Not so 'Good' with details
TELEVISION | Errors and twisted history will make self-respecting Chicagoans lodge objection to legal drama set here
It's one of the hazards of TV viewing: Police watch cop shows and complain that they're not accurate. Critics pick apart reality shows for not being real.
And Chicagoans watch "The Good Wife" to look for Midwestern mistakes.
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Co-creator Michelle King says our city was chosen as the setting for CBS' Tuesday night hit because it made sense for Julianna Margulies' character -- not because any of the producers had personal experience here.
"We loved the idea of a sophisticated city that had some history of corruption, and yet there was this Midwestern sense of propriety," King says. "We absolutely try to keep it true to Chicago."
"The Good Wife," about a Cook County state's attorney who's brought down by his dalliances with hookers, is shot in New York at Margulies' insistence. Writers fact-check with a Chicago defense attorney, but little slips come through. Buses that should say "CTA" read "ITA." There are no nasally Chicago accents. That, at least, is an improvement.
What else doesn't quite ring true?
Chicago doesn't have sex scandals. Greed and corruption, obviously. Mob ties, sure. But we have yet to weather the trading-political-favors-for-hookers form of disgrace. "I'm not saying it doesn't go on, but I could go back 100 years in Chicago history, and there has not been a major [city or county] political figure brought down by sex," says Paul Green, director of the School of Policy Studies at Roosevelt University. "Maybe it's just luck and coincidence. But forget the sex scandal. In Chicago, it's all about money."
Alicia finds work immediately at a fancy law firm thanks to a Georgetown Law buddy. Would the job search really be so painless with Alicia having been out of the workplace for years? And with a high-profile hubby in the clink?
"Right now is one of the worst job markets we've had in many, many years," says attorney Karen Conti, who hosts a weekly legal talk show on WGN-AM (720). "Experienced, non-tarnished attorneys with uninterrupted job experience are out there looking for work. I've even had a few apply to my little firm to be a paralegal."
On the show, they're dignified and orderly. In real life, they're gritty, crowded and chaotic. "The Cook County court system is the largest unified court system in the world, and the courthouses are hectic and bustling and not as clean and sparkly as the ones in the show," Conti says.
There is, for instance, no "South Bridgeport" -- that would be Bridgeport, on the South Side.
"There are no conjugal visits in Illinois," Conti says. Aspiring criminals, be forewarned.
A judge at one point tells warring lawyers that she's going to step out to a restaurant around the corner that sells deep-dish by the slice. Technically, yes, you can buy it by the slice. But a real Chicagoan would just go for the whole personal-sized pizza.
"The concept that the former state's attorney is divulging information to Julianna on cases his office handled is more than wrong," Conti says. "What he is doing is a clear conflict of interest. And the fact that she is soliciting that confidential information from him is itself unethical."
There is one thing that co-creator King would like to make clear: "The Good Wife" was not inspired by the Blagojeviches. "They actually might be copying us," she says, noting that their show was in the works before the governor was impeached.
But if an upcoming episode features Margulies signing up for a Costa Rican-set reality show with one or more Baldwin brothers, we'll know who's lying.