freedom House ambulance service, having an overheated furry (Pittsburgh hosts Anthrocon every 4th of July weekend), name dropping restaurants like Pamela’s and Primanti’s, talking about the Steelers and other local sports teams, referencing local events, etc.

And I LOVE the exterior shots. Especially the ones on the roof of Allegheny General (the actual hospital they use) with the skyline in the background.

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cutezombiedoll@reddit

Just from what I’ve personally watched:

Clerks is obviously an accurate representation of Monmouth County NJ of course. I mean, Kevin Smith did film it at his actual day job at an actual convenience store in Leonardo. Most of his films are set in NJ (at least partially) and they’re similarly accurate as he draws from his own experiences.

Bob’s Burgers is somewhat accurate I would say, shoreside towns with little rickety amusement parks and a lot of small businesses struggling to survive are common and in one thanksgiving episode Bob even goes to a cranberry bog which is an aspect of NJ I hardly ever see acknowledged despite us being huge cranberry producers.

The Jersey Shore is ironically not all that accurate, most of the actors are actually from Staten Island and even then they’re playing caricatures of Jersey Guidos, that’s not how they usually act and is not how most people in NJ (or Staten Island for that matter) act.

Futurama was right, New Jersey is not even remotely livable and no one should move here.

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freeski919@reddit

I live in Maine, and despite what Stephen King has written, we've only had one mass murder recently.

(Yes, the humor is dark here. So are the winters.)

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Lokisworkshop@reddit

I live in Maine. Yes, its creepy.

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OkayDay21@reddit

We were in Maine for a week last summer. It’s gorgeous. One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. My teenager and I went for a walk at sunset. Super great walk there. The walk back? I was looking over my shoulder like “how tf does anyone live out here?”

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freeski919@reddit

You can't be afraid of the demons when you become one.

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KricketKris@reddit

Breaking Bad. Wouldn't know about the criminal scene, but they sure captured the place well.

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icspn@reddit

Pluribus also. Although I can't figure out why a woman who lives on the west side would shop at the Sprouts on Tramway and Central.

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TormentDubz_EDM@reddit

I don’t know why anyone would shop over there. That Smiths got shot up and my apartment right over there got shot up a few months after

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KricketKris@reddit

And there's a Sprouts RIGHT there off of Coors. They built the Pluribus set next to my old neighborhood and I'd go to that Sprouts all the time.

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thenerfviking@reddit

I used to live in Vallejo where they filmed 13 Reasons Why and they fucked up the geography REAL bad. I understand why, they never say where the show takes place and it’s obviously trying to stand in for Berkeley. But man if you know where things are in Vallejo nothing is where they make it seem like it is. The sequence where the main character goes biking around town in one of the first episodes is especially bad because he covers an insane amount of ground and goes up and down several extremely steep hills. The coffee shop was also a set because we didn’t have coffee shops like that in Vallejo, it’s a much more “diners and greasy spoons” kind of place vs a cool hipster coffee shop sort of town. Closest thing was the coffee shop in the ferry terminal.

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165averagebowler@reddit

Town near me was used as a location visited in an episode of the tv show Supernatural. I don’t know if they thought it had to be out in the boonies or something when they selected the name, but it is barely its own town (in a practical sense it is part of the two cities on either side of it). They made it look like it had a cute old downtown which does not exist. It was almost comical.

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Imaginary_Smile_7896@reddit

I'm originally from Philadelphia.

The original Rocky really does capture the general depressing cruddiness of the city in the 1970s.

I graduated from Notre Dame, but I refuse to watch Rudy.

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3Duder@reddit

I played GTA Vice City while living in South Florida and it was pretty accurate. The Last of Us beginning part did not feel like Austin but I got the right vibes from Boston. Fallout 3 and 4 felt pretty location accurate, I do recall that the Alewife metro station is not underground IRL though, big mistake Bethesda!

I also grew up in central Florida so when I saw Jeepers Creepers I had a weird feeling that I couldn't pinpoint until I discovered it was shot maybe 30 minutes away from me.

