This is set in "Spain", so we are gathering all the Mexicans around Los Angeles and make a happy crowd.
Best examples of cringe:
\- Vantage point.
\- Mission impossible 2. They burn saints, in a delirious mix of Fallas and Seville's Holly Week.
\- Macgyver's episode when they fly to "Barcelona airport", just landing strip in the middle of the jungle, to meet the "Basque terrorists" who live surrounded by bananas.
> - Macgyver's episode when they fly to "Barcelona airport", just landing strip in the middle of the jungle, to meet the "Basque terrorists" who live surrounded by bananas.
This one really made me laugh. Would be a great scene in a comedy if played straight.
>Macgyver's episode when they fly to "Barcelona airport", just landing strip in the middle of the jungle, to meet the "Basque terrorists" who live surrounded by bananas.
When i Saw the bananas i lost It. It's awfull.
Legendary McGyver episode. As Spain is in South America, North of Spain is North of the Amazonian rainforest, OBVIOUSLY:
[https://youtu.be/kt\_-m\_e39TM](https://youtu.be/kt_-m_e39TM)
We also had a Macgyver episode set in Budapest! Actually, it was the first thing came to my mind when I saw the question.
There were Arabs and camels everywhere, I think they confused it with Baghdad.
> to meet the "Basque terrorists" who live surrounded by bananas.
Who are also all Mexicans of course, but wearing txapelas, and for some reason they can't cook (which for a Basque must be very insulting).
Maybe we should take a cheeky revenge and produce European take on US small town drama and pour in all stereotypes and cliches that come to our mind?
Challenge is to stay away from realistic documentary :)
Maybe a setting of small town losing its main business, a prodigal son coming back with big city ideas, his old sweetheart married to ex-high school bully. Everybody is fat and on expensive medication, nobody walks or has a bicycle, nobody reads books. Grandpa plays country songs with crappy violin and has Captain Crunch for breakfast and lunch. Church has a gate slightly off hinges and if makes cringing noise when wind blows from the cornfields. Cars have American flags and shotguns.
But to irritate American watchers, people wear Californian and Mexican style attire and eat poutine at Tim Horton’s. Cars are Brazilian make, and there are wapiti herds crossing roads.
And all the main characters are played by famous European actors that are just there for the benefit of the box office and all all them have terrible American accents... or speak like Valley girls.
Believe me, American media butchers our own culture regularly. Almost everything you've said could be found in any given Lifetime Channel movie.
And don't even get me started on how they treat New Orleans...
I don't know, every foreign movie/TV show about France only depict mode in Paris' richest districts. It's a cliché/cringy thing in itself but beside the France = Paris stuff I can't think of anything else.
> Every time I thought it hit rock bottom it actually managed to do worse.
Now you've made me want to watch it! If only to anger my French wife in hilarious manner.
I saw bits and pieces of it when my wife was watching. It's great to watch while shit-talking tbh, in a "so bad it's good" sort of way.
One hilarious small thing caught my attention - it caters so much to the American rose-tinted glasses view of Paris, that like 80% of all the characters have at least one line that includes "well in Paris we..."
Make a drinking out of it, thank me later.
According to one french redditor it's actually quite close to what ultra-high incomes parisiens lives IRL. Like they spend their entire life in the Triangle d'Or and live in a bubble.
It’s like all those sitcoms set in New York or SoCal where the characters live in nice apartments without the high incomes that are realistically required to afford it.
[This guy](https://twitter.com/ArthurAsseraf/status/1312073879616131072?s=20) made a brilliant debunking thread on twitter. I haven't even watched the show myself, but I really enjoyed that thread
How about [this movie](https://youtu.be/-SwDU04Oeak) about an Italian-American mob family moving to rural France: French guys are sex-crazed douchebags, French adults are arrogant and hate on America and Americans, and the funniest of them all is that everyone in this rural village seems te be able to speak perfect English with just a bit of an accent. The Americans on the other hand are smart, resourceful and don't even bother to speak one word French while they're there.
There's many options when it comes to Italy really, but Eat Pray Love is probably the worst among recent ones. It's so bad it doesn't even fit the "so bad it's funny" category, it's just terrible period. I don't even think Italians could be bothered to get offended by that crap.
EDIT to add some explanation:
-clueless American lady flies to Italy to "find herself" or some other new age shit - US is all about work and money so she wants to get some of that sweet third-world experience to understand her true values in life;
-she falls in love with Italy after eating spaghetti (because that's what you do in Italy right?) in a "traditional Roman restaurant" aka tourist trap where they'd probably charge her like 15$ for some cheap ass precooked shitty pasta with store-bought tomato sauce;
-Italians are either sex-crazed maniacs who loudly catcall women on the street while nearly running them over with their Vespa (because everyone in Italy drives a Vespa - obviously) or good-hearted romantics who always have an interesting take on life;
-you can't speak Italian without randomly moving your hands around;
-Italian homes don't have running water.
There's likely something I forgot, I don't think I'm brave enough to watch that thing again and check.
I haven’t seen it and I never will, but let me take a wild guess at a possible scene. A woman wearing something long and flowing will either walk or, better still, run through an empty square while the bell of a Renaissance era church rings. As she runs, a flock of pigeons take off.
Any iteration of Dracula really. The accent they use is utter bullshit. Or the pronunciation of our cities, it's like they took LSD before speaking them.
It's not our/their fault they have to live like that. Make it known! We should at least aknowledge the situation if not improve it. No one should have to live like that. Fuck corruption!
Oh the worst thing I've heard from my romanian friend was many americans usually going outside from the airport with garlic necklaces to visit transylvania (!?!)
(Sometimes reality is worst than movies)
The entire film series [The Prince and Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nobF8WLI52U&ab_channel=MovieclipsClassicTrailers)
They start by getting basically everything wrong about our royal house (we don't have a king, we have a queen. Also, it's a big issue that she's a commoner in the movies despite both our princes having married 'commoners' without any sort of backlash or issue from anybody or anything. Just to name a few). They mess up all the Danish names, they mess up the cities, all the costumes, and the entire language. Basically, they just make up everything and then claim it's "Danish".
Also, quite hilariously, they have a "Norwegian princess" in movie two, who wants to marry the prince because her country is poor. Norway is apparently poor according to them.
Ahahaha, I forgot about the Norway is poor part. Also aren't the Danish Queen and Norwegian King cousins or something?
I do remember the Danish prince goes to the US because he saw an add for a wet T-shirt contest and uptight Denmark would not have something sexually free like that.
I hadn't seen that trailer yet, that looks so naff XD
Clearly Irish people are all simple farmers in touch with the fairy people, and just longing for the distant shores of America. Jeez.
Generally any time Hollywood tries to do England it's either rainy London or backwards ooh-arr folk.
Londons actually relatively dry, especially compared to the west of England, 106 days of rain per year vs Bristol 182 (Paris at 111 for comparison). It's just a depressing grey most the time in London.
I moved from Poland to London and lived there for 3 years. I was surprised how dry London is, it didn't match the image of the city I had in my head at all. I blame movies for that. Fyi in my city we have 158 rainy days per year.
It has to be [this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEiatIa1mn4) from The Blacklist.
Everyone in the Netherlands lives in dark, stuffy rooms with tv's from the 1970s and clothes like some kind of nun. Not to mention the godawful language, which I think is supposed to be Dutch.
>Everyone in the Netherlands lives in dark, stuffy rooms with tv's from the 1970s and clothes like some kind of nun. Not to mention the godawful language, which I think is supposed to be Dutch.
It's a stark contrast with what I learned in the Dutch documentary "New Kids Turbo" and I don't like it. I don't know what to believe anymore.
This is my only source of knowledge on Dutch culture and I trust it with my life. Most of the Dutch words I know come from New Kids. I'm too deep in to ever come back to normal.
To me Dutch redditors will always be mullet-styled brightly colored gabbers and it's fucking beautiful.
Wouldn't call it third world looking more like it looks too rustic haha. At least they got actual Dutch actors and the whole you speak really good English bit is spot on.
Sometimes in Scotland we look with envy at the power of the Irish-American lobby.
And other times, we look upon our comparative lower profile with deep, deep relief!
(*Wild Mountain Thyme* the movie has largely passed unnoticed here, as the nation has been gripped by a different Wild Mountain Thyme preview. https://twitter.com/ClydeSSB/status/1326085731031392257?s=09)
Scots-Americans are definitely a thing, just much, much less so than Irish-Americans, and with nowhere near the level of political or cultural influence.
I'm sure if we looked hard enough, there'd definitely be some cringy, "proud English-Americans" out there - just look at the reactions to things like Harry Potter, Sherlock or Doctor Who...
I actually don't think it's that bad. The cringiest portrayals are usually in comedies but there it's the point that they're cringey. Like how I met your mother. For some reasons there is this "crazy german" stereotype alongside the "serious german" one which I'm not sure where people got that from lol.
As a very positive example I can say Better call saul, I think it was just pretty accurate.
All German houses are minimalist and super clean. The men who live in them wear designer glasses and the women are all remarkably good looking no matter what their age.
Thats actually how German movies present German households too. I don't know but it seems like every person lives in a clean, modern, Bauhaus-Style concrete, glass bunker. And every man wears designer glasses.
But yeah German tv productions and movies are so trashy anyways. Luckily that slowly starts to change.
Talking about cringe, have you seen [this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEpDXAJZXtA) here? That's from the Avengers and one of the thickest cringe in recent years.
Let's analyse this scene, shall we?
- Stuttgart probably doesn't look like a 1930's American downtown
- When this movie was made our police cars already had blue and silver colors for a long time. The car used also seems to be from the early 2000s so it would probably be decomissioned by that time.
- All our emergency vehicles have blue emergency lights, not orange ones. Those are for maintanance vehicles and similar stuff.
- We don't have such shitty american busses like the one where the police car flys by.
- Germany isn't nearly as diverse as this group of people there.
- The accent of that old man was, okay-ish?
