Yahoo Lifestyle 13 Things Hollywood Always Gets Wrong About Other Countries, According To People Who Are Actually From There
Recently, I asked the BuzzFeed Community what Hollywood always gets wrong about the place they live.
Here are 13 things people said movies and TV always get wrong about their country:
1."French people almost always speaking English and helping out Americans. So many don't speak English, and even if they do, finding someone nice and helpful in the city who will give you a few minutes of their time just doesn't happen."
"In the countryside, sure — but even fewer people speak English, so you better learn French.
We're also not all about beauty and romance — far from it. Sorry."
2."Japan — we don't have so many neon signs like they put in the movies. I know a lot of people imagine Japan as some high-tech cyberpunk place, but it's not at all. We may have some cool gadgets, but Japan is very VERY analog everywhere."
"We also don't have so many 'traditional Japanese' elements in modern buildings either. We do have occasional tiny shrines here and there, either for small gods or to appease malevolent spirits...but the Japanese elements are never really incorporated into modern places like hotels and business buildings. You probably wouldn't be able to tell it's a Japanese building if you didn't know where it was located."
3."I’m Canadian. Never in my 40 years of living here, have I ever heard another Canadian pronounce 'about' as 'aboot.'"
4."We actually have summer in Canada, believe it or not. Over the past few days, it's been 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in some parts of the country."
"Canada here — it's not always winter here. Some places routinely get very high temperatures."
5."Haitian living in United States — it will never cease to amaze me how much my culture has been dumbed down to voodoo/vodou."
"While, yes, there are definitely aspects of vodou that are intrinsically a part of our culture (such as the lwas), for the most part, all of the Haitians I know are Catholic or at least Christian. Also, vodou is not just curses and spooky dolls for people to mess with, but an actual religion. 🙄"
6."Türkiye [Turkey]. Do I have to tell more? Always with the Sahara-like pictures, and we don't have any place like this."
"And also camels. I live in Antalya, and I only saw camels at the zoo."
7."Hollywood always thinks English people speak like they're either aristocratic or selling fruit on a market stall...or Scottish."
"Like in America (and indeed most of the world), there are different accents, dialects, turns of phrase, etc."
8."English person here! We don't sit and drink tea all day, and we definitely do not know the king! If we ever saw the king, we would not be allowed within 10 feet of him!"
9."Great Britain — that's England, Wales, and Scotland, and Northern Ireland makes the United Kingdom. England is separate from the others, if you're just referring to us! The other three are distinct countries and have their own language, culture, and traditions."
10."My coworker from England wants people to know that not every British person is an evil villain who is plotting to take over the world."
11."I'm from a small village in North Yorkshire, UK, and have never once had a big bloody plane crash [like on the soap opera Emmerdale]."
12."I was watching an episode of New Amsterdam when the series was set in London, and wow! They didn’t get the car registrations even remotely right, and the police/ambulance sirens were wrong too!"
"It really made me laugh!"
13.And finally: "That Appalachia and the [American] South in general are full of dumb, incestuous, lewd, backward people. When, in fact, there are many unique and cool things other people could learn from."
What's something Hollywood always gets wrong about your country? Which movies or TV shows are the most annoying examples? Let us know in the comments!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length/clarity.
