"At the very least, like Tokyo, New York is where more than half of television's writers are (the rest reside in LA)"
Is that even true? Considering that most television studios have their programming offices in California and there are more tv shows shot in LA than in New York , I'd guess that there are move tv writers in LA than NYC. Anyone care to disagree?
Hide / Show RepliesABC, NBC, CBS, FOX. MTV, HBO, CNN, CW, Comedy Central. Chelsea, Silvercup, Kaufman.
That's every major broadcast network and half of cable. LA may own the movies, but NY dominates TV.
Edited by NalanoCorporate headquarters are not the same as creative headquarters. There are only a handful of US scripted tv shows whose writers are NY based.
Is it me, or does this article come off as an unintentional SDA? I mean, "Very close to every single ethnic, racial and religious group is is represented to some degree or another on the streets of the five boroughs, and nearly every language spoken on Planet Earth can be heard there. Although most US cities are cosmopolitan to one degree or another, none of them come even close to rivaling New York." I mean, really? That's pathetically vain, and simply not true. Places like L.A., San Fran, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, Columbus, all have that huge variety, it's just that the population numbers aren't as high. That entry should make it clearer, or not be there at all.
Changing it.
Little fish, big fish, swimmin' in the water, come back here and give me my daughter... Hide / Show RepliesPathetically vain? There is a trope here called Captain Obvious. It's just how they are. They don't realize that they're just parrotting over the top 20's radio broadcasters who used to intentionally be hyperbolic because they HAD to attract people to some new boon in the city (or before that the beginning of the city itself). "NIEUW YOWK THE Grr EATEST CITYINTHEWOORLD. HOME OF THE LARGEST ICE CREAM CONE." Placism in itself is shockingly stupid.
Work work work work work work you see I gotta work work work work work workI noticed they do this with Los Angeles, as well. In an American city setting, especially an urban one, it's either New York or LA.
Continued over from the archived discussion, but this is really more of a localized iteration of a more global trope, e.g. Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe. In most cultures one major city will tend to be the dominant one that serves as a default setting unless Creator Provincialism or some other force prevails (San Francisco gets this a lot when people get tired of setting things in LA and and change it up by tossing in establishing shots of a cable car coming over a steep hill lined with Victorian houses with a frog-shrouded Golden Gate bridge in the background). If it's the US it'll be set in New York City or Los Angeles. The UK uses London. Japan, Tokyo.
What we need is a new trope that can be divided into sub-categories to deal with each national derivation of this phenomenon. I'd suggest "Center of the Universe" after the successful usage for Tokyo.
Edited by Belgand Hide / Show RepliesI like that idea. There's also a difference, at least in American examples, between instances where the writers choose a setting because they are familiar with it (and to varying extents, so is the audience) and times when the writers become self-indulgent to the point where they stop trying to make the story relevant for those outside that city.
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Needs clarifying/narrowing, started by Tatterdemalion on Jan 28th 2011 at 8:45:50 AM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman