A common tip given to writers is to write what you know — for accuracy’s sake!
But all too often, screenwriters will choose settings that they don’t really know much about, causing misconceptions about certain countries.
We’ve compiled reactions from people on the web who are actually from said countries, and can verify that they’re nothing like what we see in Hollywood flicks !
1. Italy.
“As an Italian guy, let me clarify some of the most common stereotypes that movies tend to spread worldwide about my people,” Raffaele Ronga wrote via Quora .
“We don’t have all that Sicilian mafia accent like in The Godfather movie .”
“Sicily is just one of the 20 regions in Italy, whose each one has its own dialect or even language. If you listen [to] a northern Italian dialect (Venetian), it would mostly differ from a southern Italian one (Neapolitan),” he added.
He went on to clarify that not all Italians look the same .
“Not everyone is dark haired and dark skinned, with moustache and slicked back hair, hanging around with tank top all the time.”
2. Ukraine.
Someone on Quora anonymously listed all the things that Hollywood usually gets wrong about the Ukraine:
“1. Ukraine is a part of Russia. 2. Mostly Ukrainian women are prostitutes, or victims of sex slavery, or gold-digger. 3. Ukrainians are mafiosi/scammers and bandits. 4. Most of the territory of Ukraine is an exclusion zone after the Chernobyl accident. 5. Ukrainians cannot imagine life without meat/salo/horilka. 6. Ukrainian women are exclusively housewives who only dream about marriage.”
3. Ireland.
“Streets made of cobblestone instead of asphalt,” someone wrote anonymously on Quora, adding, “We’re always angry alcoholics that are only distinguished [as] the [Irish] guy by an accent, and everyone has red hair .”
Another person, YeahWTF20 , also talked about Ireland on Reddit .
“Hollywood: All Irish females are willowy ethereal dream girls with flowy red hair wearing this long droopy 1940s dress under a little thin cardigan your Nana wouldnt be seen dead in, and flash their blue eyes flirtatiously at you on some rocky hillside.”
“In reality: all Irish women wear fleece jackets over fake tan, and just want you to buy them curry chips.”
4. Sweden.
“I’m from Sweden. I usually feel amused, because it’s usually either Swedish chef from the muppets or Mamma Mia parodies,” mysterpoeleece1 wrote via Reddit .
“Less flattering stereotypes include Swedes having been emasculated and [expletive] by third world immigration, which isn’t wholly untrue to be honest.”
5. South Africa.
“South Africans aren’t all former special forces soldiers or mercenaries – I mean, it would be cool if I knew how to work a sniper rifle or make a bomb out of two cans of building foam and a Bic lighter whilst parachuting into enemy territory, but I don’t,” Ryan Quirk explained on Quora.
“I spend my days at a desk answering emails and doing budgets, forecasts, and financial analysis…”
6. Jamaica.
“I lived in Jamaica for quite a long time. Those Jamaican movies that have come out in the past few years, seems to emphasize the slums of Jamaica, and the criminal element that dart between Jamaica and the big cities of the US or Europe,” Rob Peters wrote on Quora.
“I long for the day that there is a Jamaican movie that doesn’t revolve around gangsters, drugs and dancehall. It doesn’t fully represent.”
Hopefully, in future films and television shows, Jamaicans will be able to see a more accurate representation of their country!
7. Australia.
“The accent, oh God PLEASE stop with the cringy [ sic ] attempts at the Australian accent ! There are plenty of ex-pat Australian actors living in the US who would be grateful for the opportunity to get their names out there,” Alison Bourke wrote on Quora.
“All the men don’t look like [Crocodile] Dundee or Steve Irwin,” she went on.
“We don’t say mate all the time, thats [ sic ] something our [grandfathers] did and as each new generation comes on the scene it gets more and more cliched .”
8. Canada.
I’m gonna take the reins on this one.
For starters, American movies love to paint Canadians as really polite, beer-drinking, maple-syrup-obsessed lumberjacks who say “sorry” and “eh” a lot in a thick, Western-Canadian accent.
As a Canadian, I can only confirm that we are polite. Everything else is a major stereotype.
9. America.
Even though Hollywood is in America, according to some, they’re still not portraying the country accurately to the rest of the world.
“Rednecks, Jesus Obsessing Families, Everything Fried, Fat people on every block corner store and everything else, Country Music everywhere, Lazy, Loud and carry guns, Jeans jeans and jeans, We all have southern accents,” John Haugland wrote on Quora .
10. India.
In films like Slumdog Millionaire and Eat, Pray, Love , India is often portrayed as poor and not well-kept.
But according to Kshitij Kabir on Quora, there is a lot more to the country than what we’ve been exposed to.
“India is a vast country. We have 29 states each having different language, customs, dress, socio-economic condition, topography and climate,” they explained.
“Everything from hills, plateaus, plains and coastal areas. It has rich, medium and poor class people. We have educated Indians who are highly qualified in tech jobs and poor illiterate ones who are superstitious .”
“I am from India. The biggest thing is how they glamorise [*sic*] poverty. Yes, there is poverty in the country, but that is not all there is here. Cities like Mumbai and Bangalore too are shown as dirt poor,” another person wrote.
“And then that yellow tint they shoot with. Like in Extraction on Netflix, they showed that India is yellow !”
11. Africa (the entire continent).
“Forget the country, pretty much the entire African continent […] is portrayed as full of starving children living in poverty. If it’s not that then only wildlife is shown or spoken about.”
“Like, hello, we have civilization too you know? We have happy people too you know?”
“We have fancy mansions here too you know?” curl_queen25 wrote on Reddit .
In fact, Beyoncé’s Black is King on Disney+ perfectly proves the Reddit user’s point.
13. Brazil
“That the Amazon Rainforest is just a short car ride away from Rio de Janeiro,” wrote user luhli on Reddit.
User theDaemon0 jumped in to agree, writing, “Hell, those two are in the opposite ends of the country – and it’s a big [expletive] country.”
“Also, not everywhere is filled with lush vegetation, and there IS a middle ground between the favelas and the rich people’s districts.”
“And there aren’t gang wars with the frequency of TV shows,” they finished.
14. Mexico
“That my world changes to sepia once I enter my country,” wrote Reddit user guardianjuan .
RELATED STORIES
Even major (and quite frankly, fantastically done) shows such as Narcos: Mexico fell victim to this. It is definitely not uncommon.
15. England
“According to American movies we all live in one city, all wear flat caps and are usually some sort of upper class gentleman or a cockney gangster,” wrote Reddit user pliskin313.
This is DEFINITELY true. Hollywood sees the UK, in general, in a very specific way.
And NOW, we want to hear from you!
We want to know which of the above you agree with, and what Hollywood gets wrong about your country, wherever you may be!
Let us know down below in the comments! We would love to hear from you!