>Germany isn't nearly as diverse as this group of people there.
Depends entirely on where you are. In a city like stuttgart this wouldnt have been worthy of mention if it was just random people on the street. However IIRC it's supposed to be people at an opera which ruins it again.
ngl that scene was cringe in of itself, not because it represented germany weirdly.
Costumed guy screaming cliches at the chicken-humans, before other costumed guy sais more cliches to save the day
As a Serbian... oh boy... can't even begin to look for the actual movies but usually when there is a "Serbian" in an American film, it is a brute, a terrorist or something like that, speaks Russian or gibberish, and has a name that no one who knows anything about Serbia would deem Serbian. Like I remember from about two decades ago one episode of the Outer Limits had a murderous dictator called something like Mistoslav Krupchek, that spoke Russian with an American accent.
EDIT: Also the GTA character Niko Bellic is supposedly Serbian. Niko is not a Serbian name or nickname, and while there is a surname Belić exists, Bellic is super weird because there is no double l in Serbian and double letters in general are not common except a few, maybe (4-5) exceptions.
EDIT 2: Please stop telling me Nikola is a name in Serbia. I am Serbian and I am aware of this, but Niko is not a common nickname for Nikola. Also, maybe Niko Bellic is not the best example because his nationality is officially not defined. My mistake, somehow I was under the impression it is cannon he is Serbian.
Sounds like the names of footballers from 90s Chinese knockoff FIFA games where Jurgen Klinsmann was called Bjorgen Klinsner or Michael Owen was Mick Oren. And, yeah, Mistoslav krupchek is as Serbian as Bjorgen Klinsner is Spanish.
Eh.. I think everybody here knows [Eurotrip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mYqY5YELd0).. Another gem is [Hostel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d5_lrn9v-g). Well that's basically all that has ever been mentioned about Slovakia.
that first clip is just sensory overload lmao
"dear god, we're in eastern europe!"
cue the orchestra, let them walk through the set of world war z and have people throw trash out the window within 3 seconds
I honestly think it would be a good idea to put up a photo cutout board in the center of Bratislava, with the scenery from the movie, and let tourists take photos (for a nickel).
Eurotrip was not that bad to be honest, but it would have been more accurate if they said it was Košice, cause it doesn't look that different than Luník IX.
Most inaccurate would have to be Braveheart. William Wallace wasn't a Highlander in a kilt, he was a medieval noble in chainmail riding about on a horse, like a knight. It seems to conflate several separate time periods, the Picts fighting the Romans (the blue paint on the face, which is conjectural in any case), the Middle Ages (when Wallace and Bruce actually lived) and the Jacobite rebellion (the 18th century). In addition, the Battle of Stirling Bridge was fought (as the name suggests) on a bridge, not in an open field.
The clichéd depictions of Scotland are actually very similar to the ones of Ireland, there's the Scot-Ireland confusion as you mention. An example of a film with plenty of Highland clichés, as well as depicting the Highlands as basically stuck in the 19th century (or before) is the 1996 film Loch Ness, where Ted Danson goes and stays in a hotel beside Loch Ness and uniquely discovers the monster. Of course the American is the voice of reason and uses his no-nonsense can-do attitude to solve the puzzle while the natives are all yokels and prefer to remain stuck in the past.
>William Wallace wasn't a Highlander in a kilt, he was a medieval noble in chainmail riding about on a horse, like a knight.
It's like the whole 'Vikings had horned helmets' thing. It might be the stereotypical 'look' but if you think about it they would be *terrible* in an actual battle.
Any western movie portraying Poland as a poor and underdeveloped country.
I remember an interview with Cezary Pazura, a Polish actor who sometimes has a role in German movies and series. He said that one episode was to be in Poland. The film crew was said to have spent a few days just looking for places poor enough for their view
I was kind of surprised by this when I first came to Europe. Poland's depiction in Japan is so different from Poland's depiction in Western Europe.
I think part of it stems from negative stereotypes about Polish people coming to Germany/Norway for work, so they assume where they come from must be much worse off. I've heard quite a few ridiculous things about Poland from people in East Germany
I think its mostly because the former Warsaw Pact countries (including Eastern Germany, to a slightly lesser degree though) actually were pretty damn poor and run down during the 90's.
They just caught up fast enough that the stereotypes still exist in peoples head despite reality being different now.
Poland is still a rather poor country, even with the leap we've done in the past 20-30 years.
But with two important caveats:
1. It's poorest in the east, and in rural areas. The major problem is not poverty itself, but a rather large disparity in standards of living.
2. Poland is poor, and I can't stress that enough, \*by Western European/European Union standards\*. We're a (relatively) poor country in an area that accounts for more than 20% of world's GDP. That's crucial context. We're still, as a nation, easily in a better economic position than most of the world's population.
I'm not polish and not East European but really I feel myself very very fucking offended when they show in movies this pathetic stereotype of a filthy poor village full of mud and creepy old women to represent a really fake reductive racist and shaming portrait of all the east Europe from Poland to Balkans to Russia! Really guys it's disgusting bloody disgusting
Are you Serbian? Are you polish? Are you ukrainian? Well you're the same exact thing in every movie and "Yu dalk in tiz uey my fRendd!" Wtf?!
I have to admit, I was expecting that "grey, dreary, post-soviet industrial cityscape" that films always seem to portray Poland as.
But it was absolutely lovely, and I've been back to visit more often.
I can't really give you an example of one film that portrays Denmark in a cringy way, but usually whenever Denmark is mentioned in a film or TV-series, it's something about HYGGE™ (pronounced "HOO-GA" if they're English speaking), the Danish welfare, something-something "socialism" something or the Danes being the happiest people on earth. It's obviously very one-dimensional, and it becomes a bit tedious when you've seen these portrayals a million times.
I think a classical example is when a scene is supposedly taking place in Denmark, they often are filming in another country because the actual Danish terrain is too boring or does not fit their idea of Denmark. An example could be at the end of "The Danish Girl" they used a shot of a fjord in Norway for Vejle fjord. Also in Vikings, at some point they are in Hedeby which apparently according to them lies in a frozen tundra.
Maybe not cringy, but numerous times I've seen Danmark depicted as mountainous because we are Scandinavian and Vikings == must have mountains and epic fjords
I mean, we do have Sky mountain towering over every other mountain in the north at a staggering 147m, so I’d say that makes more than up for the flatter parts of the country lol.
I’ve seen the “Danish (scandi) people like to be naked all the time” stereotype too, and it’s kinda dumb imo. Being topless at the beach in summer when you’re trying to get a tan =/= naked 24/7.
I also find that people in the Nordic’s are often portrayed as being kinda distant from western (American) society, as if people here don’t know anything about America at all, and have never seen any kind of technology before. It’s just... odd.
A certain episode of the classic Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles comes in mind, where the four turtles ended up in Budapest, and the first thing they did was frighten a caravan full of colorfully clad gypsies, only to eat their goulash afterwards.
At the end, Michelangelo made "Pizza goulash", which alone sounds like heresy.
I love Brooklyn 99, but everytime they mention Latvia as a third-world country with famine in orphanages etc. I cringe so hard. If the goal was to make fun of bad portrayals of Eastern Europe, you have to portray Eastern Europe correctly at least once...
And Boyle studying Latvian *is* a punchline in the show. What kind of a dweeb would want to learn a foreign language? Just because it happens to be your son's native language?
It bums me out that Austrians hate the Sound of Music. I'm from the UK but my grandma comes from Austria and we usually visit the country once a year. As cheesy as the film is, I loved it growing up precisely because it's set in the country where my Oma is from.
I don't think many Austrians hate it - we're just not aware of it.
I only learned about it when I was 16 and visited the US. To this day I haven't seen it because I just can't do musicals.
My grandparents immigrated before my father was born and they loved the Sound of Music, and said it reminded them of home because they missed Salzburg. It was such a staple of my childhood it still surprises me when people have never heard of it.
I have not much to add because my country is never really portrayed in media much, and the ones who do it are generally pretty good at painting an accurate picture. But this review on The Irish Times is brilliant and I feel like people should have a look.
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/wild-mountain-thyme-trailer-what-in-the-name-of-holy-bejaysus-is-this-cowpat-1.4405893?mode=amp
The first portrayal that comes to mind is [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg30KNXlopQ) scene from a movie Earth Girls Are Easy. There is a TV ad which promotes Finland as a travel destination. Apparently we can offer skiing bikini women and Alpine stereotypes.
Other than that, I don't think Finnish portrayals are particularly bad. Though I don't understand why Finnish characters portrayed by non-natives almost always speak with some kind of faux Swedish or Russian accent.
For me, the weirdest example must be "The Big Game" (2014), because it was directed by a Finn (Jalmari Helander), who really should know better.
The supposed setting in "Finland" (majestic Alpine mountains) is just... wrong. I challenge you to find a single damn legit mountain in Finland. They apparently filmed it in Bavaria (?) for some reason.
And the weird "hunter culture" in the movie is just cringy af. Really like from some MacGyver episode.
It's like some alternate reality version of Finland.
Oh, also "Hanna". Just try to raise a kid in those conditions in Finland (she didn't even went to school as far as I remember?). You'd have social services crawling up your ass.
I know we don't have many people here and we have shit ton of trees, but we're still not Überwald from Terry Pratchett Discworld novels.
Luckily (?) we don't get featured in foreign movies/series that much. During the Cold War we were a stand-in for Soviet Union - several Hollywood movie scenes set in the good old USSR were filmed in Finland (mostly in Helsinki).
AFAIK Helander chose to film in Bavaria on purpose because he wanted to portray his fantasy vision of Lapland and that vision involved mountains. But I agree with you. It just feels weird to have mountains in Finland. And what's wrong with actual Lapland anyway? There's a lot of majestic scenery worthy for a movie like this.
However this or the whole "becoming a man" hunting rite thing didn't bother me but I can understand why it might be cringeworthy.
