Why so much Fictional names for real areas in TV or Film?

[roadman65]

I noticed after watching the Andy Griffith Show, how some of the town names, especially Mayberry and neighboring Mount Pilot, are fiction in the real North Carolina. However the actual name Raleigh and even Silar City are often used. So in essence you have both real and fiction together in one place.

In Smokey and the Bandit you have a real Texarkana but a fictional Portague County it's in as the Texas side of the city in reality is Bowie County. 

Then you have shows like Dallas with that one stupid story line of JR getting arrested because two crazed town boys didn't like JR for stealing their younger sister's virginity and thought that he should die. Instead of the two men being arrested for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, JR got arrested for rape.  The whole thing implied either that the US had fifty-one states or decided to make it one the existing fifty but using the term "The State"  to avoid naming the actual state.

Then Green Acres with just using Hooterville but no state name and as part of the running gag of the entire show to feed its premise would in each season to lead viewers that the fictional world is in either in the Midwest or at times in the South. To throw things off the state capital is never called out by name either.

Dukes of Hazzard the same way. We all know it's supposed to be Georgia, but Atlanta is simply called the State Capital. There wasn't even a name given for the County Seat either in the show. Also in the real Georgia no Sheriff is appointed by one man, but elected by the citizens as in the Dukes universe Boss Hogg controls the law enforcement there. Although the Boss owning most of the land is plausible as in Kenedy County Texas only US 77 is the only public open to public part of the county while the rest of the county is private property and the County Seat is on a private road. So that part could actually be. As far as an unnamed county seat look at Arlington, VA.

Why so much fiction within reality? Why didn't Andy Griffith just use a real name for Mayberry and call Mount Pilot by the name it got derived from Pilot Mountain, NC? Though good connection between it all, still why make so much over so little?

[Max Rockatansky]

Would Hill Valley be as iconic if it was tied to a real city?  That would have certainly pigeonholed what the city could/could not have been creatively. 

[abefroman329]

Why so much fiction within reality?

(a) so no one can complain about how a particular town is being depicted
(b) it doesn't really matter

[kphoger]

And, to credit the OP, Mayberry itself has become iconic in American culture.  Heck, the word "Mayberryesque" returns 1850 hits on Google.

[Rothman]

Would Hill Valley be as iconic if it was tied to a real city?  That would have certainly pigeonholed what the city could/could not have been creatively.

Always liked the inherent contradiction in "Hill Valley."

[Henry]

Springfield in The Simpsons can't be tied to any single state because of its ubiquity across the nation. As a matter of fact, animated series can (and do) get away with locations where the mountains meet the ocean, something that live-action TV shows and movies aren't able to pull off.

[bing101]

To prevent certain countries and cities from being offended from the shows and movies in question? I guess fictional cities and countries are to make the story more exciting.

[ethanhopkin14]

I agree with the OP on this one:

The question isn't "why do they have a fictitious world that these characters live in" but more "why are there fictitious places intermingled with actual locations"

Why did Forrest Gump come from the fictitious town of Greenbow, Alabama, but Bubba came from the real Bayou La Batre, Alabama?  I would understand if they wanted to keep it fictional to keep people from getting mad about how their town in depicted or making sure no one tries to find the Gumps there, and they just name checked Bayou La Batre, but they actually visited Bayou La Batre so it was left up to interpretation by the locals on how their town was depicted.  The Forrest goes to New York, NY, Washington, DC, Monument Valley and Savannah, GA.

The series Virgin River takes place in the fictional Virgin River, CA, but one character makes a trip to Los Angeles.

I say, make it consistent.  If you are going to have a fictional setting, keep it fictional.  Don't have it co-exist with real things.  If you want real other locations in the movie/show, make all the locations real.  Your reasoning for making one setting fictional to avoid backlash about how it's depicted goes out the window when you actually visit a real location.

Hill Valley has made sense to me from day one.  They film makers had the liberties to create a history of this town to fit whatever they needed since it was a time traveling movie. 

[kphoger]

I disagree.  Having the main location be fictional makes the entire setting of the show a fictional world.  However, having one-off trips or side-stories in real places helps anchor the show in whatever country or region it's supposed to be set in.  That's actually one thing that bothers me about Green Acres:  I never have a clear idea of what part of rural America it's supposed to be set in.

[abefroman329]

That's actually one thing that bothers me about Green Acres:  I never have a clear idea of what part of rural America it's supposed to be set in.

Granted, I haven't watched an episode of Green Acres in 30 years, but I just assumed it was in upstate NY.  Didn't Oliver travel back to NYC regularly?

[abefroman329]

Why did Forrest Gump come from the fictitious town of Greenbow, Alabama, but Bubba came from the real Bayou La Batre, Alabama?

