Columbus Residents Unhappy With Netflix Portrayal of Columbus In New Series

COLUMBUS, GA: The city of Columbus, GA is the home location of a new Netflix series called, Family Reunion. The show which was not filmed locally is set in the city of Columbus and many residents are upset after the new family-friendly sitcom offers a poor and inaccurate representation of the city of Columbus.

The show stars Anthony Alabi, Loretta Devine, Tia Mowry-Hardrict, and Richard Roundtree. The show follows a family from Seattle who travels to the small town of Columbus, GA for a family reunion and decides to stay in the Fountain City. Netflix hopes the show encourages audiences to discover the importance of connecting with their roots. The show puts audiences in a feel-good spirit like that of the 90's sitcom Family Matters.

The show was filmed before a live studio audience. Production on the show began last fall in Los Angeles and it premiered earlier this month on Netflix. Many in Columbus are not pleased with how the show portrayed the city of Columbus.

Since premiering on Netflix social media has been flooded with comments asking if producers of the show ever even visited Columbus before filming and naming the city as the location for the show. The show displays a Columbus that is a rural area and a true small town. The show fails to show Columbus as the regional and economic hub of west Georgia and east Alabama, as well as the third-largest city in the state of Georgia.

Columbus carries a population of just under 200,000 people and the show fails to mention the urban side of Columbus. It rather shows Columbus in the light of a town like Manchester or Woodbury, a small very rural community highlighted with popular small-town stereotypes, which are displayed throughout the series.

Social media has dozens of comments as residents and people who have visited the city are dissatisfied with the representation of Columbus on the show. Some commenters have found a bright side that the show does put Columbus in the limelight, but not the true display of what the city has to offer.

The series has ten episodes on Netflix and refers to Columbus by name in nearly every episode. However, the show also shows Columbus as a place where you cannot get wifi in the opening moments of the first episode. A character on the show named Elvis Maybury portrays the true stereotype of a small town country boy that would be found in the backwoods of any rural area.

Comments on social media have questioned several factors of the show. Some have hit on the fact that no landmarks in Columbus were used in the show. The neighborhoods in the show look like nowhere in the city with the exception of the Historic District. Schools and churches shown on the show were not locations in Columbus and looked like different regions of the country rather than Columbus' true brick-themed architecture.

Citing landmarks many have said the show would have been truer to Columbus with mentions of things like Kadie the Cow, the Riverfront, or even Fort Benning. Many viewers are dissatisfied with how the show portrays Columbus, but are appreciative of the family strong message the show displays.

The state of Georgia has a total of 584 cities in it. Columbus is the third-largest city in the state falling behind Atlanta and Augusta-Richmond County. Columbus and Augusta-Richmond County often flip flop between the position of second-largest since Augusta consolidated with Richmond County in the late 1990s.

As Hollywood continues to discover Columbus and more productions come to the city or name the city in their productions many remain hopeful that an accurate representation of the city can follow in the future. One film did a great job of showing the real Columbus in 2003. The Fighting Temptations was partially filmed in Columbus and offered a great glimpse of Columbus' magnificent Rivercenter for the Performing Arts in its finale. The storyline of the film focused on arriving in Columbus and being a top performer in one of the states top gospel festivals.

The 2014 film, Need for Speed offered the world a view of Columbus as numerous parts of the movie were shot in Columbus. Columbus was not named in the movie but was actually referred to as a city in New York state.

As more productions come to Columbus hopefully future productions can show Columbus for what it really is and offer the world a view of some of the great southern charm the city has to offer, while still showing the cities progressive side. The ten-episode Family Reunion is available on Netflix.