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RhinoPillMan@reddit

That was filmed around the tri-county, right? I lived in Chiefland for a while and that’s where I was told it was filmed, or somewhere nearby like Trenton.

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3Duder@reddit

I've read that a lot was shot around Ocala

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Maxwyfe@reddit

Winter’s Bone. Southwest Missouri. Very accurate portrayal of the area and the Generation Meth lifestyle.

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Inspi@reddit

South Florida, the Miami and Fort Lauderdale region in particular.

Countless TV shows and movies. Several games. A wide variety of representations and the accuracy largely depends on when it was made. Big fan of GTA Vice City, love how they depict the different cultures emphasis on the 80s drug trade lol.

Can't wait for gta6 though lol.

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RotationSurgeon@reddit

The ABC series “Will Trent” based on novels by author Karen Slaughter actually does a relatively decent job of portraying Atlanta, as does Donald Glover’s “Atlanta.” Combining the two would give a pretty good view of the city and culture from all but the highest end of the socioeconomic ladder.

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kbmoregirl@reddit

The Wire does not represent the Baltimore of today. I really wish people would stop assuming that. It's actually a lot more like Hairspray tbh.

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Saltpork545@reddit

I'm about to finish rewatching the Wire. It's such good TV, but it's definitely of its time and I'm glad to hear real world Baltimore got some of its issues sorted out.

There's a little known follow up by the same creator of the Wire called 'We Own This City' HBO released in 2022 with an updated take and set in Baltimore(David Simon is a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun and lives there). I wonder if you've seen it and how you feel about it if you have.

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kbmoregirl@reddit

I read the book when it came out, but I don't remember much of it. I do remember hearing a lit about the corrupt gun trace task force though.

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FellafromPrague@reddit

Around what year you'd say it stopped being accurate to reality?

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kbmoregirl@reddit

Post uprising in the 2010s Baltimore started doing a lot of work to improve. The current mayor, Brandon Scott, who will be up for his third term soon, has done a lot of that good work. He isn't perfect, but he's better than the deeply corrupt politicians we've had in the past and continue to have to an extent.

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FellafromPrague@reddit

Do you have any favorite sights in Baltimore particulary worth visiting? My friend and I are flying tomorrow to visit the country and we haven't yet put Baltimore on our map but we are thinking about it.

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ferret_80@reddit

Second the aquarium, it's awesome.

I'm a history nerd so I find Fort McHenry interesting.

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kbmoregirl@reddit

Mt. Vernon has a lot of pretty historic architecture, like the Peabody Library and the Washington Monument. We also have a lot of great food, like Ekiben. Easy one day stop.

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riarws@reddit

I do! The National Aquarium is great. I last went there in 2016 but I need to go back again. The tropical rain forest section contains the best sign anyone has ever made on the piranha tank:

“Red-Bellied Piranha

Do not put hands in exhibit.”

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kbmoregirl@reddit

I will also add the caveat that Baltimore is still deeply segregated in parts, so this might just be my experience with it as a White Woman ™️

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Current_Poster@reddit

Well, I lived in Boston, and I can tell you that a) Fallout 4 took a bunch of liberties with the size and location of Boston landmarks, but b) I can also see why they made every decision they made (if they didn't, it would be both weirdly too detailed and too much space at the same time).

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balthisar@reddit

I'll speak for Detroiters and Hung, both of which centered on Detroit and the Detroit area, but, unlike 8 Simple Rules, Martin, or Home Improvement, actually made Detroit important to the series.

Detroiters (as someone else in this thread mentioned) is a love letter to Detroit. It's a great buddy comedy, good hearted, and worth a watch, even if you're not from Detroit. You won't love it as much as someone from SE Michigan, though, because it tries entirely too hard to fill itself with local references, which works if you're from here, but it just going to annoy your if you're from somewhere else.

Hung, on the other hand, has a lot of great location shots that are important to the story, don't force themselves onto you, and are well known enough to us locals that it's really cool to see them mentioned in the context of the plot. It's also just a good, fun show in its own right that didn't get enough exposure.

The recent series American Auto sucked and was not at all reflective of the region or working for an automotive OEM. Never heard of it? Darn, I hope my mentioning it doesn't send you looking for it. It's bad.