Greenbow was once the home of Nathan Bedford Forrest and, by the late 1940s/early 1950s, the schools were run by a corrupt man who agreed to enroll students who didn't meet their admissions criteria in exchange for sexual favors.  Which town in Alabama would have agreed to be portrayed this way?

[roadman65]

Hill Street Blues is one that manages to keep what major city the show is located unknown, but in a way you didn't care about the details.  It featured real life police drama and character driven over plot driven which made you care about the world the characters lived rather than what they lived in.

Green Acres was made in such away that you never really wanted to know  where Hooterville was and the fact is that they made the characters of the town so eccentric that you're glad that it is not part of real America.  Plus they were able to do it where the same Hooterville in Petticoat Junction was that in Green Acres  was to be portraited as two different types of towns in both sitcoms despite being in the same world. 

Remember Hooterville did not have uninformed people in Petticoat's depiction of in which Green Acres had the same town feature all dim witted folks as citizens.  Though writers forgot that Petticoat Junction was in the Beverly Hillbillies World and yet on Green Acres in one episode it was shown that Beverly Hillbillies was on their TV and the town folks did the TV show in a local production.

I'm talking mainly about Sheriff Buford T. Justice in Smokey and The Bandit.  He should have been Sheriff of real Bowie County, TX being that the actual Texarkana was used. Instead they created Portague County for it to be in when why not go the whole nine yards.  Plus the county Buford was law enforcement of was only referred to in the closing credits of the first movie where it was only assumed in the picture that he was Sheriff of the county that Texarkana, TX was.  In actuality he was never in his own jurisdiction as it was to chase down a runaway bride  that stood his son up on his wedding day across the entire south thus creating the love to hate relationship of Bandit and Buford for the rest of the run.  Therefore to add the county in the credits was not needed.  Just to give his character name was sufficient enough there.

[Max Rockatansky]

Would Hill Valley be as iconic if it was tied to a real city?  That would have certainly pigeonholed what the city could/could not have been creatively.

Always liked the inherent contradiction in "Hill Valley."

All part of the fun when I took a serious look at where Hill Valley would be located in California:

https://www.gribblenation.org/2019/06/where-hell-is-hill-valley-us-route-8.html?m=1

[D-Dey65]

Why so much fiction within reality?

(a) so no one can complain about how a particular town is being depicted
(b) it doesn't really matter

During the time "Victorious" aired, some lady from the real-life North Ridge section of Los Angeles, complained that her daughter was upset about how North Ridge girls were depicted on the show. I never saw any other complaints about it.

Westport, Connecticut on the other hand wasn't too happy with how the women of their city were portrayed on "American Housewife."

[Bruce]

Cities might not like how they're depicted or remembered in these shows, so skirting that by using a fictional name is just easier.

Though even then, if the background shots are strongly tied to a single area, the association can stick without the name (e.g. Twin Peaks and North Bend, WA).

[Stephane Dumas]

Cities might not like how they're depicted or remembered in these shows, so skirting that by using a fictional name is just easier.

Though even then, if the background shots are strongly tied to a single area, the association can stick without the name (e.g. Twin Peaks and North Bend, WA).

And not only in shows and movies but in comic books as well, like in the world of DC comics like Gotham City in Batman, Metropolis in Superman althought there's a real town named Metropolis in Illinois as well as Franco-Belgian comics with countries like San Theodoros, Syldavia, Borduria in the Adventures of Tintin, Palombia in Spirou and the Marsupilami and fictionnal western towns like Nothing Gulch in Lucky Luke.

[english si]

(a) so no one can complain about how a particular town is being depicted

Staines hated Da Ali G Show and sequels having the wanabee wanabee gangster celebrating the town where he comes from. It was a key driving force behind them renaming the town Staines-on-Thames to try and boost the reputation of the town as gentilee suburbia rather than a supposed slum (not understanding that it is the relatively gentilee suburbia that is why it was picked as the location for the show as that was part of the point of the character).

I don't think Slough was too happy with The Office being set there as it was explicitly because the town's name invokes a dull and depressing place, but they've been used to it for years after the Betjeman poem Come Friendly Bombs savaged the town's rep not long after it had the Trading Estate built in the 30s.

UK Soaps (which unlike their US counterparts tend to be gritty dramas with actors who look like ordinary people rather than models) tend to be set in fictional neighbourhoods of real cities to avoid slurring somewhere where real people live while also grounding it in a real city.

Though even then, if the background shots are strongly tied to a single area, the association can stick without the name (e.g. Twin Peaks and North Bend, WA).