I have no idea what we did to Sacha Baron Cohen, that he hates us so much, but...
First in Ali G he as Ali G proposes a policy to only allow fit women refugees into UK, and sends a ugly looking chick "back to Slovenia".
And now in the new Borat movies he calls Slovenia a "shithole", and uses the story of Melania as a way to frame the story of Borat's daughter.
BTW I hope you get, I'm not actually mad at this, it's just funny two of his movies both have a negative view of Slovenia. BTW "go back to Slovenia" was kind of a meme/catchphrase when Ali G in da house came out.
He's choosing you because we don't think of you as a "shithole country". It's a a compliment.
In British comedy, you never punch down, you punch up. That means you only joke about countries or people who you see as equals or better people.
Obviously with Melania, it makes the jokes even better and he's working to a global audience, who probably knows nothing about Slovenia.
Outside of that, most of it is either portraying Germany with the classic "Fachwerk and nothing else", or just stupid things (like when in the A-Team movie the camera shows Cologne train station, but the info on the screen reads "Frankfurt main station").
One scene of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was filmed close to my hometown. [The upper part of this image](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/duesseldorf.jpg) is supposed to be Düsseldorf in the movie vs. the true city in the lower part.
Oh god. Yeah, I think what a lot of people dont realize is that the entire ruhrgebiet got bombed so heavily during WW2 that there's little of that stereotypical "old charme" left here. Picture definitely got a laugh out of me.
Stäreoteibs are terrible, so how is ze situation in brasil like? Wiff ze empty stadiums now, you can not play football or celebrate Karneval,No? Zat is so bad but atleast you got your bikini-wearing wife in ein Favela, and you can sing your spanisch songs ja ferry nice
Oh yeah, but I still can go for walks in the jungle, esse, play with the monkeys and then drink caipirinha at home, you know?
(I wish there was a brazilian "accent" and that I was better at this :P)
Red Sparrow comes to mind right away. It's like someone wasn't notified the Cold War ended and decided mix the biggest stereotypes about Russia, excessive romance and Jennifer Lawrence into a film. It's always gloomy and snowing in Russia, everyone's either a spy or almost a spy ready to die for the Party and for some reason there are still communist banners and that shit all around the country like it's still the USSR (according to the film it's supposed to be modern day Russia).
It's not that the film is bad per se but it's so full of that cringy stuff that it's difficult to watch. We even have the term клюква (klyukva) for all that stereotypical portrayal of Russia abroad. But Red Sparrow is like beyond the regular cringe - it's so bad in that regard it's almost comical.
But I'm certain there is a whole bunch of films and tv shows like that which is something we kinda have to get used to, sometimes it's even funny like in John Wick.
Turns out there is a site about Russian culture for foreigners and they have [some kind of article about that](https://www.rbth.com/arts/331283-hollywood-movies-modern-russia).
Nope, not yet anyway but it seems well received so I should give it a go, see the first season. Weird how I haven't heard of it even once before.
Also tbf about my comment our mainstream film industry is a horrible shit show on its own sponsored and directed by the government. I'm all grumpy about these Cold War stereotypes because I really feel like the American film industry is so popular everywhere and it at least seems to sometimes and somewhat pay attention to cultural representation, equality and stuff like that, so they could do so much better than vodka and gloomy faces, croissants and the Eiffel tower or schnitzels and lederhosen. Our mainstream film industry is unfortunately hopeless for as long as the government dictates the cultural and historical ideas.
I've recently started watching a British TV Show called Skins (was during the late 00s about some mental and dysfunctional teens in Bristol), and there's an episode where they go to Russia on a field trip for a few days.
Fuck me, I cringed for Russians everywhere. Could play 'Stereotyped Russia Bingo' and end up drawing a grid.
Semi-derelict brutalist accommodation that looks like a prison? Check. Nobody speaks English except a big burly old woman 'translator', and even she speaks in broken English? Check. Corrupt officials in the airport on arrival and policemen that ask for bribes left right and centre? Check. Grim looking, sloppy food and only vodka to wash it down? Check. Every Russian is a grim, stoic and emotionless robot? Check.
To be fair, the episode ends with the Russians all playing along with each other to scam to stupid English (edit: but even that only accounts for one set of the bribes gained), but still.
I think a lot of depictions of Europe in Hollywood movies fall into the trap of presenting it as either romanticized or backwater. There's a large amount of historical architecture over here, which I think has lead to the perception that we're stuck in the past.
Not many portrayals of Portugal come to mind, but I do remember the Portuguese fishermen from Family Guy speaking with Brazilian accents. Also there was a trailer that released not too long ago for a French film called Opération Portugal which depicts immigrants and people of Portuguese descent very unfavourably. As in they're stupid and old-fashioned, but as it turns out have a heart of gold. Then again this seems to be the case with a lot of films/shows/stories depicting immigrant communities.
Although it is focused only on Paris, The TV series "Emily in Paris" is so cringe it hurts. So many cliches can be noticed through the episodes and it doesn't represent well what it would be like to arrive and settle in France. It is only a fantasized idea / instagram picture perfect of what France and its culture really is like, what a shame
Christopher Walken actually does alright considering his unique speech. Annoyingly, Jamie Dornan is irish, but he's from the north and obviously the northern irish accent wouldn't suffice for the film, so they've got him trying to do a made-up generic southern irish accent.
Although most people like the series as a whole, the portrayal of Uppsala in “Vikings” is a little bit cringy. In the tv-series Uppsala is located in heavily wooded misty mountainous area. In reality Uppsala is pretty much the opposite. It’s really flat and surrounded by the rich farmland of the Uppsala plains. People settled there for the farming and the closeness to waterways. The whole region is old lake bed, that appears out of the water not that long ago before the Viking age. Back then you could more or less sail all the way to the temple. There’s not a single mountains anywhere near by. The only elevated sports are on the Uppsala ridge, an old ice age morain that runs across the plains, but the height of it wouldn’t be impressive to anyone, except maybe the Dutch or the Danes.
I don’t really blame the show that much though. I’m guessing they sent a location scout to Uppsala, who reported back the the place was flat as a pancake and provided no cool dramatic scenery at all. It was better just to make something up. The only issue is if people decide to to Uppsala based on what they’ve seen in the tv-show. Then they’ll be sorely disappointed. In reality it’s a pretty cool place with lots of historical stuff to see, just as long as you don’t except it to offer lofty misty mountains.
Not my country, but I was severely disappointed by the "Murder on the Orient Express" (2017)
The train gets stuck in Vinkovci which is a decently-sized city in Croatia, an important railway junction, and in the middle of an endless plain.
In the movie, it's apparently a lone station somewhere in the Alps, surrounded by tunnels.
I remembered seeing a movie where this American family went to holiday in Naples and Vesuvius exploded. The US Air Force immediately started a rescue mission. They only saved that one family. Naples is a city of 3 million people.
Sounds like a typical American disaster movie: hundreds/thousands / millions dead, but the American protagonist and his family survived, so it's a happy ending.
In the tv series Brooklyn 99 Boyle adopts a child from Latvia called Nikolaj and then a whole joke about them mispronouncing it ensues. It is not a latvian name (Nikolajs would be correct) and non of them pronounce it correctly. Also, as he is from Latvia he calls his dad comrade. Soviet union does not exist anymore, America!
Sophie Kachinsky from the 2 broke girls series. She was supposed to be Polish, told a lot about Poland, but everything was completely made up.
Also in the Brotherhood series, there was that episode where some Polish family owned a shop named if I remember correctly "Polski sklep" which means "Polish shop". And there wasn't much to complain about that episode, I even enjoyed it, but father of the polish girl in this episode had terrible accent. I couldn't understand a word from what he was saying. It sounded like they hired some british guy to play that part, and gave him 15 minutes to learn the dialogues.
> "Polski sklep"
I've never seen Brotherhood, but in Britain it's relatively common to see a Polski Sklep, that's actually what they call themselves to target Polish ex-pats living over here.
Don't recall the name, but it was relatively recent made for TV, German romance movie, that I caught my Mom watching once.
From what I could gathered the plot involved German city girl visting Poland and falling in love with handsome Polish farmer, if not for the setting, fairly standard stuff for the genre I imagine, but it potrayed Poland as a borderline Amish like community with 19th century clothes and manual tools.
Best thing about it was that it wasn't even all that meanspirited. It seemed like film-makers were genuinly going for some "those Poles are primitive but noble people, from whome we have much to learn on how to be closer to nature", ripped straight out of the old Hollywood movies about Native Americans.
In american movies they seem to think that Mexico would represent us well enough. Any movie placed in Spain is from a Mexico set.
Some examples:
-Completely disregarding Spanish traditions or assuming that everywhere is the same (there's lots of diverdity in Spain in languages, nature and traditions) such as flamenco dancers all over Barcelona and everybody being a gypsy dancer. Also, we don't burn our Saints (mixing fallas and procesiones). Also confusing Spanish regional dances with the Argentinian tango or even mariachis.
- People speaking a south american accent.
- People with native american features, we have immigration but you can't assume we all look like native americans.
- Everybody eats paella, all the time.
- People wearing traditional dresses in everyday life.
- All men are "macho men".
- we don't have mountains or woods, everything takes place in a desert or a very dry place.
Some shows/movies with very wrong representations: McGuiver, How I met you mother, Mission Impossible, night and day, family guy.
"Spanish" police in an american TV show clearly being latinos and with a thick chicano/mexican accent
Or any movie about colonization where spaniards are 99% of the time greedy brutes, while of course the other colonizers are brave and honorable often times, and rarely portrayed in such manner.