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Saltpork545@reddit

I'm from the Ozarks, born and raised. Moved away a few years back after almost 4 decades.

Ozark got almost everything wrong, including geography. Food, culture, music, people, it was all filtered through writing. The story could have taken place in Nebraska or Alabama and been effectively the same.

Winter's Bone does a good job with rural poverty that does exist and the homegrown meth issues that used to exist. It was also actually filmed in the Ozarks and lots of extras were working rural poor Missourians.

Sharp Objects was based around northern Missouri industry and small towns, but was far more reminiscent of small town rural life and the power dynamics of stuff like a single plant being the life blood of a place.

Ride with the Devil is about the Bushwhacker wars and is based in Civil war era Ozarks. It was genuinely pretty good and filmed on location. There's stuff that was omitted for the purposes of the story, but that's alright. It was still good.

Gone Girl is based around Missouri, but it's not really central to the plot. There's nothing unique that happens in the movie that screams 'Missouri'.

About the only stuff that comes to mind off the top of my head.

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BlindPelican@reddit

There's a scene in Expendables 2 set in my neighborhood where they show an exterior shot of a bar with a car going the wrong way on a one way street.

Drives me up a wall and renders the film unwatchable.

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RhinoPillMan@reddit

GTA Vice City is pretty accurate with many of the buildings and landmarks. Can’t wait to play GTA 6.

Other than that, many things that claim to be based in Miami are actually a little north in my area. All About The Benjamins was largely filmed in my hometown. Nick’s Bar on the beach, the chase through downtown and through the park, that’s all I remember, need to rewatch it.

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DrearyBiscuit@reddit

NYC is often times not NYC, just some street and they put up a sign that says "SOHO"

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LankyJeep@reddit

The Sopranos is pretty accurate to early 2000’s northern New Jersey culture and attitude atleast outside the mob parts, and sometimes including the mob parts lol

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yinzerthrowaway412@reddit

I just watched it for the first time and one of the things I loved is how it felt like a time capsule from my childhood.

Not the Jersey/Mob stuff but the music, cars, attitudes/ideologies, technology, etc. reminded me of how America was in 2003

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yinzerthrowaway412@reddit

I know the Pitt is one of the most popular shows right now but their yinzer accents are just so bad it puts my brain into spiral lol

The Last Of Us did a great job with the layout of the city

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Myshkin1981@reddit

Just how long it takes to get around LA is never accurately portrayed in media

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securityburger@reddit

I’m from the northwest, we don’t have sparkly vampires, only energy vampires

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SabresBills69@reddit

Fargo kills everyone….

shzrks feed of Massachusetts ocean front

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JoeMorgue@reddit

All the craziest parts of the GTA 6 trailer... actually happened in Florida.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtGWI1k0qhs

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Pleasant_Studio9690@reddit

I’ve drivers the waterfront in GTA V hundreds of times in real life. It’s still weird to see it depicted in a game.

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cstar4004@reddit

I live in New Jersey. Clerks and Jay And Silent Bob movies have 1990’s NJ right. Smoking cigarettes and weed, drinking 40oz malt beers, hanging out in convenience store parking lots. Pretty accurate.

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bearsnchairs@reddit

I was very surprised that GTA V had my local dispensary in LA modeled. It was an old KFC that was converted.

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CountChoculasGhost@reddit

I only recently moved to Chicago, but it is fun watching old John Hughes movies. Not sure how accurate it is for Chicago during the time period, but assume it is moderately accurate.

As an aside, one thing I notice a lot is how often TV shows and movies feature Lake Shore Drive as a set piece even if it doesn’t make sense. Like saying they are driving to Midway Airport, which is southwest of the city, but are clearly driving north on Lake Shore Drive. Can’t think of a specific example, but stuff like that is fairly common.

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srl923517@reddit

Yeah these are always great. I just watched All Her Fault (great show btw), and Elle Fanning’s character is filmed leaving work walking past The Bean toward Michigan Ave. Like does she work at the lake??

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Emmaleesings@reddit

Grew up on Kauai so Jurassic park and a million other movies filmed there. It's that pretty. There's no dinosaurs.