I live in an area where there's an awful lot of filming done. In part because there's several big studios not that far away. There's constant "here's the local filming locations from that new big show", but a lot of the time they wouldn't want the show to have been set here. Midsummer Murders was filmed in the area, though is set in a fictional county a bit further west, IIRC and a big thing is made of it by the tourism agencies as there's so many locations to see. But if Midsummer was set in the area, the very opposite would be the case - the marketing saying that, actually, very few people are murdered around here...

[Rothman]

Cities might not like how they're depicted or remembered in these shows, so skirting that by using a fictional name is just easier.

Though even then, if the background shots are strongly tied to a single area, the association can stick without the name (e.g. Twin Peaks and North Bend, WA).

Heh.  For people outside of WA, Twin Peaks stuck with the state in general, given so few people really know North Bend.

[Rothman]

Cities might not like how they're depicted or remembered in these shows, so skirting that by using a fictional name is just easier.

Though even then, if the background shots are strongly tied to a single area, the association can stick without the name (e.g. Twin Peaks and North Bend, WA).

And not only in shows and movies but in comic books as well, like in the world of DC comics like Gotham City in Batman, Metropolis in Superman althought there's a real town named Metropolis in Illinois as well as Franco-Belgian comics with countries like San Theodoros, Syldavia, Borduria in the Adventures of Tintin, Palombia in Spirou and the Marsupilami and fictionnal western towns like Nothing Gulch in Lucky Luke.

Spider-Man...oh, wait.

[Rothman]

I don't think Slough was too happy with The Office being set there as it was explicitly because the town's name invokes a dull and depressing place, but they've been used to it for years after the Betjeman poem Come Friendly Bombs savaged the town's rep not long after it had the Trading Estate built in the 30s.

What's fun here is my daughter's generation thinks coming from a city mentioned in the American version of The Office is a badge of honor...despite most of the satellite offices being in down-and-out places like Scranton (Stamford being something of an exception for contrast).

[Max Rockatansky]

Cities might not like how they're depicted or remembered in these shows, so skirting that by using a fictional name is just easier.

Though even then, if the background shots are strongly tied to a single area, the association can stick without the name (e.g. Twin Peaks and North Bend, WA).

And not only in shows and movies but in comic books as well, like in the world of DC comics like Gotham City in Batman, Metropolis in Superman althought there's a real town named Metropolis in Illinois as well as Franco-Belgian comics with countries like San Theodoros, Syldavia, Borduria in the Adventures of Tintin, Palombia in Spirou and the Marsupilami and fictionnal western towns like Nothing Gulch in Lucky Luke.

Spider-Man...oh, wait.

Marvel has a ton of fictional countries and cities.  Madripoor as example keeps popping up in a lot of the recent Marvel Disney Plus shows.

[Rothman]

Cities might not like how they're depicted or remembered in these shows, so skirting that by using a fictional name is just easier.

Though even then, if the background shots are strongly tied to a single area, the association can stick without the name (e.g. Twin Peaks and North Bend, WA).

And not only in shows and movies but in comic books as well, like in the world of DC comics like Gotham City in Batman, Metropolis in Superman althought there's a real town named Metropolis in Illinois as well as Franco-Belgian comics with countries like San Theodoros, Syldavia, Borduria in the Adventures of Tintin, Palombia in Spirou and the Marsupilami and fictionnal western towns like Nothing Gulch in Lucky Luke.

Spider-Man...oh, wait.

Marvel has a ton of fictional countries and cities.  Madripoor as example keeps popping up in a lot of the recent Marvel Disney Plus shows.

Spider-Man...oh, wait.

[Max Rockatansky]

Cities might not like how they're depicted or remembered in these shows, so skirting that by using a fictional name is just easier.

Though even then, if the background shots are strongly tied to a single area, the association can stick without the name (e.g. Twin Peaks and North Bend, WA).

And not only in shows and movies but in comic books as well, like in the world of DC comics like Gotham City in Batman, Metropolis in Superman althought there's a real town named Metropolis in Illinois as well as Franco-Belgian comics with countries like San Theodoros, Syldavia, Borduria in the Adventures of Tintin, Palombia in Spirou and the Marsupilami and fictionnal western towns like Nothing Gulch in Lucky Luke.

Spider-Man...oh, wait.

Marvel has a ton of fictional countries and cities.  Madripoor as example keeps popping up in a lot of the recent Marvel Disney Plus shows.

Spider-Man...oh, wait.

Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Dr. Strange and Captain America are bunch of others I can think of off the top of my head with an NYC connection in pretty much every Marvel continuity. 

[Scott5114]

If you don't make your show set in a real location, you don't have to do the research to make it accurate.

Otherwise, you run the risk of getting it hilariously wrong:

[kphoger]

Oklahoma is flat.