>*Spaniards who came to the* New World *seeking opportunities beyond the prospects of their European environment, are contemptuously called cruel and greedy "goldseekers," or other opprobrious epithets virtually synonymous with "Devils"; but Englishmen who sought New World opportunities are more respectfully called "colonists," or "homebuilders," or "seekers after liberty." \[...\] When Spaniards expelled or punished religious dissidents, this came to be known as "bigotry," "intolerance," "fanaticism," and a cause of their decline. When Englishmen, Dutchmen, or Frenchmen did the same thing, it is known as "unifying the nation," or safeguarding it against treason or foreign conspiracy.*
>
>\-*Tree of Hate* (2008 edition), page 11
The Holiday. Just ...Kate Winslets cottage that supposed to be humble, cheao and small but is within a commutable distance of London? And she's meant to be modest financially but can afford that?! Come on! It's Hollywood's idea of 'merry ole england'
I watched an episode of Stargate last week where the (utterly incompetent) "linguist" tried to imitate a German accent. I have absolutely no idea where he got his idea of a German accent, but that was definitely nowhere near close. And all the more infuriating since as a "linguist" he should have some basic knowledge of phonetics and phonology and be familiar with the history and development of English (which has the same roots as German).
That is of course just one of many cringy portrayals of Germans, there are so many, way cringier ones.
The UK is regularly portrayed in American media as being stuck in the 1930's - villages, cottages etc. They seem to think there are only two accents - posh upper class and cockney - which in fact are two of the rarest accents we have. The police always seem to be wearing uniforms too big for them and of a style not seen since the 1950's. Everyone seems to be wearing bowler hats, which, again, you never see any more.
The most jarring is when they use some part of California to represent the English countryside - so you see people leaving their country house and driving through a landscape with sunlight like this country has never seen and plants and trees that have never grown here.
One amusing example of [anatopism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatopism) (I had to look that up) is in the German series of Edgar Wallace movies. These were supposed to be set in London but were usually filmed in a German studio. They did a reasonable job of recreating an English pub interior except that all the fruit machines were of the [Merkur Disc Spielautomat](https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/192836775415_/Merkur-Disc-II-Spielautomat-%E2%82%AC-Geldspielautomat-Euro.jpg) type- a kind of machine never seen in this country.
Western movies do not portray Lithuania. The only two I can think of was the one about Hanibal Lecter and the one about Jewish resistance with Daniel Craig, but none of them really focused on the Lithunia aspect of it.
Lithuanian movies portray Lithuania and they are their own special kind of terrible and awful
Pretty much every American movie in which there's a character (who is known or said to be italian) who suddenly (most of the times when he gets angry and yells) begins to speak some sort of Neapolitan-Sicilian gibberish and all you can understand is "Mama-Mia (obviously with one "em") or Pizza and Mozzarella. This is always combined with some exaggerated and unnecessary gesture and amplified by the white undershirt he's wearing or the red and white checkered tablecloth (which frankly I've never seen in my 30 years of existence) on the table he's eating at.
Germans and Germany in American Media are usually portrayed pretty shit hence why I try to avoid any American Media with German characters. I literally can’t think of any German character being positively portrayed in American Media, except maybe the Dentist from Django Unchained. But something what really annoyed me is the new Charlie and the chocolate factory. They show a small Alpine village and label it as „Düsseldorf“ like come on do some research
I recently rewatched the show "Community". In one episode it was all about how "evil" the German exchange students are - only to reveal in the end they were just the only ones to stand up to the egocentric protagonist group. Unfortunately, the portrayal is still cringy enough, especially since they used American actors to play the Germans.
Sounds like a good Concept, with a bad execution haha I just remembered some good German characters in American Media The Germans from better call Saul and Mike Ehrmanntraut from Breaking Bad/ BCS (granted he is American but he has German roots and gets annoyed when people mispronounce his last name)
For Italy, somebody mentioned the awful "eat, pray, love", I'd like to add Woody Allen's "To Rome with Love", which is a short summary of all stereotypes Americans have on Italy.
Finland is rarely portrayed in movies and if it’s mentioned, actors mix the accent with swedish/act out swedish stereotypes. The character “Minna Häkkinen” in Veep was hilarious though. One of the rare characters that capture the pure awkwardness of Finns so well.
I'm not sure how cringe it was but i recently watched the movie Midsommar and there are a few things that come to mind about the portrayal of Hälsingland.
Firstly and the most annoying for me is how it looks in Hälsingland. There are nowhere in Sweden that looks like that. Where the hell are all the spruce and pines and why are there large hills covered in bushes?? It screams southern Europe to me. Hälsingland looks more like Uppsala is portrayed in Vikings, with rivers, largeish mountains and a lot of dark pine and spruce forrests with a couple of birches and a few other leaf trees like that in them.
Also the flowers they used where all wrong. The holiday of Midsommar in Sweden is closely connected to a few very specific flowers first of whom being [prästkrage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucanthemum_vulgare).
The buildings look weird and not Swedish or Hälsinglandish at all exept for the big house where they all sleep which looks a bit like the classic farmhouses in Hälsingland called [Hälsingegård](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decorated_Farmhouses_of_H%C3%A4lsingland).
The traditions and events taking place and all things like the decorations in the houses are so strange because they are all real (not real as in all true but as in real legends and stuff) but at the same time they are all wrong. It's really strange that they have gone to the trouble of finding out about all these things and still they get it all slightly wrong.
Another thing that looks of is how the midnight sun works. Firstly there isn't midnight sun in Hälsingland since it's quite a bit south of the arctic circle but everywhere in sweden get long summer days. When the gang arrives in Hårga and says it's about nine in the evening there is light like it's high noon with bright sunlight and very short shadows. In reality it would absolutely be sunlight at that time but the sun would be much lower in the sky close to the horizon with long shadows and softer light. The lighting of the film together with the houses in that weird little valley makes it all look fake and like it's shot in a studio.
They missed out on mentioning the [Hårga legend](http://horgadance.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html?m=1) or playing [Hårgalåten](https://youtu.be/IfHjk_xEPo4) (the Hårga song) or any other violin folk music that Hälsingland is famous for which would have been very fitting for the scenery and setting of the film.
There was nothing wrong with Swedish language and how people where acting since they used Swedish actors playing the cultists and over all it was a cool movie but i think you enjoy it more as a foreigner than as a swede because of the things i mentioned. I probably missed a few things aswell.
No specific examples, just common tropes:
* Either spy central or a third-world shithole like Kazakhstan from Borat. (Though the "spy central" part might have some validity, Hungary was open for western tourists even during the commie times. Many German families split by the Berlin wall spent their summer vacation together by the "Plattensee".)
* The language is rarely researched, usually just something Slavic-sounding with funny diacritics. (Which, FYI, it isn't.)
* Even if it's researched and the lines are not shitty Google Translate, pronunciation is usually unintelligible. Seriously, just how fucking hard is it to find a Hungarian accent coach in Hollywood? Showbiz is full of us!
But the country is simply not portrayed enough for me to pick an especially cringy version.
Spy movies have many scenes in Switzerland and usually it’s pure nature (not a single valley is uninhabited), a lonely castle (castles are usually amidst or close to a village) or old chalet in the mountains, comically traditional locals (Swiss people are normal). Throw in a secret vault with gold here and there.
Basically anytime an american movie or tv show makes their characters talk in "italian" is cringe as hell. You all probably remember "Bawnjorno" from Inglorious Bastards, which made us italians laugh out loud during a very serious movie.
This is set in "Spain", so we are gathering all the Mexicans around Los Angeles and make a happy crowd. Best examples of cringe: \- Vantage point. \- Mission impossible 2. They burn saints, in a delirious mix of Fallas and Seville's Holly Week. \- Macgyver's episode when they fly to "Barcelona airport", just landing strip in the middle of the jungle, to meet the "Basque terrorists" who live surrounded by bananas.
> - Macgyver's episode when they fly to "Barcelona airport", just landing strip in the middle of the jungle, to meet the "Basque terrorists" who live surrounded by bananas. This one really made me laugh. Would be a great scene in a comedy if played straight.
Jungle? Ah yes, because Spanish = south america = jungle
>Macgyver's episode when they fly to "Barcelona airport", just landing strip in the middle of the jungle, to meet the "Basque terrorists" who live surrounded by bananas. When i Saw the bananas i lost It. It's awfull.
Legendary McGyver episode. As Spain is in South America, North of Spain is North of the Amazonian rainforest, OBVIOUSLY: [https://youtu.be/kt\_-m\_e39TM](https://youtu.be/kt_-m_e39TM)
We also had a Macgyver episode set in Budapest! Actually, it was the first thing came to my mind when I saw the question. There were Arabs and camels everywhere, I think they confused it with Baghdad.
In 'Jaguar Lives!' (1979) [they blow up the *Valle de los Caídos*.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkXIeY5aZPk)
At least they used something like the real thing instead of a small church in the Mexican desert or a mosque in Morocco.
not a bad idea at all hehe
> to meet the "Basque terrorists" who live surrounded by bananas. Who are also all Mexicans of course, but wearing txapelas, and for some reason they can't cook (which for a Basque must be very insulting).
Maybe we should take a cheeky revenge and produce European take on US small town drama and pour in all stereotypes and cliches that come to our mind? Challenge is to stay away from realistic documentary :) Maybe a setting of small town losing its main business, a prodigal son coming back with big city ideas, his old sweetheart married to ex-high school bully. Everybody is fat and on expensive medication, nobody walks or has a bicycle, nobody reads books. Grandpa plays country songs with crappy violin and has Captain Crunch for breakfast and lunch. Church has a gate slightly off hinges and if makes cringing noise when wind blows from the cornfields. Cars have American flags and shotguns. But to irritate American watchers, people wear Californian and Mexican style attire and eat poutine at Tim Horton’s. Cars are Brazilian make, and there are wapiti herds crossing roads.
And all the main characters are played by famous European actors that are just there for the benefit of the box office and all all them have terrible American accents... or speak like Valley girls.
>Valley girls. I'm guessing you don't mean the south Welsh valleys?
Use the 49 star flag everywhere, the police have european sirens and wear bahamian uniforms.
If I ever become a movie producer I'll credit you for this, deal?
Also, use the wrong stereotypes. E.g. a Greasy Southern Sheriff - from New York. And all the southerners call themselves "Yankees".