Live in western Pennsylvania now. Growing up in a tiny place I thought The Village was totally unbelievable til I moved here lol there is a LOT of forest here. Could hide an entire village.

Spent about 15 years in Marin county. Lots of shows filmed there. It's that pretty. It's not that empty lol. Loved the planet of the apes series bc I know that convenience store 😂

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C2SKI@reddit

The zombies are constant

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pfizzy70@reddit

Sacramento was the setting for The Mentalist. It was hilarious the way they labeled some of the crime scene locations! One that stuck with me was a McMansion surrounded by mountains labeled as what is actually a run-down suburb in the valley- no mountains for at least 100 miles.

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ferret_80@reddit

The Division. Aside from being empty of people the visuals of walking through Manhattan in winter is incredibly accurate.

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cheribom@reddit

Mare of Eastown felt way too familiar.

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omnipresent_sailfish@reddit

Every single movie and TV show that shows my neighborhood, even the ones that are set in modern day, portray it as a run down, blue collar, mob invested place. It’s been gentrified and hasn’t been those things in over 30 years

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Illustrious-Shirt569@reddit

Southie?

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omnipresent_sailfish@reddit

Got it in 1

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leeloocal@reddit

I grew up in Laguna Beach, and the reality show had a lot of really privileged kids who drove fancy cars and going to really nice restaurants, spending a lot of money on expensive clothes and Laguna was much more chill than that.

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WestBrink@reddit

Nobody really does a good job with Montana.

Most of it isn't as lush as tv shows and movies would have you believe, even the lush areas (consequence of a lot of filming near Vancouver) and we certainly don't have the weird quasi-southern accent everyone seems to slap on us for some reason (mostly a west Coast accent + a few weird upper Midwest intonations)

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voltairesalias@reddit

Legends of the Fall was pretty good I think - and it was filmed in Alberta so really similar geographically.

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JesusStarbox@reddit

Yes, Loki's description of the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) was very accurate.

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easy_Money@reddit

Grew up in DC and the Division 2 (game) is pretty accurate, to the point I could more or less get around without using the map. Helps that there are a ton of landmarks. They did a good job with New York in the first game too. On that note, the newer spider man games are also pretty accurate.

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jessipowers@reddit

Detroiters is like a love letter to Detroit. Everyone should watch it.

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Fukuroookami@reddit

Walking Dead - It's only like that during the holidays.

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Empty_Mulberry9680@reddit

I feel like this isn’t necessarily just an American question. Media is set all over the world, probably with varying levels of accuracy. And some places are used so frequently there isn’t really a way to answer - I’m in Southern California, lots of things are set here.

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HonestLemon25@reddit (OP)

Not at all, I planned to ask in r/AskTheWorld too. Wanted to hear American examples first tho

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General-Winter547@reddit

Parts of Starship Troopers were filmed about an hour away. Pretty accurate but the bugs aren’t as large.

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Weird_Squirrel_8382@reddit

A few movies have been filmed in Cincinnati's Over the Rhine neighborhood, but set in NYC. Milk Money was set in Pittsburgh but filmed in Cincinnati.

There's a movie called Dandelion that was partially filmed here. It was somewhat accurate in how live music at restaurants isn't the best way to be noticed and how you can play music around here for a long time but not necessarily get anywhere. I think that's true for most small cities though. She also ate an appropriate amount of Skyline and brooded by the Ohio River, which is what the river is there for.

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crafty_j4@reddit

I live right next to West Covina, CA and frequently drive throughout it to go to the gym, grocery shopping etc.

It’s the setting of the show “Crazy Ex Girlfriend”. I would say it’s pretty different from what I’ve seen on the show, but maybe I haven’t been to the right places?

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Sharkhawk23@reddit

Wayne’s world. Aurora IL doesn’t have Pam trees, the car sipike sculpture was in berwyn about 20 miles east. But we did play street hockey and Stan Mikita donuts rocked.

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Yesalmsot@reddit

There is no Big Boy restaurant or dedicated outdoor music festival space in Aurora, IL

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Empire-Carpet-Man@reddit

Bog Boy? You mean Stan Mikita's donuts?

