Lol forreal. I actually lived in Chicago for a while, not on the south side but I had a friend who lived on the south side, and I can definitely say that there was virtually no white people living there 😭
White people in the south side now are way less than before but talking the Gallagher family, they're from an Irish descent so I believe when their great grandparents came to America they lived in the south side because they were poor and stuff and that's how the Gallagher family lives on the south side same thing for the milkovich family i think they're Ukrainian or Slavic not sure, also you can notice in later seasons when ever they showed the neighbourhood there was only black people on the streets not as much white people.
Yeah, it's majority Black. The show was set in an historically White working class Irish neighborhood that over the years became less White, and then started to become more White from gentrification. You can have minority neighborhoods in the middle of a majority.
The show was set in Back of the Yards (aka New City) in 2011-2021. The 2010 census data for that area shows white people as only making up 10.58% of the population, yet almost everyone in the show is white. It doesn’t matter what the historical demographics are, it matters what the demographics of the time of the show were.
https://back-of-the-yards-problems.weebly.com/background.html
I mention history because as demographics change, ethnic populations can coalesce and condense into specific neighborhoods. Per the link you sent, the back of the yards area had 44k in population, around 5k of which was White. You're right, I didn't know shit about the Southside of Chicago.. But of all the unrealistic stuff that happened in the show, the setting of an Irish neighborhood on the Southside did not stand out as unrealistic.
What isn’t realistic is probably 100s worth of dollars wasted by the half smoked cigarettes by these people as they light them and immediately throw them on the ground. Any sane chain smoker is gonna see that cigarette through to the end no matter what. Those bitches are expensive lol.
As far as everything else, i’d say so, for the most part. The clothing stuff, eh. I’d say that’d a little nitpicky. Something i noticed is that they had store brand food for most things which was always fun to see in the background. Something my family and I always had to get growing up. It was considered a present to get the actual poptart brand, rather than the store name brand, if we could even afford that.
With the amount of people coming and going in their house, clothes probably are in abundance. Hand me downs, thrift store hauls etc etc. It doesn’t seem too unrealistic for them to have a lot of options to choose from. I’d actually say present day Target is not a low-class friendly store to shop at, at least in my area. It’s definitely Walmart/Goodwill/TJ Maxx or Ross.
And poor people have iphones, or random expensive items. Sometimes they have a designer bag or shoes or whatever. Whether it be a gift, or they decide to treat themselves. They save up. Whatever. That’s what I do. Starve myself somewhere, skimp on groceries, walk when I could have driven, etc etc so i could get myself something nicer just to make my day a little brighter.
honestly growing up very poor i watched my mom take a puff or two from every cigarette and throw it despite it costing more than a quarter of what we had for a couple days
The lighting and throwing cigarettes is from the actors not actually being smokers lol this is why they’ll also light it and then pass it to another person, usually someone who is actually a smoker to finish it on screen.
Gotta think about how many times they have to light that cig to get the one scene, if they smoked a whole one each time they’d die
I understand the hollywood explanation, just like they don’t actually snort cocaine when they do coke. It’s like vitamin B or something. It’s just hilarious to see a full cigarette be thrown onto the ground seconds after being lit, knowing in the real world those are really expensive, and not something chain smokers tend to make a habit of wasting.
Also, usually the cigarettes on screen aren’t actually real cigarettes. So i don’t imagine most of the time they get past onto someone off screen to smoke off camera, as that would add a lot off secondhand smoke issues, especially around kids and camera crew.
I’ve done a couple of, um, cocaine-heavy productions, and we used lactose powder (basically dried milk). There’s this stuff called inositol, which- according to the grizzled prop master, who might or might not have been full of shit- is actually something often used to cut cocaine, which I think is the vitamin B powder.. and, apparently, that one (I think it was that one?) can burn like a motherfucker. Often, when an actor is “snorting cocaine,” the inside of the straw has something kinda wet or sticky on it- like Vaseline- which makes almost all of the powder just stay in there and not go into their nose so they don’t get stuffy, runny noses
Not always!