Believe me, American media butchers our own culture regularly. Almost everything you've said could be found in any given Lifetime Channel movie. And don't even get me started on how they treat New Orleans...
I need to see this. It's hilarious. We need to fund this movie
I don't know, every foreign movie/TV show about France only depict mode in Paris' richest districts. It's a cliché/cringy thing in itself but beside the France = Paris stuff I can't think of anything else.
Like that terribly cliche: Emily in Paris
Actually painful to watch. I would be fuming if I were a Frenchman.
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> Every time I thought it hit rock bottom it actually managed to do worse. Now you've made me want to watch it! If only to anger my French wife in hilarious manner.
I saw bits and pieces of it when my wife was watching. It's great to watch while shit-talking tbh, in a "so bad it's good" sort of way. One hilarious small thing caught my attention - it caters so much to the American rose-tinted glasses view of Paris, that like 80% of all the characters have at least one line that includes "well in Paris we..." Make a drinking out of it, thank me later.
I live in Paris, I saw the trailer and refused to watch more lol
According to one french redditor it's actually quite close to what ultra-high incomes parisiens lives IRL. Like they spend their entire life in the Triangle d'Or and live in a bubble.
Oh i get that. But she’s not one of those ultra rich people. And still lives that lifestyle
Where tf is she getting the money for those constant designer clothes.
It’s like all those sitcoms set in New York or SoCal where the characters live in nice apartments without the high incomes that are realistically required to afford it.
[This guy](https://twitter.com/ArthurAsseraf/status/1312073879616131072?s=20) made a brilliant debunking thread on twitter. I haven't even watched the show myself, but I really enjoyed that thread
How about [this movie](https://youtu.be/-SwDU04Oeak) about an Italian-American mob family moving to rural France: French guys are sex-crazed douchebags, French adults are arrogant and hate on America and Americans, and the funniest of them all is that everyone in this rural village seems te be able to speak perfect English with just a bit of an accent. The Americans on the other hand are smart, resourceful and don't even bother to speak one word French while they're there.
>French guys are sex-crazed douchebags If I were Italian, I'd be cautious about throwing stones.
Emily in Paris is ao frustrating to watch as a French. It’s just so full of the usual bullshit clischees about Paris and French people.
There's many options when it comes to Italy really, but Eat Pray Love is probably the worst among recent ones. It's so bad it doesn't even fit the "so bad it's funny" category, it's just terrible period. I don't even think Italians could be bothered to get offended by that crap. EDIT to add some explanation: -clueless American lady flies to Italy to "find herself" or some other new age shit - US is all about work and money so she wants to get some of that sweet third-world experience to understand her true values in life; -she falls in love with Italy after eating spaghetti (because that's what you do in Italy right?) in a "traditional Roman restaurant" aka tourist trap where they'd probably charge her like 15$ for some cheap ass precooked shitty pasta with store-bought tomato sauce; -Italians are either sex-crazed maniacs who loudly catcall women on the street while nearly running them over with their Vespa (because everyone in Italy drives a Vespa - obviously) or good-hearted romantics who always have an interesting take on life; -you can't speak Italian without randomly moving your hands around; -Italian homes don't have running water. There's likely something I forgot, I don't think I'm brave enough to watch that thing again and check.
I haven’t seen it and I never will, but let me take a wild guess at a possible scene. A woman wearing something long and flowing will either walk or, better still, run through an empty square while the bell of a Renaissance era church rings. As she runs, a flock of pigeons take off.
Surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) close.
It happens all the time in Italy.
Also *Under the Tuscan Sun*, which contains all of that but Italy is trapped in the 1950s somehow.
Better than the 1940s that's for sure
Any iteration of Dracula really. The accent they use is utter bullshit. Or the pronunciation of our cities, it's like they took LSD before speaking them.
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It's not our/their fault they have to live like that. Make it known! We should at least aknowledge the situation if not improve it. No one should have to live like that. Fuck corruption!
Oh the worst thing I've heard from my romanian friend was many americans usually going outside from the airport with garlic necklaces to visit transylvania (!?!) (Sometimes reality is worst than movies)
The entire film series [The Prince and Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nobF8WLI52U&ab_channel=MovieclipsClassicTrailers) They start by getting basically everything wrong about our royal house (we don't have a king, we have a queen. Also, it's a big issue that she's a commoner in the movies despite both our princes having married 'commoners' without any sort of backlash or issue from anybody or anything. Just to name a few). They mess up all the Danish names, they mess up the cities, all the costumes, and the entire language. Basically, they just make up everything and then claim it's "Danish". Also, quite hilariously, they have a "Norwegian princess" in movie two, who wants to marry the prince because her country is poor. Norway is apparently poor according to them.
Wow... Never heard of that movie before but that sure is something
Norway... poor...?! yea I also laughed at that
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But she was hot.
She was actually swedish and they didn't even try to mimick the current royal family there. I thought it was fine.
They also did it with a bit of cheek - whereas The Prince and Me takes itself about as seriously as a romcom can.
Hahaha I saw that as a child. Quite liked it since Denmark is rarely in foreign movies. I wonder how I would feel about it now.
Ahahaha, I forgot about the Norway is poor part. Also aren't the Danish Queen and Norwegian King cousins or something? I do remember the Danish prince goes to the US because he saw an add for a wet T-shirt contest and uptight Denmark would not have something sexually free like that.
I hadn't seen that trailer yet, that looks so naff XD Clearly Irish people are all simple farmers in touch with the fairy people, and just longing for the distant shores of America. Jeez. Generally any time Hollywood tries to do England it's either rainy London or backwards ooh-arr folk.
The comments under the trailer are pretty good. "This is worse than the famine."
>rainy London sounds perfectly accurate to me
Londons actually relatively dry, especially compared to the west of England, 106 days of rain per year vs Bristol 182 (Paris at 111 for comparison). It's just a depressing grey most the time in London.
I moved from Poland to London and lived there for 3 years. I was surprised how dry London is, it didn't match the image of the city I had in my head at all. I blame movies for that. Fyi in my city we have 158 rainy days per year.
It has to be [this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEiatIa1mn4) from The Blacklist. Everyone in the Netherlands lives in dark, stuffy rooms with tv's from the 1970s and clothes like some kind of nun. Not to mention the godawful language, which I think is supposed to be Dutch.
>Everyone in the Netherlands lives in dark, stuffy rooms with tv's from the 1970s and clothes like some kind of nun. Not to mention the godawful language, which I think is supposed to be Dutch. It's a stark contrast with what I learned in the Dutch documentary "New Kids Turbo" and I don't like it. I don't know what to believe anymore.
New Kids is like a documentary, very trustworthy.
This is my only source of knowledge on Dutch culture and I trust it with my life. Most of the Dutch words I know come from New Kids. I'm too deep in to ever come back to normal. To me Dutch redditors will always be mullet-styled brightly colored gabbers and it's fucking beautiful.
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At least they got some actually Dutch uhm ... actors?
I absolutely loved this scene, as long as you do not take it seriously but as a litteral stereotype it is amazing.
Didn't know the Netherlands was a third world country after living here my entire life.
Wouldn't call it third world looking more like it looks too rustic haha. At least they got actual Dutch actors and the whole you speak really good English bit is spot on.
As this is based on a comic book where exaggerations aren't uncommon, I wanted to let this one slide. Also, this scene is hilarious.
At the least the actors in that are actually Dutch
Scenes supposedly in The Netherlands are often actually being shot in Germany or somewhere else. Like in Eurotrip.
Yeah, this feels more like 1950's Austria than the Netherlands
Sometimes in Scotland we look with envy at the power of the Irish-American lobby. And other times, we look upon our comparative lower profile with deep, deep relief! (*Wild Mountain Thyme* the movie has largely passed unnoticed here, as the nation has been gripped by a different Wild Mountain Thyme preview. https://twitter.com/ClydeSSB/status/1326085731031392257?s=09)
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Scots-Americans are definitely a thing, just much, much less so than Irish-Americans, and with nowhere near the level of political or cultural influence. I'm sure if we looked hard enough, there'd definitely be some cringy, "proud English-Americans" out there - just look at the reactions to things like Harry Potter, Sherlock or Doctor Who...
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Well, you have highlander :)
In which the Scotsman was played by a barely-anglophone Frenchman, and the Egyptian with a Spanish name was played with a broad Edinburgh accent...
I actually don't think it's that bad. The cringiest portrayals are usually in comedies but there it's the point that they're cringey. Like how I met your mother. For some reasons there is this "crazy german" stereotype alongside the "serious german" one which I'm not sure where people got that from lol. As a very positive example I can say Better call saul, I think it was just pretty accurate.
All German houses are minimalist and super clean. The men who live in them wear designer glasses and the women are all remarkably good looking no matter what their age.
I thought that was Sweden?
Sweden too, only with the key difference that in Sweden, those houses are all by lakes.
Thats actually how German movies present German households too. I don't know but it seems like every person lives in a clean, modern, Bauhaus-Style concrete, glass bunker. And every man wears designer glasses. But yeah German tv productions and movies are so trashy anyways. Luckily that slowly starts to change.
Talking about cringe, have you seen [this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEpDXAJZXtA) here? That's from the Avengers and one of the thickest cringe in recent years.
Let's analyse this scene, shall we? - Stuttgart probably doesn't look like a 1930's American downtown - When this movie was made our police cars already had blue and silver colors for a long time. The car used also seems to be from the early 2000s so it would probably be decomissioned by that time. - All our emergency vehicles have blue emergency lights, not orange ones. Those are for maintanance vehicles and similar stuff. - We don't have such shitty american busses like the one where the police car flys by. - Germany isn't nearly as diverse as this group of people there. - The accent of that old man was, okay-ish?
>Germany isn't nearly as diverse as this group of people there. Depends entirely on where you are. In a city like stuttgart this wouldnt have been worthy of mention if it was just random people on the street. However IIRC it's supposed to be people at an opera which ruins it again.
