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Las Vegas is much the same, its a regular city outside the Strip but few movies ever show the regular aspect. If they want an average city they usually just film in Los Angeles, or in places with tax incentives like Pennsylvania or Louisiana.
In terms of large cities that movies are not SET in, I've never seen any movie set predominantly in St. Louis, Kansas City, or Indianapolis. Also when they show American cities other than NY, Chicago, LA, or San Francisco or Miami they rarely show the skylines. Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas have very impressive, beautiful skylines with lots of nice buildings but that's never shown in movies set there. For example in "Flight" they make Atlanta seem like a rural backwater.
Dallas is also overlooked in movies especially being one of the largest cities in America.
Cities I have RARELY or NEVER seen featured in a movie include Indianapolis, Columbus, Minneapolis (with the exception of the Mighty Ducks and Fargo), Charlotte, Raleigh, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Milwaukee.
I mean it would actually be refreshing to see a car chase on a Dallas freeway or a shootout on the streets of Charlotte or a showdown on top of a Denver skyscraper.
Joe Somebody was filmed almost entirely in Minneapolis, too. I think it was filmed in 2000 or 2001. It starred Tim Allen and Kelly Lynch.
The whole Viriginia Tidelands area: Norfolk, Cheasapeake, Suffolk, Hampton, Viriginia Beach, Newport News. You rarely even hear it mentioned in a movie, let alone see it (except for the occassional Navy flick), and it never comes up in songs. Not only that, but there are no major professional sports teams there.
It's like all those 2 million people don't exist.
Literally the only cultural production I can think of when I think of Hampton Roads are Missy Elliot, N.E.R.D., and some NCIS cameos. Movies? Nothing. Literature? I'm ignorant.
Overall though based on scale versus cultural production. At least Houston has a great music scene. Dallas must be the largest American populous with the least amount of cultural production and/or representation. Music being their strongest point but so overshadowed in rap by Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, and the Coasts, and in country by Nashville, maybe Houston, and the rest of the South. As far as film and literature, Dallas just gets outperformed I think. Sometimes even by San Antonio. However, there are a lot of Western films and shows that vaguely come to mind as being set in Dallas, even if they aren't. It's just that name...Dallas.
Dallas does have Walker, Texas Ranger. Also that new show titled....Dallas. So some television representation happening.
I think this is a really interesting topic. Just cultural production and representation in general and how it varies from city to city, from variations in the level of representation to the quality of representation. Even cities as large and oft-depicted as Los Angeles and New York frequently get framed as "no ones ever depicted the 'real' NY/LA."
I think it's interesting how some places can have more cultural hegemony than others even being a lot smaller, i.e. Nashville, Memphis once upon a time.
Last edited by BitofEndearment; 02-03-2014 at 12:17 AM..
Las Vegas is much the same, its a regular city outside the Strip but few movies ever show the regular aspect. If they want an average city they usually just film in Los Angeles, or in places with tax incentives like Pennsylvania or Louisiana.
In terms of large cities that movies are not SET in, I've never seen any movie set predominantly in St. Louis, Kansas City, or Indianapolis. Also when they show American cities other than NY, Chicago, LA, or San Francisco or Miami they rarely show the skylines. Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas have very impressive, beautiful skylines with lots of nice buildings but that's never shown in movies set there. For example in "Flight" they make Atlanta seem like a rural backwater.
Dallas is also overlooked in movies especially being one of the largest cities in America.
Cities I have RARELY or NEVER seen featured in a movie include Indianapolis, Columbus, Minneapolis (with the exception of the Mighty Ducks and Fargo), Charlotte, Raleigh, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Denver, and Milwaukee.
I mean it would actually be refreshing to see a car chase on a Dallas freeway or a shootout on the streets of Charlotte or a showdown on top of a Denver skyscraper.
Great post. Your point about people wanting an "average city" getting filmed is spot-on. Filming in some random neighborhood in DC that has nothing to do with the government is fairly pointless for a Hollywood filmmaker - they might as well just film in LA or wherever it's cheapest (i.e. Pennsylvania, Toronto, etc.). The cities that get featured the most in films are ones where we (the audience) already have a strong preconceived notion or stereotype (whether it's actually true or not) about what it's like, so it adds to the story or gives an instant flavor: NYC is big and important, LA is flashy and entertainment-focused, DC is about government and power, Chicago is urban and gritty or the default city choice when filmmakers don't want to use NYC or LA (with the North Shore thrown as the stereotypical backdrop for rich kid high school dramedies), Boston consists of either geniuses that go to Harvard/MIT or Irish blue collar guys from Southie, Philadelphia is a cross variant of Chicago and Boston depending upon the storyline, San Francisco has techies and hipsters, Seattle is a rainy variant of San Francisco with more scenes featuring coffee and flannels, Miami is partying on South Beach, and Las Vegas is partying on the Strip.
There are certainly some exceptions here, but the point is that unless the story has a very specific reason to be in a certain place (i.e. the underlying story behind the movie "Friday Night Lights" takes place in Odessa, Texas) or the screenwriter is writing about his/her hometown, filmmakers generally use locations that are (1) instantly recognizable and/or (2) cheapest. In the case of #1, you'll see lots of skyline shots and talk about the city specifically. In the case of #2, you won't see many skyline shots or references to the city at all (or even referencing a completely different city that it's standing in for, i.e. Toronto is frequently used as a stand-in for NYC and Chicago). The average American, whether it's fair or not, likely can't tell the difference between the skylines of Houston, Atlanta or Dallas, whereas they almost certainly know NYC right away and can generally figure out the DC landmarks, Chicago's skyline, the Space Needle in Seattle, the TransAmerica Building and Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, etc.
It's Houston. Is there any film that was filmed or was set in Houston. I can't name any. Houston's music scene is well known, but it's the 4th largest city in the US.
It's Houston. Is there any film that was filmed or was set in Houston. I can't name any. Houston's music scene is well known, but it's the 4th largest city in the US.
Crazy Heart was set in Houston, Jeff Bridges won an academy award for best Actor for that one. Like someone posted before movies like the Right Stuff, Apollo 13 or even Gravity are set somewhat in Houston or mention Houston as part of the plot.
A few others have been Paris Texas and Terms of Endearment which won Shirley McLane a best actor Oscar along with Jack Nicholson for best supporting actor. Les Anderson has set many of his films in Houston, my favorite being Rushmore. Richard Linklater also has set a few of his movies in Houston.
All that said I will still agree that Houston is underreped in the movie industry, some of that may be due to the fact that Houston has no real indigenous media of our own. And if you don't blow your own horn, its doubtful that media from other locations will blow it for you.
Orlando. There used to be a big presence there when Nickelodeon has production ops there. Lot's of game shows had live tapings on the Universal lot. Now you rarely see any movies or TV shot there. "Ernest Saves Christmas" might have been the last one.
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