People Are Laughing At How Hollywood Portrays Other Countries In This Accurate Meme

It’s no secret that most Hollywood movies don’t quite represent reality. From polished actors to happy endings only, we’ve learned to take it with a grain of salt.

This time, we’re dealing with another big screen misdemeanor. It turns out, the American film industry does little to care about accurately portraying other countries. The meme below suggests that all it takes to portray Mexico, Japan, Africa, and India is some editing and a custom filter. Hence, the Mexican street is drenched in sepia, Japan is shouting neon, and Eastern Europe looks grey and shabby. Too many stereotypes and too little imagination have got us wondering how come it’s still okay. After you’re done with this one, here’s our previous article on why Mexico in American movies always looks the same and what it tells us about how the West (mis)represents other cultures.

P.S. The original photo was taken in Cape Town, South Africa.

Image credits: 9gag

Hollywood has been dousing non-Western countries in yellow tints on and off for years now. For example, the Netflix movie “Extraction,” which is partly set in Bangladesh, has raised the question of why Dhaka is so yellow. The Daily Star suggests that such a shade of yellow depicting Dhaka is to increase discomfort and heighten tension. The Breaking Bad scenes shot in Mexico are also doused in yellow.

People started editing their own versions in response to the meme

People Are Laughing At How Hollywood Portrays Other Countries In This Accurate Meme

Image credits: myhairyass

People Are Laughing At How Hollywood Portrays Other Countries In This Accurate Meme

Image credits: burnnemesis

People Are Laughing At How Hollywood Portrays Other Countries In This Accurate Meme

Image credits: the_tavbo

People Are Laughing At How Hollywood Portrays Other Countries In This Accurate Meme

Image credits: Carolina Llanos

People Are Laughing At How Hollywood Portrays Other Countries In This Accurate Meme

Image credits: technosworld

People Are Laughing At How Hollywood Portrays Other Countries In This Accurate Meme

Image credits: Elena Do

People Are Laughing At How Hollywood Portrays Other Countries In This Accurate Meme

Image credits: Riccardo Castelli

The filmmaker Diego Noriega Mendoza, in response to a Quora question “Why do films and TV shows use a yellowish tint to depict countries like India or Mexico?” gave a similar explanation. “When used in film, yellow has a very distinct psychological effect: it portrays extremes, contrasts, and density.” He also claims that “our brains cannot handle yellow for a very long time.”

The color filters are also used to establish a sense of different location. Diego suggests that this tendency goes back to the first Westerns shot in color, where the desert was always portrayed as yellow. “And the heroes of these movies had to thrive in the desert: the heat, the scarcity, the outlaws. It stood to reason that it had to be yellower.”

This is what people had to say about it

People Are Laughing At How Hollywood Portrays Other Countries In This Accurate Meme

Liucija Adomaite is a creative mind with years of experience in copywriting. She has a dynamic set of experiences from advertising, academia, and journalism. This time, she has set out on a journey to investigate the ways in which we communicate ideas on a large scale. Her current mission is to find a magic formula for how to make ideas, news, and other such things spread like a virus.

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As a Visual Editor at Bored Panda, I indulge in the joy of curating delightful content, from adorable pet photos to hilarious memes, all while nurturing my wanderlust and continuously seeking new adventures and interests—sometimes thrilling, sometimes daunting, but always exciting!

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