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AfterAllBeesYears@reddit

Drop Dead Gorgeous. The town was made up (they went with Mount Rose instead of Rosemount) but they also visited the Mall of America, which almost everyone in the state has visited at least once. It's only one scene where they're looking for a parking spot. They're definitely at a mall in MN, but it's clearly not MOA.

They're driving around a flat parking lot. They should have been driving around one of two 7 story parking ramps on either the east or west side of the mall that have a total of 12,500 spaces. To most people in the metro, it was clear that they were at the Eden Prairie Center parking lot. (Although Mallrats was actually filmed at The Eden Prairie Center a few years before)

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Radar1980@reddit

I was able to navigate by landmarks and relative location in Fallout 4 and Assassins Creed 3. In movies they always mess up the driving in Boston. The best was probably “The Friends of Eddie Coyle”. Culture wise probably (although both are set in Rhode Island) the most accurate is Family Guy and Brotherhood, since that was basically the Bulger boys.

LA Noire put a lot of effort into making the city feel fairly real from a geography point of view. Some of the buildings are still there. Culture wise being so far in the past it’s not today’s LA.

GTA Vice City is pretty close on both.

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DragonScrivner@reddit

I live in the Boston area. Sometimes the depiction is great, other times wildly off. Same with the regional accent

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BeigePhilip@reddit

The Walking Dead was largely filmed in my county and the Alexandria set was in my town. Zombies everywhere, so they nailed it.

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Danibear285@reddit

Extremely

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Rockglen@reddit

Boston

Yes, and no. Seems like most movies (that I've seen) are really chasing the vibe of the city in the 70s-90s, even if the movie seemed to be set in present day.

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texan_robot@reddit

Hello, fellow Texan. I have never seen us captured well. Its usually Dallas culture set in Odessan/Amarilloan environment.

FYI everyone else: yes, Texas is slightly majority desert; however, that desert comes in about 5 distinct flavors, many of which most people wouldnt even recognize as desert. Also, a vast majority of our population lives in the Rio Grande Valley, coastal plains, or piney woods, none of which are desert at all. Texas is as environmentally diverse as any other large state, and our population is as well.

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oddball_ocelot@reddit

The Wire. Partially. Yes, that's a part of Baltimore and if you go looking for it you will find it. But that's not the whole city's life or culture. If you want to avoid The Wire and do fun or cultural stuff, you certainly can.

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Fire_Mission@reddit

The locales are just used as settings, usually just for the visuals. Very seldom do they capture anything accurately, unless it is specifically set in that place to do so.

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ThreeTo3d@reddit

There was an episode of The Last of Us where they go through Kansas City. At one point, it shows them driving past the amusement park. Then later they get stuck in a trap downtown.

But based on the direction they were traveling past the amusement park, then they should’ve already found a way around downtown.

Didn’t really break my immersion, but it made me chuckle.

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Athrynne@reddit

It used to bother me when movies messed up San Francisco area geography, but then I took on the mindset that they are alternate history where the city is like that.

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JosephBlowsephThe3rd@reddit

Pocahontas, and no, we don't have huge coastal cliffs to dive gracefully off of into the water below.

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martlet1@reddit

Gone girl was shot in my town. It makes our town look like a ghetto and an ultra nice place at the same time. Which it is.

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Jaqen-Atavuli@reddit

Vampire Diaries, Walking Dead, Den of Thieves, Avengers etc, etc. They are not trying to show our culture or lifestyle. They are showing what their vision is for the shows. As far as scenery, yes I recognize it. I go by the pond from a Vampire Diaries episode several times a year and I see the water tower by the railroad tracks in The Walking Dead often.

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Hikeback@reddit

The movie Hoosiers did capture the spirit of small town Indiana

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JohnnyBrillcream@reddit

There was a movie, Uncommon Valor(1983). Story about some vets going back to Vietnam to rescue POW's. The camp they used to train for the mission was in Texas, this is north of Galveston.

You could go North, circle back around the earth and never find this landscape.

