Intro
What are the worst and weirdest movie and TV tropes about careers? Hollywood loves to portray various professions in the same – sometimes inaccurate way – over and over. Whether it’s the computer programmer living a double life as a hacker, the baker who communicates through pastries and magically maintains a successful small business, or the way seemingly every rom-com protagonist just so happens to be an architect careers onscreen are more often a shorthand for personality traits than an accurate reflection of working life. Here are the most commonly misrepresented professions in TV and movies – and why they’re so off-base.
Misrepresented Cops
Movie and TV policing is a high-energy profession where officers get into gunfights nearly every day, hunt down a different comically evil criminal each week as the only thing standing between peace and chaos, and then kiss babies and help people with their cats as pillars of the community—all while delivering a constant stream of witty quips. On the more serious end of things, there’s the intense, obsessive loner who doesn’t play by the rules but just gets results, damn it. Most portrayals play into the “cop hero” narrative (which we have a whole video on), and if they’re not heroes, we get the super villainous bad apple cops – corrupt individuals who tarnish the good name of everyone else on the force, before they’re brought down to restore the integrity of the force. Cop shows and films also tend to focus on high-ranking detectives or hotshot criminal investigators, many of whom happen to be expertly trained in hand-to-hand combat and whose exciting day-to-day is a far cry from that of the majority of low-ranking uniformed officers.
But most media neglects the reality of policing, especially in America – where police are the center of a major culture war over whether the institution needs fundamental reform. And even if we’re just talking about “good” cops who genuinely try to serve the public good, you’re more likely to see a cop going after people for trivial transgressions, or sitting around playing Candy Crush than you are to see a guns-blazing action hero. The work that’s important to actually solving crimes is frequently incredibly boring and tedious—going through old documents, analyzing evidence, and talking to witnesses. For a truer window into this complex world, look back at The Wire, which finds highly compelling drama in the ways that police work involves filing paperwork to get warrants for wiretaps, following the money, waiting around, and actually examining crime scenes. The reckless cops of The Wire, who emulate what they might have seen on TV, are often the worst at their jobs. And the heroes in the Baltimore Police Department on The Wire are the ones who bemoan the politics and fake glory of the police game, striving instead to create a police force that’s for the community, instead of at war against it.
Misrepresented Politicians
Hollywood has two types of politicians: Either corrupt, power-hungry monsters who will stop at nothing to gain power, or crusading public servants who fight relentlessly to improve the lives of their constituents. In other words: angels and demons. Jed Bartlett from The West Wing, or the Underwoods from House of Cards.
When politicians are good eggs, they seem to have a magical ability to inspire people to do anything they want by giving a sufficiently rousing speech – whether that’s swaying members of Congress or literally stopping an alien invasion.
When onscreen politicians are bad eggs, they’re shamelessly evil and lying about everything. And their main way of advancing seems to be blackmail, murder, or other salacious crimes. We rarely see the nitpicking meetings, horse trading, and compromises that actually go into passing laws, running campaigns, or winning elections. For a more insightful look at how politics works, check out the absurdity of Veep, where this whole process is hilariously convoluted, and everyone is – unlike the masterminds of House of Cards and more like the rest of us– just muddling through. The satirical writing captures politicians’ common problem of short-term-ism, their tendency to view every crisis purely through the lens of how it affects their career, and how beholden they are to fundraising, special interests, and the random whims of the media – all of which is why actual political aides have called it among the most accurate political shows on TV.
Misrepresented Chefs
Chefs onscreen seem to have copious amounts of free time, which they use to make elaborate meals at home for their friends and family. Often, food movies focus on the sensuality and love that chefs infuse into their cooking in an almost surreal or magical way, even when they’re using their cooking skills to help other people around them. In reality, a chef’s life tends to be grueling; most people employed in kitchens work long hours in the evening and weekends – and when they’re off, they’re unlikely to have the energy or drive to cook extensively for themselves.
Restaurant stories also tend to feature lots of amazing genius Chef characters, who have an almost preternatural talent (and nose or sense of taste).
More recent portrayals like The Bear challenge the “lone chef genius” myth and pay more attention to how kitchen cultures can have toxic hierarchies and even subject workers to abusive levels of stress. The Bear also spotlights the incredible level of professional coordination, dedication, and labor it takes to run a top-notch restaurant (whether it’s Michelin-starred or an underrated sandwich destination). 2021’s Pig also plays with the Chef Genius myth through its main character, Nicholas Cage’s Rob, who’s a legend for his seemingly superhuman skills and can remember every meal he’s ever made. But Rob left behind his life as a celebrated chef because he’s driven by doing what you love, and decided that courting the fashions of restaurant trends can’t bring satisfaction.
Misrepresented Lawyers
Movies and TV shows about dramatic lawyers are a highly profitable genre. They might storm into the courtroom with a new, crucial piece of evidence, complete a riveting, intense cross-examination, or successfully speechify their way into the right verdict. But the details of the law are infamously labyrinthine, and the actual job largely involves sifting through documents and going back and forth quibbling about a particular word or phrase or protocol. Most types of lawyers don’t ever argue in front of a courtroom—and those that do spend more time going out of their way to avoid having a trial. Legal dramas often climax with someone dramatically pulling out a technicality or drawing out a confession in a heated courtroom showdown – but in reality, it’s rare that the jury is presented with some kind of last-minute smoking gun. The verdict boils down to how persuasive each side has been, and how the situation coincides with the jury’s various biases.