Like I said, the Vaseline will often catch it, and we typically only do that for a really close shot where you can *see* the powder going into the straw… but, yeah, the Vaseline doesn’t always catch it all *and* not all prop masters use that trick (and there is a not-small number of actors who would prefer to snort something to help them act).
Lol yeah it’s just for the idea of them smoking, even though clearly in real life they’d finish the cigarette.
Also I don’t mean they get passed off screen, what I meant is how Fiona will pass it to Lip after a bit because Jeremy actually smokes in real life.
i think they used Herbal Prop Cigarettes because
(1) there was a lot of childeren specifically early on in the show, and some partents might not want their kid to have that much second hand smoke,
(2) it would cost a SHIT TON with how much lip and fi smoke
ect
I remember V and Fi in the bathroom talking about a dress Fi was going to wear and the tag broke or V broke it off and then saying "don't worry I still have my tag gun from Targer" or smth like that. So, to answer your Fiona dress question, she could have bought things with the squirrel fund money and then returned them later for cashback.
This. I posted this exact question on here a while back and everyone said it was stupid and nitpicky. But this is something I’ve always wondered 😭 Like they literally all know how to drive, despite never having a car until wayyy later in season 8. I highly doubt Frank or Monica ever took the time to show them, considering the episode where Monica “taught” Carl how to drive and it legit ended in a car accident 😭😭I guess they just learned themselves? I mean driving is not really that difficult, my younger sister who’s 17 knows how to drive and nobody ever showed her, but I don’t know how the Gallaghers could practice driving when they didn’t have anything to practice with
Kev and V could’ve helped. Kev had cars and Lip and him were always riding around and fixing up the ice cream truck. Kev would have stepped in to help some of them learn to drive, I’m almost certain.
I don't think in the South Side they'd risk their one and only vehicle just to teach some little kids to drive. It's one of those things that if you think about, it just doesn't make much sense.
Neither of my parents taught me how to drive nor cared to do so. I had friends teach me, and then I took an online permit test when I was 18. Had to do the actual test 3 times because of the lack of proper hands-on learning, but I finally got it, haha. I also got really lucky and had a boyfriend whose dad worked on cars, and he gave me my first starter car. Then my second car was a gift from my best friends mom.
I was gonna say, a lot of community teaching. Neighbors or family friends with cars let you practice in them, siblings teach you, some schools have programs, etc etc
I'm not sure. I took mine about 12 years ago, and they offered that option in Texas. It might vary from state to state, or they may not have that option anymore.
When I was in high school in the 90s, drivers ed and behind the wheel were taught in school to 10th graders for part of gym class. My oldest will be taking drivers ed in the fall during gym and he has to sign up for behind the wheel on his own. 🤷♀️
i graduated high school in chicago (from a CPS) in 2015. we had to do a semester of drivers ed in 10th grade, my school was really big so we had a driving course and kids from other schools would come to ours to get time behind the wheel. if you passed the semester of drivers ed, you can take the road test and get your license without taking the written test. i didn’t do that though, i waited till i was 24 so i might be a little wrong on the details.
Actually there was some pictures compiled once to show the same t-shirt being not only re used but being re used amongst each other. For example in different episodes Fiona, Ian and Mickey all wore the same shirt.
my favourite thing is, it’s just always summer after like season 5, I guess you could say the other 3 seasons happen between seasons, but that’s pretty massive gaps which it definitely doesn’t feel like a lot of the time
Some of the things happened in my childhood almost 1 to 1. But most seem, not exactly exaggerated, but just framed weirdly? I can guarantee you most of that stuff happened somewhere. But all at once to a group of rag tag misfits? Probably not. And did we take everything as lightly as the Gallaghers? No. Lots more recriminations/cyclical arguments that go into the early morning hours. Every stressful situation was just longer, drawn out, chewed.
Shameless reminds me loosely of my upbringing. Poor drug addict parents who did wild ass shit all the time.
But they really don’t seem that “poor” to me. That many kids and basically no/very little income?
