TV Shows And Movies That Grossly Misinterpret Your Job
Reddit user SteveTenants recently posed this question to the AskReddit community: "What film or show hilariously misinterprets something you have expertise in?"
Professionals and hobbyists responded in fury.
Here are some of the best responses:
Law
“Being an attorney, especially a trial attorney. Witnesses never crumble on the witness stand. In fact, with how liberal discovery is now, there are few if any surprises at all." — Attorney_at_Aww
Nuclear Reactor Physics
“Any time people freak out when a nuclear reactor goes critical. You want your reactor critical.” — Country5
Network Administration
“I work in IT, and am also a big fan of NCIS. Every single time McGee has to trace an IP or back trace a hacking attempt, they always end up at the same IP.. 192.168.0.1 ... Anyone who knows anything about networking gets a chuckle out of that.” — crazykilla
Aviation
“Sorry, but F-22 fighter jets are not going to by flying at 100 feet above the ground and getting within 100 feet of the target. They fly at airliner altitudes and fire missiles from 20 miles away.” — claymore5o6
“Pacific Rim would have been a lot shorter and less entertaining if they had just used jets to fire missiles from 20 miles away.” — ohwilson
Obstetrics
“Giving birth. After doing my research, and watching my son be born, I realized that t.v. and movies misrepresent the birthing process so consistently.” — Neusbaum
“Once again Scrubs nails it:
Narrator: Congratulations! You're expecting! Don't worry -- your doctor will tell you everything you need to know.
Narrator: Hi, Doctor!
J.D.: You'll fart, pee, puke, and poop in front of ten complete strangers who'll be staring intently at your vagina -- which, by the way, has an eighty percent chance of tearing!” — Kayge
Elevator Construction
“The way movies portray elevators, specially stunts on 'em it's just incredible. You cannot just cut the wire and the elevator will fall on the shaft. It has at least 3 safety measures that will prevent the elevator from falling, effectively locking it on the shaft.” — Electro_Syphilis
Firefighting
“As a firefighter: Movies don't accurately portray fire behavior. They don't show how little time you have to get out of the building. They don't show how hard it is to see. Turn off the lights, and put a blindfold over your eyes, it's that bad. Thermal layering: if you stood up in a burning building you'd cook like a pop tart. Plus you'd suffocate.” — TheVoiceOfRiesen
"How did "Rescue Me" do? I know they had some professional consultants on the show." — koshercowboy
"Honestly it didn't do very well in a few areas. No SCBA (Self Contained Breathing Apparatus) while going in. A lot of "free lancing" (you go off solo without orders)" — TheVoiceOfRiesen
Video Gaming
“In Charlie's Angels, there's a scene where Final Fantasy VIII, a text command driven single player RPG, is being played multiplayer and by button mashing. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGSOJlW59wY” — Phormicidae
Heating and Air Conditioning
“Every single show and movie that depicts somebody crawling through duct work and maintaining complete silence. I'm an HVAC engineer...” — therealswimshady
“I love the episode of Mythbusters where Jamie is climbing up duct work with his magnets and Adam is joking ‘Thor, the god of thunder is trying to sneak into my building.’” — Adn88
Playing an Instrument
"As a cellist, watching Jamie Foxx fake playing cello in The Soloist was utter torture. He may be a great pianist, but oh god the cello was bad.
and on a related note, fuck School of Rock. A cello on its side != a bass. The strings are tuned different entirely. I almost rage quit the movie right then." — jennz
Internship Supervising
"I manage summer internships for a software developer. I should have never gone to see The Internship." — catiebug
Custom Paintwork
"Watching Megan Fox sitting on the motorcycle airbrushing upside down in Transformers 2 annoys me. You have no idea the prep work actually involved in custom paintwork." — SenseiT