It’s no wonder that in 2022, the Internet was spellbound by Johnny Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez, who delivered camera-ready TV lawyer techniques while interviewing movie stars in front of a live-streaming audience. Which witnesses they can call and which evidence they can even present to the jury – something that’s accurately portrayed in The Girl from Plainville (dramatizing the trial of Michelle Carter, of the infamous so-called “texting suicide case”). Lawyers onscreen might also be depicted as valiantly putting their reputations on the line as public servants.
But in our world, the legal profession is sadly less often about revealing the truth or protecting justice, than providing a bastion of defense for the rich, who can employ legal tactics to scare others and avoid unpleasant outcomes for themselves. Proving this disconnect is real-life lawyer Tom Girardi, who gained fame for helping seek justice for victims in the real-life case that inspired the movie, Erin Brockovich, but is now being prosecuted for allegedly stealing millions of dollars from burn victims and the widows and orphans of plane crash casualties. For a slightly more accurate take on the law, check out My Cousin Vinny, which is taught in law schools as an example of what trials actually look like. Or Better Call Saul, where we see the differences between lower-profile lawyers and elite law firms that can bully others with their vast resources, and we follow smart but conflicted lawyer Kim Wexler navigate the moral pull between public service she cares about and the kind of soul-crushing but lucrative work that makes lawyers rich.
Misrepresented Scientists
Scientists spend their time pouring different liquids into tubes to rapidly invent world-changing new technologies and medicines – right? That’s certainly the impression we’d get from Doc Brown in Back to the Future, Tony Stark’s run as Iron Man, or the various scientific specialties of the Ghostbusters. But contrary to what film and TV often suggest, scientists are rarely one-man-operations who are playing God with their test tubes; they work in a vast range of scientific jobs – from biochemist to environmental scientist, to medical scientist – and are more likely to be one cog in a big corporate machine in a field like Big Pharma. And scientific research and experiments are rarely that quick or sexy. Decades of research can stall and go nowhere, while some of the biggest advances in science have happened entirely by accident.
The Dropout – dramatizing Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes’ fall from grace – underlines how our common assumptions about the speed at which science moves can be dangerous. Holmes sells her investors on the promise of achieving her vision rapidly and then feels pressure to fake results her company is still years away from obtaining. Search Party offers a more comedic send-up of these false expectations of science: After a team of accomplished scientists tells the main character Dory that they’re very far away from coming up with a pill that can deliver enlightenment, she tries to rush the process by turning to an online science influencer who’s willing to skip steps and take wilder risks. The result is so catastrophic they create actual zombies.
Movies and TV also love to depict scientists experimenting on their own bodies. There is a documented history of self-experimentation in past science, but it’s hardly a common practice today – and movies and TV make it seem like scientists are always using themselves as test subjects. Scientists frequently have villain origin stories that involve self-experimentation – from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to Norman Osborne turning himself into the Green Goblin in Spider-Man. And perhaps this makes sense since trying out crazy things on your own body is unlikely to pass the ethical and professional standards of most labs – and (as these villains prove) really isn’t a good idea!
Conclusion
Which professions do you think film and TV get the most wrong about – doctors, nannies, stay-at-home parents, influencers, programmers, or journalists? Let us know which you think we should cover next.
Sources
Cannon, Marcus. “Accidental Scientific Discoveries and Breakthroughs.” InterFocus Lab Furniture, 5 Jan. 2022, https://www.mynewlab.com/blog/accidental-scientific-discoveries-and-breakthroughs/.
Eakin, Marah, et al. “Everyone’s an Architect: 11 Jobs Common Only in Romantic Comedies.” The A.V. Club, 15 Dec. 2020, https://www.avclub.com/everyone-s-an-architect-11-jobs-common-only-in-romanti-1798266423
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Kurland, Daniel. “15 Police Shows, Ranked from Least to Most Accurate.” TheThings, 25 Mar. 2020, https://www.thethings.com/police-shows-ranked-by-accuracy/.
Molloy, Tim. “Obama Aides Say ‘Veep’ More Accurate than ‘West Wing,’ ‘House of Cards’.” The Wrap, 14 Apr. 2017, https://www.thewrap.com/obama-aides-say-veep-accurate-west-wing-house-cards/.
Thieme, Kat. “Which Medical Shows Are Most Realistic? Ranking ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ ‘the Good Doctor’ & More.” TV Insider, 5 July 2022, https://www.tvinsider.com/gallery/realistic-accurate-medical-tv-shows/#11.
Traves, Lindsay. “30 Years after Its Release, My Cousin Vinny Is Still One of the Best Legal Movies of All Time.” SlashFilm, 16 Mar. 2022, https://www.slashfilm.com/800487/30-years-after-its-release-my-cousin-vinny-is-still-one-of-the-best-legal-movies-of-all-time/.