‘What Does Hollywood Get Wrong About Your Home Country?’: 35 People Expose Lazy Writing Stereotypes
We’ve all heard about unrealistic Hollywood beauty standards, impossible-to-attain expectations spilled by the actors, and unrealistic film portrayals that sell fiction for the price of reality.
When you think of it, Hollywood is fueled by cinematic stereotypes that often include race, gender, and social status. Think of Asian characters shown as nerdy, super rich people played by almost exclusively white older men, and women characters used as a pillar for main male characters to grow. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Speaking of the other side of Hollywood's pathological deficiency in accuracy, we see many bold stereotypes about life and people of other countries. Like, that Irish people constantly drink beer or that Italy is one huge vineyard. And you may guess how annoying it is for people who actually come from there. So when someone asked “What does Hollywood get wrong about your home country?” people across the world had a whole lot to say, so you'd better watch out, Hollywood, and take notes.
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That the Americans are always the heroes in an alien invasion. We can't even handle putting a cloth on our faces during a pandemic how tf are we supposed to handle aliens.
Americans are Not actually the voice of reason during a global crisis
That all us Irish people are alcoholics. I am actually having a beer at the moment but that's just coincidence. I actually know a guy that doesn't drink, but he is a bit of a weirdo. Bloody Dave
If it’s summer in the US, then it’s summer in Russia. I’m not a stickler for truth in movies, but dammit, if you’re showing a sunny summer day in a green-as-can-be Central Park in New York, then there can’t be a blizzard over Red Square in Moscow. Come on people... this is like pre-school level science.
American: Our high school students aren't in their mid to late twenties.
Not every Russian is a gangster, an alcoholic, a sex worker, or a Babushka. MOST are but not everyone.
This applies to all Eastern Europeans, really. Most of us are normal people with normal jobs and the representation we get in American movies is so annoying.
That my world changes to sepia once I enter my country
No one says, "Oh what a jolly good job mate, splendid show, absolutely spiffing."
It's more like, "Oh you're a funny little w*nker aren't you?"
Not every window have a view on the Eifel Tower. And it's painfully obvious when they go to shoot a vineyard scene in California to pass for French countryside.
Appartments in Paris are also f**** expensive. A flat with such a view to the eiffel tower would never be in such a shabby state, and (EDIT, thx Glowworm2, not Remy but) Linguini would never never never ever be able to afford the rent (let alone buy it).
In italy, there isn't mafia in every city. Only 80% of them.
Im australian and i swear every movie I see where a person from america or anywhere else travels to australia they land in sydney or melbourne and its just a few hours drive to “the outback”.
It would take you a day and a half to drive from those places to the outback and that's only if you don't stop to eat/get petrol
We don’t all live in London, or talk like cockneys or royalty
That we in Southeast Asia conveniently provide the fruit carts that people in hot pursuit can knock over because we are strategically in the way. Dudes, there is always plenty of space to play chase without crashing.
Canada isn't actually just a frozen Tundra where American Heroes can escape to and live in a log cabin off the grid.
Everything, it seems that they think Spain is Mexico
Most American high schoolers don't go to a school so small that there's a single popular group that everyone knows and cares about.
My graduating class was 120 students.... While we didn't have 1 single popular group, everyone knew everyone.
British films often have guns casually yet its very rare to find a gun outside of serious organised crime.
It's not all snake charmers, cows and the Taj Mahal.
Honestly, do not recall the last time I saw an actual snake charmer in person... always wondered where the discovery and nat geo people got them from.
99% of British people do not talk like they were born in the 18th Century!
That every Puerto Rican woman is dark skinned with big butts, wearing hoops in our ears, lining our lips with sharpies, generally uneducated, and utterly psychotic.
Spain: we don't party all the time, we don't like bullfighting (most of us don't), we're not lazy, we're not Mexican, we like Mexicans and Mexico but we are from a different country.
Basically Italy is 90% countryside and the cities in the remaining 10% are roman ruins, old houses inhabited by septuagenarians or Venice
We are TURKS not Arabs! I am not saying that Arabs are bad, I am just saying that taking Turks or Turkic people as they are Arabs are wrong
Not only in Hollywood movies. Many people in Europe just think Muslim = Arab and don't even know that Turkic, Arabic and Persian cultures are completely different.
Not EVERYONE in Colombia is part of a drug cartel or mafia and not EVERYWHERE is a poor neighbourhood. We have some pretty nice f**king cities and some famous holiday locations.
Stupid Mr and Mrs Smith and their first scene about Colombia.................
We don't walk around in kilts all day. And that isn't our accent.