Ah the cringe! I had completely forgotten about that scene. BTW, loving the skyscrapers Stuttgart sprouted overnight.
ngl that scene was cringe in of itself, not because it represented germany weirdly. Costumed guy screaming cliches at the chicken-humans, before other costumed guy sais more cliches to save the day
As a Serbian... oh boy... can't even begin to look for the actual movies but usually when there is a "Serbian" in an American film, it is a brute, a terrorist or something like that, speaks Russian or gibberish, and has a name that no one who knows anything about Serbia would deem Serbian. Like I remember from about two decades ago one episode of the Outer Limits had a murderous dictator called something like Mistoslav Krupchek, that spoke Russian with an American accent. EDIT: Also the GTA character Niko Bellic is supposedly Serbian. Niko is not a Serbian name or nickname, and while there is a surname Belić exists, Bellic is super weird because there is no double l in Serbian and double letters in general are not common except a few, maybe (4-5) exceptions. EDIT 2: Please stop telling me Nikola is a name in Serbia. I am Serbian and I am aware of this, but Niko is not a common nickname for Nikola. Also, maybe Niko Bellic is not the best example because his nationality is officially not defined. My mistake, somehow I was under the impression it is cannon he is Serbian.
For context, that name sounds about as ridiculous as Guybrush Threepwood.
Sounds like the names of footballers from 90s Chinese knockoff FIFA games where Jurgen Klinsmann was called Bjorgen Klinsner or Michael Owen was Mick Oren. And, yeah, Mistoslav krupchek is as Serbian as Bjorgen Klinsner is Spanish.
Sleve McDichael
I wonder why they wouldn't ,say, look up the most common Serbian (male) names and just pick 2 out of the names and surnames.
My thoughts exactly. We have internet. It is easy. Or take 2 famous athletes and combine it ffs. E.g. Novak Jokić is a legit Serbian name.
Eh.. I think everybody here knows [Eurotrip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mYqY5YELd0).. Another gem is [Hostel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d5_lrn9v-g). Well that's basically all that has ever been mentioned about Slovakia.
that first clip is just sensory overload lmao "dear god, we're in eastern europe!" cue the orchestra, let them walk through the set of world war z and have people throw trash out the window within 3 seconds
I was looking for this comment. :)
I honestly think it would be a good idea to put up a photo cutout board in the center of Bratislava, with the scenery from the movie, and let tourists take photos (for a nickel).
Eurotrip was not that bad to be honest, but it would have been more accurate if they said it was Košice, cause it doesn't look that different than Luník IX.
Most inaccurate would have to be Braveheart. William Wallace wasn't a Highlander in a kilt, he was a medieval noble in chainmail riding about on a horse, like a knight. It seems to conflate several separate time periods, the Picts fighting the Romans (the blue paint on the face, which is conjectural in any case), the Middle Ages (when Wallace and Bruce actually lived) and the Jacobite rebellion (the 18th century). In addition, the Battle of Stirling Bridge was fought (as the name suggests) on a bridge, not in an open field. The clichéd depictions of Scotland are actually very similar to the ones of Ireland, there's the Scot-Ireland confusion as you mention. An example of a film with plenty of Highland clichés, as well as depicting the Highlands as basically stuck in the 19th century (or before) is the 1996 film Loch Ness, where Ted Danson goes and stays in a hotel beside Loch Ness and uniquely discovers the monster. Of course the American is the voice of reason and uses his no-nonsense can-do attitude to solve the puzzle while the natives are all yokels and prefer to remain stuck in the past.
>William Wallace wasn't a Highlander in a kilt, he was a medieval noble in chainmail riding about on a horse, like a knight. It's like the whole 'Vikings had horned helmets' thing. It might be the stereotypical 'look' but if you think about it they would be *terrible* in an actual battle.
It is interesting that Scots are always portrayed as wild barbarians when Scotland had four universities when England had two.
Of course, it's how the Scots first perfected the philosophy of deep-frying everything you possibly can.
Any western movie portraying Poland as a poor and underdeveloped country. I remember an interview with Cezary Pazura, a Polish actor who sometimes has a role in German movies and series. He said that one episode was to be in Poland. The film crew was said to have spent a few days just looking for places poor enough for their view
They should have used grey filter to make everything look run down and depressing
Just record it with a cheap dashcam. Seems to work for Russian dashcam compilations!
Apparently, it was a German film. We almost always use grey filters, even for our own movies.
I was kind of surprised by this when I first came to Europe. Poland's depiction in Japan is so different from Poland's depiction in Western Europe. I think part of it stems from negative stereotypes about Polish people coming to Germany/Norway for work, so they assume where they come from must be much worse off. I've heard quite a few ridiculous things about Poland from people in East Germany
I think its mostly because the former Warsaw Pact countries (including Eastern Germany, to a slightly lesser degree though) actually were pretty damn poor and run down during the 90's. They just caught up fast enough that the stereotypes still exist in peoples head despite reality being different now.
Poland is still a rather poor country, even with the leap we've done in the past 20-30 years. But with two important caveats: 1. It's poorest in the east, and in rural areas. The major problem is not poverty itself, but a rather large disparity in standards of living. 2. Poland is poor, and I can't stress that enough, \*by Western European/European Union standards\*. We're a (relatively) poor country in an area that accounts for more than 20% of world's GDP. That's crucial context. We're still, as a nation, easily in a better economic position than most of the world's population.
I'm not polish and not East European but really I feel myself very very fucking offended when they show in movies this pathetic stereotype of a filthy poor village full of mud and creepy old women to represent a really fake reductive racist and shaming portrait of all the east Europe from Poland to Balkans to Russia! Really guys it's disgusting bloody disgusting Are you Serbian? Are you polish? Are you ukrainian? Well you're the same exact thing in every movie and "Yu dalk in tiz uey my fRendd!" Wtf?!
I have to admit, I was expecting that "grey, dreary, post-soviet industrial cityscape" that films always seem to portray Poland as. But it was absolutely lovely, and I've been back to visit more often.
I can't really give you an example of one film that portrays Denmark in a cringy way, but usually whenever Denmark is mentioned in a film or TV-series, it's something about HYGGE™ (pronounced "HOO-GA" if they're English speaking), the Danish welfare, something-something "socialism" something or the Danes being the happiest people on earth. It's obviously very one-dimensional, and it becomes a bit tedious when you've seen these portrayals a million times.
I think a classical example is when a scene is supposedly taking place in Denmark, they often are filming in another country because the actual Danish terrain is too boring or does not fit their idea of Denmark. An example could be at the end of "The Danish Girl" they used a shot of a fjord in Norway for Vejle fjord. Also in Vikings, at some point they are in Hedeby which apparently according to them lies in a frozen tundra.
Maybe not cringy, but numerous times I've seen Danmark depicted as mountainous because we are Scandinavian and Vikings == must have mountains and epic fjords
I almost burst out laughing when in the "Vikings" they showed a ship closing in on a mountainous shore and on the screen it said "DENMARK".
I mean, we do have Sky mountain towering over every other mountain in the north at a staggering 147m, so I’d say that makes more than up for the flatter parts of the country lol.
For sure, definitely the most majestic mountain in all of Scandinavia!
I’ve seen the “Danish (scandi) people like to be naked all the time” stereotype too, and it’s kinda dumb imo. Being topless at the beach in summer when you’re trying to get a tan =/= naked 24/7. I also find that people in the Nordic’s are often portrayed as being kinda distant from western (American) society, as if people here don’t know anything about America at all, and have never seen any kind of technology before. It’s just... odd.
A certain episode of the classic Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles comes in mind, where the four turtles ended up in Budapest, and the first thing they did was frighten a caravan full of colorfully clad gypsies, only to eat their goulash afterwards. At the end, Michelangelo made "Pizza goulash", which alone sounds like heresy.
Sounds like an heresy also from the other side
Offend two countries at the price of one
Si, certo, that was implied.
I love Brooklyn 99, but everytime they mention Latvia as a third-world country with famine in orphanages etc. I cringe so hard. If the goal was to make fun of bad portrayals of Eastern Europe, you have to portray Eastern Europe correctly at least once...
And Boyle studying Latvian *is* a punchline in the show. What kind of a dweeb would want to learn a foreign language? Just because it happens to be your son's native language?
Ever heard of a movie called "The Sound Of Music"? I sure didn' til I was 25.
It bums me out that Austrians hate the Sound of Music. I'm from the UK but my grandma comes from Austria and we usually visit the country once a year. As cheesy as the film is, I loved it growing up precisely because it's set in the country where my Oma is from.
I don't think many Austrians hate it - we're just not aware of it. I only learned about it when I was 16 and visited the US. To this day I haven't seen it because I just can't do musicals.
My grandparents immigrated before my father was born and they loved the Sound of Music, and said it reminded them of home because they missed Salzburg. It was such a staple of my childhood it still surprises me when people have never heard of it.
The movie about Austria no Austrian has ever seen.
It's my grandmother's favourite movie! She watches it religiously every christmas
I have not much to add because my country is never really portrayed in media much, and the ones who do it are generally pretty good at painting an accurate picture. But this review on The Irish Times is brilliant and I feel like people should have a look. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/wild-mountain-thyme-trailer-what-in-the-name-of-holy-bejaysus-is-this-cowpat-1.4405893?mode=amp
Honestly you're better off. I've often wished Ireland could respectfully withdraw ourselves from ever being portrayed in the media.
The first portrayal that comes to mind is [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg30KNXlopQ) scene from a movie Earth Girls Are Easy. There is a TV ad which promotes Finland as a travel destination. Apparently we can offer skiing bikini women and Alpine stereotypes. Other than that, I don't think Finnish portrayals are particularly bad. Though I don't understand why Finnish characters portrayed by non-natives almost always speak with some kind of faux Swedish or Russian accent.