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DadPuncher69@reddit

A very funny example of something getting it wrong is the video game Watch Dogs. Some of it looks a lot like Chicago, but for the most part it's completely wrong.

I've also been watching some old episodes of ER, and it's funny seeing how the hospital is in an impossible location and everything in the city exists right next to the CTA tracks.

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CheekyPunker@reddit

They filmed RoboCop in FT Worth TX. yeah it really is a shit hole, but they fancy themselves cowboys.

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MT_Promises@reddit

In Meet the Parents the "race home" between Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro perfectly captures driving on Long Island.

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DoTheRightThing1953@reddit

From metro Atlanta. The Walking Dead made the city look much smaller and more rural than it really is. They also missed a LOT of things that could have been included to make it seem more Atlanta. (Not a single walker had a UGA or GT shirt)

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mykepagan@reddit

The Sopranos would film in my town and the surrounding towns fairly often.

The culture was exaggerated and focused on negative aspects for drama, but it was not too far out from reality.

Also: my grandparents were all born in Italy so I feel compelled to say that the extended family never discussed organized crime. Not because they were hiding or keeping quiet, rather because it never intersected with our lives. We were not in that community.

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dhrisc@reddit

Imo the best film that captures small town Missouri is Waiting for Guffman.

Ozark kind of captured the scenery of the Ozarks, but in a generic way that is also recognizable as just another show shot in Georgia.

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PsychologicalFox8839@reddit

There have been a ton of shows and movies set in Portland, OR and most get it right, or right enough. Had fun most recently with Twinless, particularly scenes filmed at a small international grocery store a few blocks from where my fiancé used to live. My only gripe was that the main characters were shown doing a weekly grocery shopping there and it's way too expensive for them to be doing that.

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Narrow-Psychology909@reddit

Pretty damn close. I am from DC, and there are in fact many communities surrounding the US capital that worship nuclear weapons.

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ThePickleConnoisseur@reddit

GTA 5 drivers are better than the real ones

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Reptile2121@reddit

The mighty ducks, yes there are a lot of DUIs (but they don't make you coach hockey), and yes like 80% of people I know played hockey for at least one year. Also the mall of America is pretty cool (snoopy land had better vibes but nickelodeon univers has better rides). [Mall Rats was filmed in the Eden Praire mall, but I don't have any real commentary on that]

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Madness_and_Mayhem@reddit

Reno 911 is pretty accurate (except it is filmed in LA) we have our share of interesting people doing interesting things.

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Hooligan8403@reddit

My hometown has been mentioned a few times in movies/media. Its almost always a negative and involves drugs. Its pretty accurate as my city made a lot of meth. My current city it depends. Actual zombies? No. People shambling between casinos on oxygen tanks while smoking a pack of cigarettes. Yes.

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iCameToLearnSomeCode@reddit

Living in Colorado made horizon zero dawn really cool.

https://www.reddit.com/r/horizon/s/O9GpFYQHBv

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I_Weep_for_Willow@reddit

Highway chase scene in The Matrix, many episodes of Mythbusters.

Doesn't represent the island whatsoever haha

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Sea2Chi@reddit

I'm in Chicago, Southside was fantastic and my buddy who grew up in South Chicago said it was like Portlandia in the way that it was a caricature of real people he knew. The Bear was fine, more accurate about the restaurant part of the show but got some stuff a bit wrong about the city. If you fire off a gun in River North which I think is where the restaurant is supposed to be you would absolutely have an armed police response.

Shameless was ok, but their neighborhood didn't make a ton of sense.

The medical/police shows film all over the city on real locations, but are waaaay more dramatized than real life.

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mr_why_no@reddit

We have many Vampires and people live under the Boardwalk, it’s a wild place.

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Responsible-Care-388@reddit

Someone else here mentioned the Florida Project movie, and I completely agree. That movie extremely well captures many specific subsets in Central/South FL.

I have a feeling when Grand Theft Auto VI releases and becomes one of the main cultural zeitgeists of the decade, FL will be back in the limelight. I have a feeling the devs will perfectly capture it as well.

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TheyMakeMeWearPants@reddit

Varies wildly.