Mexico isn’t 100% desert
That we have some sort of cursed mummy thing waiting to happen. Or happening. And that we somehow need a pretty white woman to raise Bast from the dead or something.
It's not cold all the time in Canada. I'm dying here in July it's been 40C for a long time.
That the Amazon Rainforest is just a short car ride away from Rio de Janeiro
Everything. Apparently Finnish people speak everything else BUT Finnish and the culture stuff? Swedish...
That everywhere in the US looks *just like* southern california. I've seen shows set in Washington DC with palm trees.
We do not have palm trees, nor do we have people driving around with surfboards in their car
Sometimes I think they think we wouldn’t realize these lil details, but these lil mistakes in details is what makes you snap out of watching the flick cause you lost the imagination
That all of us are either IT professionals or we spend our time at spelling bee competitions, I don't know [anything] about computers, nor do I know to spell!
The Bahamas is just one big beach and we all say yeah mon, actually every country in and around the Caribbean is portrayed this way.
I've yet to come across a movie where Argentina is well represented at all, so I'm going to say "literally everything"
I'm Serbian. No, we don't own guns, and no, we're not in a war.
The fact that many Americans watched the Yugoslav Wars happen on live television over the course of a decade really cemented a negative image in many people's minds. I wish it hadn't.
State not country but believe it or not, not everyone in Texas has a thick country accent and wears cowboy boots
I can assure you that there are no sheep running around the sports car infested streets of Dubai. I'm looking at you Mission Impossible.
Mission: Impossible? After six movies, it’s obviously now Mission: Possible.
Bogotá is not a big wild jungle where we live in tipis surrounded by farm animals. Also, Bogota is not hot!
That we are all super cute and romantic people who will take you to the Eiffel tower after painting you in a park.
SMASH CUT to a sweeping aerial shot over a desolate, red dirt plain, kangaroos bounding across the landscape. In the distance, we see a solitary, dilapidated tin shed with a rusty windmill beside it and a rough looking old man wearing an Akubra and holding a stubbie. Music is the same as every Hollywood smash cut to the Middle East, except the main instrument is a blaring didgeridoo
Not all swedes are blonde and multilingual (almost all of us speak Swedish and English very well tho)
The Arabic dance in Aladdin, it's actually Indian with some modern / western moves. They only got the music right.
We all aren't Rastas smoking weed on the beach
The Netherlands
Our language
In one show they said: gaat hij haar een taxi gebeld)
Translated to English it says: goes he her a taxi called)
That’s not how we say it but okay
Tbf if you said 'Heeft hij haar een taxi gebeld' it WOuld translate directly to ''has he her a taxi called'. I mean the Dutch they used is wrong but don't translate words like Google translate does. Languages don't work the same way.
That badass cartel enforcers roam around working alone, driving classic cars, wearing shiny suits, etc. This is more like it. Bunch of poor, brainwashed, uneducated expendable foot soldiers on the payroll of a private army.
I grew up in Vancouver and they’re always portraying it as New York or LA, bastards.
We have other things then the pyramids and Cairo.
Thebes, Luxor, Valley of the Kings, The Nile, Suez, Dahab. Sharm El Sheikh, Mount Sinai, Saint Catherine's Monastery. Yeah, I had a great time.
That Jamaica is just smoking. They never really show the resorts and all of the nice landscaping to the fullest
In Chris Hemsworth's Extraction...we saw Bangladesh and India border divided by a bridge....that's not true at all... And the shooting was not even in Bangladesh...only the river was shot..
I feel you. Most of the movie scenes in Zurich, Switzerland are shot in Eastern Europe, a lot in Prague because it is less expensive.
Greeks don't wear traditional outfits, ride donkeys as a means of transportation and generally live in the early 1900s. We are fully living in the modern world, I promise!!
Also we don't break plates, dance all day and eat souvlaki all the time! But yes we are loud!!!
Load More Replies...Not every person who speaks spanish is mexican, because (duh!) most of central/south american countries speak spanish! And Spain does as well. And not every spanish speaking person *looks* mexican, because of that same reason.
Don't forget the Philippines! Nobody remembers the poor Philippines.
Load More Replies...Greeks don't wear traditional outfits, ride donkeys as a means of transportation and generally live in the early 1900s. We are fully living in the modern world, I promise!!
Also we don't break plates, dance all day and eat souvlaki all the time! But yes we are loud!!!
Load More Replies...Not every person who speaks spanish is mexican, because (duh!) most of central/south american countries speak spanish! And Spain does as well. And not every spanish speaking person *looks* mexican, because of that same reason.
Don't forget the Philippines! Nobody remembers the poor Philippines.
Load More Replies...