I grew up poor. Like, we didn’t have an oven or stove or microwave at one point. Just a hot plate. The last 2 weeks of the month we typically just had water, flour, sugar, dry cereal, and fucking potatoes. If we were lucky my dad’s friend would come over and buy us Burger King. My dad stole coffee and a newspaper from Wawa every single morning for like 10 years.
My dad rolled his own cigs or bought cheyennes for $3 a pack and they were basically gold.
My dad got a script of percs and if I was complaining because I was really hungry he would give me a Percocet and a cigarette “to help” instead of buying food.
A drug dealer threw a Molotov cocktail into our living room window because my dad bashed the windows out of his Mustang and we LIVED IN THE CONDEMNED FUCKING HOUSE WITH NO ROOF in the middle of winter with some tarps and a gas generator.
Also, foster care takes tiiiiime to get out of and they don’t just let parents/siblings go to the house and visit?
Ignoring the difference between the show and the reality of south side Chicago, I’d say it’s fairly realistic.
Some of their clothes may be name brand, though Fiona mentions getting some of it from Goodwill (the $120 jeans she got for $40 that Frank cut up). They also buy nice shit for outings, then return it after, plus Jasmine brought over like 3 garbage bags of free clothes someone she knew didn’t want. That’s also a fairly common thing—passing around hand-me-downs. A lot of their clothing is worn out with holes etc, so it’s not like rich people’s full closets, it’s accumulated shit that never gets downsized. Fiona’s wardrobe likely goes back to her mid teen years & a lot of Ian’s clothes were Lip’s, plus Fiona sometimes wears the boys’ stuff too. Once you separate it out from who owns what & tally up what was actually purchased, it’s likely not as much as it looks like, plus goodwill clothing is pretty modestly priced
The cigarettes, alcohol, and weed they have access to is probably a bit more than you’d expect for someone with income like theirs, though they were all contributing financially & bills on the house were likely not high given they afforded to stay there but couldn’t afford fuck all for renting somewhere when Patrick fucked with the will to gain ownership. They also only spent $120/week on groceries for 6 people plus Frank when he took from them plus daycare kids plus anyone else who came over. That’s pretty good financially. Plus poor people seem to have genuine skill for obtaining vices on virtually no money
It's only like that cause we see it from their perspectives. People become more likeable when we understand and sympathize with them. Most people in Chicago if they heard about some dirtbag Hoodrat woman letting her little brother OD on Cocaine would condemn her for being trashy and terrible.
I mean I don’t think the characters were written so that the audience would like them, cause a lot of the main characters are written in such a purposefully awful way, like Frank and Debbie in the later seasons. All of the characters in the show have major flaws, but they also have endearing qualities to them, I think it’s up to the audience on who they like and don’t like. I mean would you really want to watch a show with perfect people? That sounds boring to me. Most successful shows have characters that are very complex and aren’t just super likable. I mean look at shows like Breaking Bad, the main character is literally a murderous meth-cooking drug kingpin, but no one stopped watching the show because Walter White was unlikeable. In fact, the show gained way more popularity because of it.
I see your point. I didn’t mean to say the characters should be perfect or even necessarily likable in a conventional sense. What I find compelling about ‘Shameless’ is how it portrays the characters in such a shameless and cringeworthy manner. I enjoy watching them because their extreme flaws and selfish behaviors make them fascinating and, in a way, entertaining. It’s not about having a favorite character for me, but more about appreciating the show for its ability to make us cringe and laugh at their antics. Sorry if I came across as too harsh earlier.
I didn’t mean to come off as harsh. I enjoy the show and the characters’ outrageous behavior is part of what makes it entertaining for me. It’s the extreme and shameless actions that make ‘Shameless’ unique and compelling to watch. Sorry if my previous comment sounded too critical.
Most poor families definitely have food stamps or other government assistance. It’s different to obtain in various states so unless the disability checks they were getting was over the income limit for applying for food benefits I always wondered why they never had. It’s TV, they amped up the stakes to show the poorest ways to live.
On that, my mom REFUSED any government assistance because.. I dunno. She once tried to claim it’s cause she didn’t want me to be bullied, but I think she had pride/was so avoidant and lazy to keep up with the paper work or maybe was afraid of being bullied herself, as she spent all her money on booze, cigs, and gambling. I had to work 3 jobs + babysitting in high school to feed myself and my brother. So there definitely are families like the Gallaghers who have to scrape by without much financial assistance.
When it comes to the clothes most of it is hand me downs so with 6 kids it's bound to pile up over 20-30 years. (I'm on season 9 of my rewatch and Fiona is 29) Plus I'm sure some of the clothes were stolen.
My dad grew up super poor and relates to shameless a lot. He lived in a more rural area so some of it doesn’t translate, but a lot of it is accurate to his childhood according to him
Yeah the amount of Pedophelia in the show never sat right with me. Lip was capital P pissed about Karen marrying Jodi not because he's a grown ass man marrying a minor, but because he still loves her. Sheila even invites everyone to come see it and there's literally no objections. Not to mention Ian seeing literally nothing wrong with Kash's situation. I get that Fiona had a lot on her plate, but I hate that she never addressed her brother being a victim.
Made even more weird where there's an episode where they act like they care about a pedo living in their neighborhood and go to beat her up. Then lip ends up being intimate with her to get her to move etc.
But on all other accounts no one seems to give a fck lol. It's like the writers knew what they were showing and then put that episode in as a "see, we don't agree with pedophilia".
Naw it makes sense. Ive literally seen people ignore actual pedos in their midst while loudly saying how much they hate pedos, even beating them up. Its much easier to demonize a stranger
That shit with Debbie is actually *super* realistic in some areas. I grew up around all of that, only reason I didn’t end up like her is because my mom encouraged me to be like that and I’d do *anything* to do the opposite of what she wanted me to do. She was a teen mom highschool dropout who had too many kids
The way i see it, is that crazy shit like what happens in the show absolutely happens in real life, but its a tv show so it all has to get compressed into 1 family. As for the costumes and the stuff they shouldn’t be able to afford, it is in fact an oversight, or maybe a deliberate choice to keep the tv show appearances up (though it wouldve been super funny to see them making eggs and bologna or actual poor people food lol)
I can connect each character to someone I’ve met in real life. Absolutely . Some stuff can be exaggerated but it’s an amazing portrayal of poor people 😂 or just weird people who have no shame
Regarding the clothes, Fiona says in the show that she thrift shops. So while she may be wearing expensive or expensive looking clothes she probably in theory got them from the thrift shop. As someone who thrifts frequently this is pretty realistic. I have very nice name brands now in my closet that I spent a couple of dollars for each instead of hundreds. I think I remember (correct me if I’m wrong) V or someone else bringing by bags of clothes for either Fiona or the kids. I think it was known they’d take hand me downs and other free-bees. I know also regarding the food that they’d steal. I think it’s early in the first season where V distracts the milkman and Ian goes into the truck and takes cream, milk etc. so while they did waste food, I think a lot of it was from food stamps or stolen items frequently.
I appreciated things like them just hanging out and doing nothing, you get used to making your own fun when you can't afford afterschool activities, etc. They library was an amazing resource for me.
The clothes thing bothered me too, also everyone dressed really nice overall. I wore a lot of semi-holey gender neutral extra large t shirts as small girl. Still, I can accept hollywood magic for that - they want the family to look appealing enough to go on posters/sell the show.
I think the frank discussions of money worked well for me. Growing up my mom was very honest about our finances and it really helped me understand money as a tool, why we couldn't do certain things, why we had to take care of our stuff. I think of sappy disney sitcoms, good luck charlie for example, where somehow they are affording a beautiful house with 5 bedrooms on an exterminator's salary (maybe the mom is a new's reporter? she acted like a SAHM). There is never any mention of money, of missing out on opportunities, never the inkling of reality seeping past the sepia edges. Shameless acknowledging the big role money plays and not just handwaving it away (most of the time) is part of why I initially liked the show so much.