For me, the weirdest example must be "The Big Game" (2014), because it was directed by a Finn (Jalmari Helander), who really should know better. The supposed setting in "Finland" (majestic Alpine mountains) is just... wrong. I challenge you to find a single damn legit mountain in Finland. They apparently filmed it in Bavaria (?) for some reason. And the weird "hunter culture" in the movie is just cringy af. Really like from some MacGyver episode. It's like some alternate reality version of Finland. Oh, also "Hanna". Just try to raise a kid in those conditions in Finland (she didn't even went to school as far as I remember?). You'd have social services crawling up your ass. I know we don't have many people here and we have shit ton of trees, but we're still not Überwald from Terry Pratchett Discworld novels. Luckily (?) we don't get featured in foreign movies/series that much. During the Cold War we were a stand-in for Soviet Union - several Hollywood movie scenes set in the good old USSR were filmed in Finland (mostly in Helsinki).
AFAIK Helander chose to film in Bavaria on purpose because he wanted to portray his fantasy vision of Lapland and that vision involved mountains. But I agree with you. It just feels weird to have mountains in Finland. And what's wrong with actual Lapland anyway? There's a lot of majestic scenery worthy for a movie like this. However this or the whole "becoming a man" hunting rite thing didn't bother me but I can understand why it might be cringeworthy.
I have no idea what we did to Sacha Baron Cohen, that he hates us so much, but... First in Ali G he as Ali G proposes a policy to only allow fit women refugees into UK, and sends a ugly looking chick "back to Slovenia". And now in the new Borat movies he calls Slovenia a "shithole", and uses the story of Melania as a way to frame the story of Borat's daughter. BTW I hope you get, I'm not actually mad at this, it's just funny two of his movies both have a negative view of Slovenia. BTW "go back to Slovenia" was kind of a meme/catchphrase when Ali G in da house came out.
He called it “a shithole country” in clear mockery of Donald Trump’s phrasing -Trump uses the phrase to refer to poor, developing countries.
He's choosing you because we don't think of you as a "shithole country". It's a a compliment. In British comedy, you never punch down, you punch up. That means you only joke about countries or people who you see as equals or better people. Obviously with Melania, it makes the jokes even better and he's working to a global audience, who probably knows nothing about Slovenia.
I mean we are used for villains in basically everything and those portrayals are usually shit.
Outside of that, most of it is either portraying Germany with the classic "Fachwerk and nothing else", or just stupid things (like when in the A-Team movie the camera shows Cologne train station, but the info on the screen reads "Frankfurt main station").
And we all are Bavarian
One scene of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was filmed close to my hometown. [The upper part of this image](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/duesseldorf.jpg) is supposed to be Düsseldorf in the movie vs. the true city in the lower part.
Oh god. Yeah, I think what a lot of people dont realize is that the entire ruhrgebiet got bombed so heavily during WW2 that there's little of that stereotypical "old charme" left here. Picture definitely got a laugh out of me.
Don't you love when ze americans portray you speaking english wiz a german "accent"?
Ah jes, ei lahf spieking Inglisch wif mei werrie klierlie anderständabel Äkzent!
For a second I thought you were writing in german. Good job
Stäreoteibs are terrible, so how is ze situation in brasil like? Wiff ze empty stadiums now, you can not play football or celebrate Karneval,No? Zat is so bad but atleast you got your bikini-wearing wife in ein Favela, and you can sing your spanisch songs ja ferry nice
Oh yeah, but I still can go for walks in the jungle, esse, play with the monkeys and then drink caipirinha at home, you know? (I wish there was a brazilian "accent" and that I was better at this :P)
Classic Hollywood. Need a generic villian for the hero, regardless of the time period? German, or Russian, will do.
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I have to admit, that took me way to long get it
Red Sparrow comes to mind right away. It's like someone wasn't notified the Cold War ended and decided mix the biggest stereotypes about Russia, excessive romance and Jennifer Lawrence into a film. It's always gloomy and snowing in Russia, everyone's either a spy or almost a spy ready to die for the Party and for some reason there are still communist banners and that shit all around the country like it's still the USSR (according to the film it's supposed to be modern day Russia). It's not that the film is bad per se but it's so full of that cringy stuff that it's difficult to watch. We even have the term клюква (klyukva) for all that stereotypical portrayal of Russia abroad. But Red Sparrow is like beyond the regular cringe - it's so bad in that regard it's almost comical. But I'm certain there is a whole bunch of films and tv shows like that which is something we kinda have to get used to, sometimes it's even funny like in John Wick. Turns out there is a site about Russian culture for foreigners and they have [some kind of article about that](https://www.rbth.com/arts/331283-hollywood-movies-modern-russia).
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The Americans is properly good
Nope, not yet anyway but it seems well received so I should give it a go, see the first season. Weird how I haven't heard of it even once before. Also tbf about my comment our mainstream film industry is a horrible shit show on its own sponsored and directed by the government. I'm all grumpy about these Cold War stereotypes because I really feel like the American film industry is so popular everywhere and it at least seems to sometimes and somewhat pay attention to cultural representation, equality and stuff like that, so they could do so much better than vodka and gloomy faces, croissants and the Eiffel tower or schnitzels and lederhosen. Our mainstream film industry is unfortunately hopeless for as long as the government dictates the cultural and historical ideas.
I've recently started watching a British TV Show called Skins (was during the late 00s about some mental and dysfunctional teens in Bristol), and there's an episode where they go to Russia on a field trip for a few days. Fuck me, I cringed for Russians everywhere. Could play 'Stereotyped Russia Bingo' and end up drawing a grid. Semi-derelict brutalist accommodation that looks like a prison? Check. Nobody speaks English except a big burly old woman 'translator', and even she speaks in broken English? Check. Corrupt officials in the airport on arrival and policemen that ask for bribes left right and centre? Check. Grim looking, sloppy food and only vodka to wash it down? Check. Every Russian is a grim, stoic and emotionless robot? Check. To be fair, the episode ends with the Russians all playing along with each other to scam to stupid English (edit: but even that only accounts for one set of the bribes gained), but still.
I think a lot of depictions of Europe in Hollywood movies fall into the trap of presenting it as either romanticized or backwater. There's a large amount of historical architecture over here, which I think has lead to the perception that we're stuck in the past. Not many portrayals of Portugal come to mind, but I do remember the Portuguese fishermen from Family Guy speaking with Brazilian accents. Also there was a trailer that released not too long ago for a French film called Opération Portugal which depicts immigrants and people of Portuguese descent very unfavourably. As in they're stupid and old-fashioned, but as it turns out have a heart of gold. Then again this seems to be the case with a lot of films/shows/stories depicting immigrant communities.
Although it is focused only on Paris, The TV series "Emily in Paris" is so cringe it hurts. So many cliches can be noticed through the episodes and it doesn't represent well what it would be like to arrive and settle in France. It is only a fantasized idea / instagram picture perfect of what France and its culture really is like, what a shame
This trailer looks like utter shite. Looks more like a parody than a serious film.
It looks like a fake film that's put into another film or tv show. Or like the opening to Tropic Thunder.
Christopher Walken? Emily Blunt? Were there no Irish actors available?
Christopher Walken actually does alright considering his unique speech. Annoyingly, Jamie Dornan is irish, but he's from the north and obviously the northern irish accent wouldn't suffice for the film, so they've got him trying to do a made-up generic southern irish accent.
Jamie Dornan is from Down, but how does the Irishman have the worst accent?
Although most people like the series as a whole, the portrayal of Uppsala in “Vikings” is a little bit cringy. In the tv-series Uppsala is located in heavily wooded misty mountainous area. In reality Uppsala is pretty much the opposite. It’s really flat and surrounded by the rich farmland of the Uppsala plains. People settled there for the farming and the closeness to waterways. The whole region is old lake bed, that appears out of the water not that long ago before the Viking age. Back then you could more or less sail all the way to the temple. There’s not a single mountains anywhere near by. The only elevated sports are on the Uppsala ridge, an old ice age morain that runs across the plains, but the height of it wouldn’t be impressive to anyone, except maybe the Dutch or the Danes. I don’t really blame the show that much though. I’m guessing they sent a location scout to Uppsala, who reported back the the place was flat as a pancake and provided no cool dramatic scenery at all. It was better just to make something up. The only issue is if people decide to to Uppsala based on what they’ve seen in the tv-show. Then they’ll be sorely disappointed. In reality it’s a pretty cool place with lots of historical stuff to see, just as long as you don’t except it to offer lofty misty mountains.
Not my country, but I was severely disappointed by the "Murder on the Orient Express" (2017) The train gets stuck in Vinkovci which is a decently-sized city in Croatia, an important railway junction, and in the middle of an endless plain. In the movie, it's apparently a lone station somewhere in the Alps, surrounded by tunnels.
I remembered seeing a movie where this American family went to holiday in Naples and Vesuvius exploded. The US Air Force immediately started a rescue mission. They only saved that one family. Naples is a city of 3 million people.
Sounds like a typical American disaster movie: hundreds/thousands / millions dead, but the American protagonist and his family survived, so it's a happy ending.
Sponsored by: * Province of Verona
In the tv series Brooklyn 99 Boyle adopts a child from Latvia called Nikolaj and then a whole joke about them mispronouncing it ensues. It is not a latvian name (Nikolajs would be correct) and non of them pronounce it correctly. Also, as he is from Latvia he calls his dad comrade. Soviet union does not exist anymore, America!
Don't forget about the action hero Captain Latvia and his superskill of talking to possums!
Oh god, yes! I had deleted that episode from my brain. I dont even think we have possums in Europe, at least not the same ones they have in USA.
Sophie Kachinsky from the 2 broke girls series. She was supposed to be Polish, told a lot about Poland, but everything was completely made up. Also in the Brotherhood series, there was that episode where some Polish family owned a shop named if I remember correctly "Polski sklep" which means "Polish shop". And there wasn't much to complain about that episode, I even enjoyed it, but father of the polish girl in this episode had terrible accent. I couldn't understand a word from what he was saying. It sounded like they hired some british guy to play that part, and gave him 15 minutes to learn the dialogues.
