The ignorance of Hollywood

While there are a lot of shows on TV that I like such as The Ultimate Fighter, sports and House, there aren’t that many shows that my wife likes to sit with me and watch. So I have to find shows that we can both handle and that she likes. There are two shows that we watch that got me to thinking about how Hollywood just doesn’t get certain topics and why. The pilot episode of Lie to me on Fox and Private Practice on ABC (and since Private Practice was a spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy it is clear both shows have a problem with the same topic) led me to realize that Hollywood just doesn’t get the military or religion.
There are some dramas that do get the military. Army Wives on Lifetime is full of military stories (duh!) and they mess up some of the tactical stuff in the name of drama, but so be it. At least they try. But then you have other shows that just have so many errors you have to wonder who is writing this stuff. On the pilot episode of Lie to Me they had a Staff Sergeant who was in charge of every dang thing in the book from convoys, to the schedules, to translation and meeting with tribal leaders. Not to mention the other soldiers kept saying he was the “commander.” There were so many basic errors that it completely distracted from the show.
That made me start to think about why there were errors like this. I have no doubt that the number of writers in Hollywood that actually were in the military could be counted on one hand. The military is voluntary, ok, so no problem. But do you mean to tell me that none of the writers even know someone in the military that they could ask the most simple of question to? No one has family members that served and are on speaking terms with the writers? Sure, they could Google or use Wikipedia for some of the details like what rank a staff sergeant wears. But they can’t use those sources to find out calling a staff sergeant “commander” has NEVER and WILL NEVER happen because he is a sergeant and not an officer. Even if a staff sergeant had everyone in his company killed and the only people below him were privates, they STILL wouldn’t call him commander.
On an episode of Private Practice in the past couple of weeks ago they had a traumatic situation (rare on a drama) and the idea of faith came up. But the actors didn’t actually talk about faith in religious terms. It was more like “you need faith to get through tough times” but not faith in God, or faith in any higher power. Just “faith.” I began to realize that the writers in Hollywood just don’t have any knowledge about religion or God. They have faith, sure, but faith in themselves and their talents.
I get really annoyed when athletes automatically say they thank God for their talents when they start an interview because many of these athletes then go out and do incredibly dumb things that God would likely frown upon. But at least they try to give some credit to God. In Hollywood God is a punch line. And when a character in a drama could actually use some faith in God, they can’t do it because the writers have no idea what that means. To them it means going into a hospital chapel and wondering what “they” did wrong. Again, this was from Grey’s Anatomy or Private Practice, but after a surgery the doctor is found in the chapel, not praying, but just using the chapel for alone time.
Need a story line about homosexuality? No problem. There are a lot of gay people in Hollywood. Need a story about drug use/abuse? Great! Just look to the writer next to you and I think you might find someone with experience. But heaven forbid that you try to write a story about being in the military or relying on God because from what I can tell, none of the writers and very few of the actors have any experience in either of these categories.