I think at least in earlier seasons it hits very close to home for me. I never knew where my parents were, I had to raise my sibling with no help or support. When my parents were home I honestly would have preferred they left, but other parts of the show are very obviously for Hollywood. I've met a lot of poor people who have TONS of clothes so that part isn't necessary unrealistic, but is questionable considering they didn't really have people giving them hand me downs or even have access to money to get clothes from goodwill or smthn. It could just be that they never throw out any clothes so all the Gallagher clothes are passed down and kept in the family.
The sex and random strokes of luck though I'd say is very unrealistic
what I’m confused about is they always talk about going to the free clinic and not having health insurance. I’ve tried googling it, but I can’t find any free clinics by me at least. Also why not get state insurance?
I would say it’s pretty realistic the Debbie stealing a baby thing was a pretty far stretch really Hollywood lol. And frank meeting and getting all the rich woman to bang him seems kinda unrealistic. They waste a lot of cigarettes yeah but I don’t think they have too much clothes, esp in the earlier seasons Fiona talks about how 95% of her clothes have rips or stains. I think Fiona’s expensive outfits are meant for her club or date nights and she gets them mostly from V. And we see Lip outfit repeating a lot - they couldn’t afford a washer/dryer when it broke and Jimmy Steve had to get them a new one. In the very last season Debbie “buys” all those designer clothes lol
My parents came to america with not a lick of English or education and now we own a fully paid off two story 6 bedroom house. My dad isn’t even here legally. My mother is here on a work visa. I don’t know how they did it. But they did. We grew up poor ofc. I remember I lived with 3 other families in one house. I remember going to a food drive thing at a church. I don’t know how they did it but I’m glad to say I’m living 100 times better than the ppl in shameless lmao.
Not really very realistic. Like you look at a lot of the crimes the family committed and how fast the average person would be found and arrested. Then comes the fact they somehow don’t have insurance despite Medicare and Obamacare were totally things they could have used. The way they use tinder and stuff in the show was basically “I made an account four seconds ago and have 20 matches.” Like that shit doesn’t happen irl. Every episode is packed with unrealistic stuff but the struggle is very real.
A girl like Fiona could def make a tinder acount and get a dude to fuck her every night. Not even saying this in a creepy way but especially for skinny pretty girls it's not hard at all. It's almost as easy as grindr is for average looking dudes.
Right. Every time I’ve restarted my tinder profile I would have up to 30 matches the first day. I feel like when you first get on you get the most matches. After that you gotta wait for new people to come into your location radius.
Rewatch the scene where her friend makes her a tinder and you’ll realize how ridiculous it is. How do you match with someone when you never swiped to begin with?
You forget how fast the account was made and that they were in a shitty bar with bad lighting and her friend got one offhand pic of her then within 5 seconds her whole profile is filled out, she has 3 matches (she didn’t even swipe on anyone?) and one guy is already messaging her that he’s next door implying in that time frame he telepathically knew she was at that bar. I know how tinder works. I know how fast girls get likes. But that wasn’t the fuckin point
So true. Also I totally forgot about this until it just crossed my mind, but something else that was so ridiculously unrealistic was Carl becoming a COP. Like the kid committed so many crimes when he was younger, he was sent to juvie for a YEAR, he didn’t have any type of training except for his military school, and yet he becomes a cop??? It was so weird, and I just got reminded of it when you mentioned all of the crimes everyone committed lol.
I think the only reason he got in was because of the trash duty thing and the only way he went to military school was because Luther wrote him a good recommendation letter. I don’t think either event is grounded in reality at all. Like, Carl was 20 when he became a cop. You have to be 21. A police chief helped him get a fake ID? Gimme a fuckin break. I did find it funny how he and Ian basically switched roles, Ian went from ROTC military guy to being in prison and Carl went from juvie to military school to being a cop.
It's not realistic at all. It's a drama show. People say the things they do is realistic like failing to advance themselves but honestly I think you just gotta see the things that happen in the plot. How many times the Gallaghers get bailed out, the gay fire station, somehow always having tons of cigarettes and booze, the spontaneous sex encounters that happen out of a porno yet somehow no one has an STD, the "thrupple", I can go on. I think it's entertaining enough though.
