Poll: Chicagoans have lote-hate relationship with their native shows

Though viewers are proud of their homegrown shows, their portrayal of Chicago often brings headaches

While Chicago viewers tune in every week to see how their shows portray their city to the world, some are concerned about how they shape the perception of the city on the world stage.

Chicago-based The Harris Poll CEO Will Johnson recently penned a piece in the Chicago Sun-Times asking if the numerous television shows filmed here – not to mention those set in Chicago and filmed somewhere else represent the city as a whole.

The results seem to be mixed as visitors and residents are happy their city is portrayed in art for the world to see, though some of the content leaves a bit to be desired.

According to the poll, 71 percent of those who visited the city and those who live here say the city is accurately depicted in television and film. While the number is high, the number is lower than other areas surveyed when they were asked the same question about their town. A quarter of those surveyed had a negative response to how Chicago was portrayed, the highest of any metro area.

Among the linear and streaming shows either filmed here or set include FX’s Emmy-winning The Bear; Showtime’s The Chi and Shameless; Starz’s Power Book IV; Dick Wolf’s trio of Chicago dramas; and HBO Max’s now-canceled South Side and animated sitcom Young Love.

As we all know, the city’s image has suffered on the national stage for years thanks in part to conservatives maligning Chicago’s political leaders over crime – especially former President Donald Trump and conservative news platforms such as Fox News and social media, and the image perceptions have only worsened since the pandemic. In the very same poll, 42 percent of residents and visitors to Chicago stated those news media crime concerns weren’t overblown. 

Concerns about how Chicago is portrayed in art is nothing new. In 1957, bugs squashed Chicago in the sci-fi film Beginning Of The End, with locusts crawling up a photo of the Wrigley Building and all.

A 1959 episode of the NBC crime drama M Squad set and filmed in the Windy City depicted a Chicago Police officer killing a colleague of his to keep silent about corruption in the department. City Hall was aghast and led then-Mayor Richard J. Daley to ban all film and television production from shooting in the city throughout his administration (though exceptions were made for a few films such as Brannigan, Monkey Hustle, and Cooley High, whereas the writers had to submit a fake script to the city to get a permit.)

When Jane Byrne’s administration let The Blues Brothers film entirely in town, it ushered in an era of iconic films set in Chicago including Ferris Buller’s Day Off, the film version of The Untouchables (whose 1960s TV counterpart was also a thorn in the side of the city’s image) and the Chuck Norris film Code of Silence.

In the 1970s, the Cabrini-Green-set sitcom Good Times went through its own problems regarding the portrayal of African Americans on television. The 1980s and 1990s saw sitcoms Punky Brewster, Valerie/Hogan Family, Webster, and Family Matters set here, but related very little to the city – meaning they could be set anywhere. If any sitcom came closest to reflecting the culture during this period, it was Perfect Strangers.

And despite the presence of Oprah Winfrey and shot-in-Burbank, Calif, but set in Chicago drama ER, the lowbrow antics of Jerry Springer’s and Jenny Jones’ talk shows didn’t exactly endure Chicago to the world. In 2001, protests were held when MTV’s The Real World was filmed at a Wicker Park loft over gentrification and resulted in eleven arrests. Ironically, it’s the same area where the Bill Cosby-Sidney Poitier comedy A Piece Of The Action was filmed some 25 years earlier it was a completely different neighborhood.

Still, except for a few (notably the so-so Chicago Party Aunt and failed dramas Chicago Code and APB), Chicago shows are generally well-liked with audiences and critics alike. The Bear recently won twelve PrimeTime and Creative Arts Emmy Awards, including Best Outstanding Comedy Series. NBC’s “One Chicago” Wednesday night trilogy continues to do well and two of the three shows are doing well in off-network syndication – unusual for hour-long dramas. 

Both South Side and Young Love were praised by critics and audiences for depicting Black life in Chicago in a way that isn’t usually seen in television or film (with the latter getting a 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating!)

While the debate on whether or not television and film depict Chicago in a positive light continues, just being represented brings benefits to our city as opposed to a time in the 1960s and 1970s when that wasn’t the case.