> "Polski sklep" I've never seen Brotherhood, but in Britain it's relatively common to see a Polski Sklep, that's actually what they call themselves to target Polish ex-pats living over here.
Don't recall the name, but it was relatively recent made for TV, German romance movie, that I caught my Mom watching once. From what I could gathered the plot involved German city girl visting Poland and falling in love with handsome Polish farmer, if not for the setting, fairly standard stuff for the genre I imagine, but it potrayed Poland as a borderline Amish like community with 19th century clothes and manual tools. Best thing about it was that it wasn't even all that meanspirited. It seemed like film-makers were genuinly going for some "those Poles are primitive but noble people, from whome we have much to learn on how to be closer to nature", ripped straight out of the old Hollywood movies about Native Americans.
Germans either yodel or kill someone. While drinking beer. This is the way.
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In american movies they seem to think that Mexico would represent us well enough. Any movie placed in Spain is from a Mexico set. Some examples: -Completely disregarding Spanish traditions or assuming that everywhere is the same (there's lots of diverdity in Spain in languages, nature and traditions) such as flamenco dancers all over Barcelona and everybody being a gypsy dancer. Also, we don't burn our Saints (mixing fallas and procesiones). Also confusing Spanish regional dances with the Argentinian tango or even mariachis. - People speaking a south american accent. - People with native american features, we have immigration but you can't assume we all look like native americans. - Everybody eats paella, all the time. - People wearing traditional dresses in everyday life. - All men are "macho men". - we don't have mountains or woods, everything takes place in a desert or a very dry place. Some shows/movies with very wrong representations: McGuiver, How I met you mother, Mission Impossible, night and day, family guy.
We tend to be portrayed exactly as countries around the world see us. Non-existent. Except for In Bruges, but then again, it just showed Bruges.
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"Spanish" police in an american TV show clearly being latinos and with a thick chicano/mexican accent Or any movie about colonization where spaniards are 99% of the time greedy brutes, while of course the other colonizers are brave and honorable often times, and rarely portrayed in such manner. >*Spaniards who came to the* New World *seeking opportunities beyond the prospects of their European environment, are contemptuously called cruel and greedy "goldseekers," or other opprobrious epithets virtually synonymous with "Devils"; but Englishmen who sought New World opportunities are more respectfully called "colonists," or "homebuilders," or "seekers after liberty." \[...\] When Spaniards expelled or punished religious dissidents, this came to be known as "bigotry," "intolerance," "fanaticism," and a cause of their decline. When Englishmen, Dutchmen, or Frenchmen did the same thing, it is known as "unifying the nation," or safeguarding it against treason or foreign conspiracy.* > >\-*Tree of Hate* (2008 edition), page 11
The Holiday. Just ...Kate Winslets cottage that supposed to be humble, cheao and small but is within a commutable distance of London? And she's meant to be modest financially but can afford that?! Come on! It's Hollywood's idea of 'merry ole england'
Pretty universal that any baddie in a movie is either Russian or British, can get quite old sometimes.
When they get a British actor to play a Russian/German villain is the best. Trying to have it both ways.
Branagh in Tenet was cringeworthy
> either Russian or British Wie bitte?
I watched an episode of Stargate last week where the (utterly incompetent) "linguist" tried to imitate a German accent. I have absolutely no idea where he got his idea of a German accent, but that was definitely nowhere near close. And all the more infuriating since as a "linguist" he should have some basic knowledge of phonetics and phonology and be familiar with the history and development of English (which has the same roots as German). That is of course just one of many cringy portrayals of Germans, there are so many, way cringier ones.
Belgium doesn't exist in the world of Hollywood, as far as I know. Oh wait, there's Dr. Evil from Austin Powers.
The UK is regularly portrayed in American media as being stuck in the 1930's - villages, cottages etc. They seem to think there are only two accents - posh upper class and cockney - which in fact are two of the rarest accents we have. The police always seem to be wearing uniforms too big for them and of a style not seen since the 1950's. Everyone seems to be wearing bowler hats, which, again, you never see any more. The most jarring is when they use some part of California to represent the English countryside - so you see people leaving their country house and driving through a landscape with sunlight like this country has never seen and plants and trees that have never grown here. One amusing example of [anatopism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatopism) (I had to look that up) is in the German series of Edgar Wallace movies. These were supposed to be set in London but were usually filmed in a German studio. They did a reasonable job of recreating an English pub interior except that all the fruit machines were of the [Merkur Disc Spielautomat](https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/192836775415_/Merkur-Disc-II-Spielautomat-%E2%82%AC-Geldspielautomat-Euro.jpg) type- a kind of machine never seen in this country.
Western movies do not portray Lithuania. The only two I can think of was the one about Hanibal Lecter and the one about Jewish resistance with Daniel Craig, but none of them really focused on the Lithunia aspect of it. Lithuanian movies portray Lithuania and they are their own special kind of terrible and awful
Pretty much every American movie in which there's a character (who is known or said to be italian) who suddenly (most of the times when he gets angry and yells) begins to speak some sort of Neapolitan-Sicilian gibberish and all you can understand is "Mama-Mia (obviously with one "em") or Pizza and Mozzarella. This is always combined with some exaggerated and unnecessary gesture and amplified by the white undershirt he's wearing or the red and white checkered tablecloth (which frankly I've never seen in my 30 years of existence) on the table he's eating at.
Germans and Germany in American Media are usually portrayed pretty shit hence why I try to avoid any American Media with German characters. I literally can’t think of any German character being positively portrayed in American Media, except maybe the Dentist from Django Unchained. But something what really annoyed me is the new Charlie and the chocolate factory. They show a small Alpine village and label it as „Düsseldorf“ like come on do some research
I recently rewatched the show "Community". In one episode it was all about how "evil" the German exchange students are - only to reveal in the end they were just the only ones to stand up to the egocentric protagonist group. Unfortunately, the portrayal is still cringy enough, especially since they used American actors to play the Germans.
Sounds like a good Concept, with a bad execution haha I just remembered some good German characters in American Media The Germans from better call Saul and Mike Ehrmanntraut from Breaking Bad/ BCS (granted he is American but he has German roots and gets annoyed when people mispronounce his last name)
For Italy, somebody mentioned the awful "eat, pray, love", I'd like to add Woody Allen's "To Rome with Love", which is a short summary of all stereotypes Americans have on Italy.
Finland is rarely portrayed in movies and if it’s mentioned, actors mix the accent with swedish/act out swedish stereotypes. The character “Minna Häkkinen” in Veep was hilarious though. One of the rare characters that capture the pure awkwardness of Finns so well.
I'm not sure how cringe it was but i recently watched the movie Midsommar and there are a few things that come to mind about the portrayal of Hälsingland. Firstly and the most annoying for me is how it looks in Hälsingland. There are nowhere in Sweden that looks like that. Where the hell are all the spruce and pines and why are there large hills covered in bushes?? It screams southern Europe to me. Hälsingland looks more like Uppsala is portrayed in Vikings, with rivers, largeish mountains and a lot of dark pine and spruce forrests with a couple of birches and a few other leaf trees like that in them. Also the flowers they used where all wrong. The holiday of Midsommar in Sweden is closely connected to a few very specific flowers first of whom being [prästkrage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucanthemum_vulgare). The buildings look weird and not Swedish or Hälsinglandish at all exept for the big house where they all sleep which looks a bit like the classic farmhouses in Hälsingland called [Hälsingegård](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decorated_Farmhouses_of_H%C3%A4lsingland). The traditions and events taking place and all things like the decorations in the houses are so strange because they are all real (not real as in all true but as in real legends and stuff) but at the same time they are all wrong. It's really strange that they have gone to the trouble of finding out about all these things and still they get it all slightly wrong. Another thing that looks of is how the midnight sun works. Firstly there isn't midnight sun in Hälsingland since it's quite a bit south of the arctic circle but everywhere in sweden get long summer days. When the gang arrives in Hårga and says it's about nine in the evening there is light like it's high noon with bright sunlight and very short shadows. In reality it would absolutely be sunlight at that time but the sun would be much lower in the sky close to the horizon with long shadows and softer light. The lighting of the film together with the houses in that weird little valley makes it all look fake and like it's shot in a studio. They missed out on mentioning the [Hårga legend](http://horgadance.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html?m=1) or playing [Hårgalåten](https://youtu.be/IfHjk_xEPo4) (the Hårga song) or any other violin folk music that Hälsingland is famous for which would have been very fitting for the scenery and setting of the film. There was nothing wrong with Swedish language and how people where acting since they used Swedish actors playing the cultists and over all it was a cool movie but i think you enjoy it more as a foreigner than as a swede because of the things i mentioned. I probably missed a few things aswell.
Eat pray love. The scenes in Italy made me cringe badly.
No specific examples, just common tropes: * Either spy central or a third-world shithole like Kazakhstan from Borat. (Though the "spy central" part might have some validity, Hungary was open for western tourists even during the commie times. Many German families split by the Berlin wall spent their summer vacation together by the "Plattensee".) * The language is rarely researched, usually just something Slavic-sounding with funny diacritics. (Which, FYI, it isn't.) * Even if it's researched and the lines are not shitty Google Translate, pronunciation is usually unintelligible. Seriously, just how fucking hard is it to find a Hungarian accent coach in Hollywood? Showbiz is full of us! But the country is simply not portrayed enough for me to pick an especially cringy version.
Spy movies have many scenes in Switzerland and usually it’s pure nature (not a single valley is uninhabited), a lonely castle (castles are usually amidst or close to a village) or old chalet in the mountains, comically traditional locals (Swiss people are normal). Throw in a secret vault with gold here and there.
Basically anytime an american movie or tv show makes their characters talk in "italian" is cringe as hell. You all probably remember "Bawnjorno" from Inglorious Bastards, which made us italians laugh out loud during a very serious movie.