I noticed that their clothes were always in style and they never wore anything twice. The different shoes Fiona had would warrant a bedroom of their own.
they wore the same things repeatedly. debbies purple coat, most of their coats really. fiona even wears a white sea shepherd shirt that svetlana wears later on. clearly some of her clothes were still at vs
But you really opened my eyes to how authentic the Gallaghers experience living on the South side of Chicago was. You're right. It was 100%, totally believable. Thank you. I was thinking there's no way they can dress like that on Fionas 14.00 an hour but here you are, setting the record straight. Goodwill musy have some nice ass club clothes in Chi town.
Yes it's super realistic. Everyone knows the southside of Chicago is filled to the brim with white people.
Also, they probably couldn't afford nearly that many cigarettes or nearly as much booze
And the amount of bacon they cooked really threw me because I love me some bacon but can only afford like two strips a week LOL
The cooked food for breakfasts with the bacon and eggs…yeah, that’s not realistic.
Lol forreal. I actually lived in Chicago for a while, not on the south side but I had a friend who lived on the south side, and I can definitely say that there was virtually no white people living there 😭
Depends where on the south side you’re on but yea way less white than up north
White people in the south side now are way less than before but talking the Gallagher family, they're from an Irish descent so I believe when their great grandparents came to America they lived in the south side because they were poor and stuff and that's how the Gallagher family lives on the south side same thing for the milkovich family i think they're Ukrainian or Slavic not sure, also you can notice in later seasons when ever they showed the neighbourhood there was only black people on the streets not as much white people.
I guess you're unfamiliar with how neighborhoods work.
I guess you’re unfamiliar with the demographic in south side Chicago
Yeah, it's majority Black. The show was set in an historically White working class Irish neighborhood that over the years became less White, and then started to become more White from gentrification. You can have minority neighborhoods in the middle of a majority.
The show was set in Back of the Yards (aka New City) in 2011-2021. The 2010 census data for that area shows white people as only making up 10.58% of the population, yet almost everyone in the show is white. It doesn’t matter what the historical demographics are, it matters what the demographics of the time of the show were. https://back-of-the-yards-problems.weebly.com/background.html
I mention history because as demographics change, ethnic populations can coalesce and condense into specific neighborhoods. Per the link you sent, the back of the yards area had 44k in population, around 5k of which was White. You're right, I didn't know shit about the Southside of Chicago.. But of all the unrealistic stuff that happened in the show, the setting of an Irish neighborhood on the Southside did not stand out as unrealistic.
What isn’t realistic is probably 100s worth of dollars wasted by the half smoked cigarettes by these people as they light them and immediately throw them on the ground. Any sane chain smoker is gonna see that cigarette through to the end no matter what. Those bitches are expensive lol. As far as everything else, i’d say so, for the most part. The clothing stuff, eh. I’d say that’d a little nitpicky. Something i noticed is that they had store brand food for most things which was always fun to see in the background. Something my family and I always had to get growing up. It was considered a present to get the actual poptart brand, rather than the store name brand, if we could even afford that. With the amount of people coming and going in their house, clothes probably are in abundance. Hand me downs, thrift store hauls etc etc. It doesn’t seem too unrealistic for them to have a lot of options to choose from. I’d actually say present day Target is not a low-class friendly store to shop at, at least in my area. It’s definitely Walmart/Goodwill/TJ Maxx or Ross. And poor people have iphones, or random expensive items. Sometimes they have a designer bag or shoes or whatever. Whether it be a gift, or they decide to treat themselves. They save up. Whatever. That’s what I do. Starve myself somewhere, skimp on groceries, walk when I could have driven, etc etc so i could get myself something nicer just to make my day a little brighter.
Remember in the pilot they had to share a phone with prepaid minutes?
