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Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere
Ferris Beuller is a great one.
I agree that too many movies choose the same damn cities over and over again. The odd one “branches out” to a smaller US city.
Like 90% of movies take place in New York, Los Angeles, London, or Paris. It’s frustrating.
You get major Cities like Toronto, Sydney, etc. That have basically 0 filmography set in them. Toronto’s biggest movie actually set here is probably Scott Pilgrim, a 10 year old indie cult flick with a very limited audience.
I think a lot of this is because of American studio’s reluctance to “alienate” American viewers with unfamiliar cities. They only branch out of the US for settings if it adds a certain exotic allure to them. Like setting the Bourne flicks in Europe. Nobody would believe those antics could happen on US soil, so send them to Europe.. adds to the “spy” aspect of it all as well.
But Toronto? Sydney? Auckland? What kind of entertainment do those add to a film that can’t be achieved in, say, Chicago, or Minneapolis, or something? It’s just easier to set things there instead since American audiences are more familiar with it. Even if you still actually film in Toronto.
And it’s a damn shame. Canadian cities dominate American filmography yet are almost never used as an actual setting for the film, even when the setting can simply be “generic city” and not impact the plot whatsoever. Producers still feel the need to set it somewhere else.
If any of those cities to make the cut to even be referenced or used for a specific scene, it usually comes with some dumb stereotypical joke of how Canada or Australia is “different”. Get arrested by Mounties in Toronto or something, or some played up Aussie slang from an Australian in Sydney. It’s very low brow stuff and completely dominates US references to the countries.
I swear there is no original US jokes about Canadians. You get the same “Mounties eh? And poutine and French people and lumberjacks!” Stereotypes constantly in almost every Canadian reference. Nothing explaining actual day to day culture in the countries. Just caricatures of them.
Sorry. Rant over.
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Welcome to globalized film culture, where every movie has to cater to ignorant chinese and nigerian audiences and censorship.
Boston and New york stereotypes are at least as bad
Boston: matt damon, 100x more irish than you would ever see in the city, chowdahh, blue collar urban white guys who don't exist anymore and haven't for 30 years
New York: (Scorcese, gangs, pacino, de niro, wise guys, like 100x more Italians that you would actually ever in see in NYC, etc)
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I think a lot of this is because of American studio’s reluctance to “alienate” American viewers with unfamiliar cities. They only branch out of the US for settings if it adds a certain exotic allure to them. Like setting the Bourne flicks in Europe. Nobody would believe those antics could happen on US soil, so send them to Europe.. adds to the “spy” aspect of it all as well.
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this is not true at all, or hasn't been for 20 years. the audience for hollywood movies in in China, Africa, India and hollywood caters to their tastes.
American cities and the urban experience and culture are hideously poorly represented in modern movies, the more so because too many films are shot in anodyne locations like Calgary and Vancouver to make the appeal more 'global'