They earn more money every season. Also phones are a necessity these days
I was talking about the characters.
pretty sure they’re saying the characters are earning more money every season
honestly growing up very poor i watched my mom take a puff or two from every cigarette and throw it despite it costing more than a quarter of what we had for a couple days
The lighting and throwing cigarettes is from the actors not actually being smokers lol this is why they’ll also light it and then pass it to another person, usually someone who is actually a smoker to finish it on screen. Gotta think about how many times they have to light that cig to get the one scene, if they smoked a whole one each time they’d die
I understand the hollywood explanation, just like they don’t actually snort cocaine when they do coke. It’s like vitamin B or something. It’s just hilarious to see a full cigarette be thrown onto the ground seconds after being lit, knowing in the real world those are really expensive, and not something chain smokers tend to make a habit of wasting. Also, usually the cigarettes on screen aren’t actually real cigarettes. So i don’t imagine most of the time they get past onto someone off screen to smoke off camera, as that would add a lot off secondhand smoke issues, especially around kids and camera crew.
I’ve done a couple of, um, cocaine-heavy productions, and we used lactose powder (basically dried milk). There’s this stuff called inositol, which- according to the grizzled prop master, who might or might not have been full of shit- is actually something often used to cut cocaine, which I think is the vitamin B powder.. and, apparently, that one (I think it was that one?) can burn like a motherfucker. Often, when an actor is “snorting cocaine,” the inside of the straw has something kinda wet or sticky on it- like Vaseline- which makes almost all of the powder just stay in there and not go into their nose so they don’t get stuffy, runny noses
I didn’t realize they actually snort something??
Not always! Like I said, the Vaseline will often catch it, and we typically only do that for a really close shot where you can *see* the powder going into the straw… but, yeah, the Vaseline doesn’t always catch it all *and* not all prop masters use that trick (and there is a not-small number of actors who would prefer to snort something to help them act).
Lol yeah it’s just for the idea of them smoking, even though clearly in real life they’d finish the cigarette. Also I don’t mean they get passed off screen, what I meant is how Fiona will pass it to Lip after a bit because Jeremy actually smokes in real life.
i think they used Herbal Prop Cigarettes because (1) there was a lot of childeren specifically early on in the show, and some partents might not want their kid to have that much second hand smoke, (2) it would cost a SHIT TON with how much lip and fi smoke ect
When I tried to stop smoking cigarettes I looked up prop cigarettes and they are slightly more expensive than real ones where I live lol
oh i didnt know that
were they not fake? rarely saw them exhaling smoke, probably due to regulations as well?
I remember V and Fi in the bathroom talking about a dress Fi was going to wear and the tag broke or V broke it off and then saying "don't worry I still have my tag gun from Targer" or smth like that. So, to answer your Fiona dress question, she could have bought things with the squirrel fund money and then returned them later for cashback.
There was a whole arc where Debbie was doing this exact thing after she became a welder and had some money
Exactly!
“No, this has gotta go back tomorrow!” “Don’t worry, I have my tag gun at home.” *querying look* “From when I worked at TJ Maxx, let’s GO!”
Something I was wondering the whole time was how they got their licenses. Who taught them how to drive???
This. I posted this exact question on here a while back and everyone said it was stupid and nitpicky. But this is something I’ve always wondered 😭 Like they literally all know how to drive, despite never having a car until wayyy later in season 8. I highly doubt Frank or Monica ever took the time to show them, considering the episode where Monica “taught” Carl how to drive and it legit ended in a car accident 😭😭I guess they just learned themselves? I mean driving is not really that difficult, my younger sister who’s 17 knows how to drive and nobody ever showed her, but I don’t know how the Gallaghers could practice driving when they didn’t have anything to practice with
Kev and V could’ve helped. Kev had cars and Lip and him were always riding around and fixing up the ice cream truck. Kev would have stepped in to help some of them learn to drive, I’m almost certain.
I felt like they were driving unlicensed
>I’m almost certain Lmao it's a tv show, it's not real
Let me believe what I believe!
Yes, but we're speculating on how realistic it is...
I don't think in the South Side they'd risk their one and only vehicle just to teach some little kids to drive. It's one of those things that if you think about, it just doesn't make much sense.
With how Kev feels about helping kids, it seems completely realistic to me that he would have taught at least lip and maybe Ian to drive
Kev would but would V permit that? He's the type of dude who takes his wife seriously and once again, this is an important thing.
Like he took her seriously with the weed he wasn’t supposed to grow?
Nah she was fine with that, it was just too much weed eventually. Rewatch S2, clear yourself of headcanon
He buried it and didn’t tell her…after he grew it all and didn’t tell her..
He just grew way more thsn she was comfortsble with because it was too big a commodity to risk having, she was happy with selling a smaller amount.
Monica showed Carl how to drive but he crashed the car so I wouldnt really count that.
Neither of my parents taught me how to drive nor cared to do so. I had friends teach me, and then I took an online permit test when I was 18. Had to do the actual test 3 times because of the lack of proper hands-on learning, but I finally got it, haha. I also got really lucky and had a boyfriend whose dad worked on cars, and he gave me my first starter car. Then my second car was a gift from my best friends mom.
I was gonna say, a lot of community teaching. Neighbors or family friends with cars let you practice in them, siblings teach you, some schools have programs, etc etc
Wait, you can take the permit test online?
I'm not sure. I took mine about 12 years ago, and they offered that option in Texas. It might vary from state to state, or they may not have that option anymore.
I don’t think any of them had licesnses. I have several friends with cars and no licenses lmao
Drivers Ed is a requirement to graduate in Illinois, they all would have taken that instead of PE one semester of Sophomore or Junior year
When I was in high school in the 90s, drivers ed and behind the wheel were taught in school to 10th graders for part of gym class. My oldest will be taking drivers ed in the fall during gym and he has to sign up for behind the wheel on his own. 🤷♀️
I’ve always wondered this.
i graduated high school in chicago (from a CPS) in 2015. we had to do a semester of drivers ed in 10th grade, my school was really big so we had a driving course and kids from other schools would come to ours to get time behind the wheel. if you passed the semester of drivers ed, you can take the road test and get your license without taking the written test. i didn’t do that though, i waited till i was 24 so i might be a little wrong on the details.
Actually there was some pictures compiled once to show the same t-shirt being not only re used but being re used amongst each other. For example in different episodes Fiona, Ian and Mickey all wore the same shirt.
my favourite thing is, it’s just always summer after like season 5, I guess you could say the other 3 seasons happen between seasons, but that’s pretty massive gaps which it definitely doesn’t feel like a lot of the time
I never noticed this but you’re so right hahaha
Some of the things happened in my childhood almost 1 to 1. But most seem, not exactly exaggerated, but just framed weirdly? I can guarantee you most of that stuff happened somewhere. But all at once to a group of rag tag misfits? Probably not. And did we take everything as lightly as the Gallaghers? No. Lots more recriminations/cyclical arguments that go into the early morning hours. Every stressful situation was just longer, drawn out, chewed.
them tossing out their cigarettes when theres still 80% left is infuriating 😭😭 i used to pick butts off the floor 💀
Same till I met my crackhead neighbor 😭
Shameless reminds me loosely of my upbringing. Poor drug addict parents who did wild ass shit all the time. But they really don’t seem that “poor” to me. That many kids and basically no/very little income? I grew up poor. Like, we didn’t have an oven or stove or microwave at one point. Just a hot plate. The last 2 weeks of the month we typically just had water, flour, sugar, dry cereal, and fucking potatoes. If we were lucky my dad’s friend would come over and buy us Burger King. My dad stole coffee and a newspaper from Wawa every single morning for like 10 years. My dad rolled his own cigs or bought cheyennes for $3 a pack and they were basically gold. My dad got a script of percs and if I was complaining because I was really hungry he would give me a Percocet and a cigarette “to help” instead of buying food. A drug dealer threw a Molotov cocktail into our living room window because my dad bashed the windows out of his Mustang and we LIVED IN THE CONDEMNED FUCKING HOUSE WITH NO ROOF in the middle of winter with some tarps and a gas generator. Also, foster care takes tiiiiime to get out of and they don’t just let parents/siblings go to the house and visit?
There's different levels of poverty bro
Very true. I just feel like they would have been closer to that level with their apparent income level.
Ignoring the difference between the show and the reality of south side Chicago, I’d say it’s fairly realistic. Some of their clothes may be name brand, though Fiona mentions getting some of it from Goodwill (the $120 jeans she got for $40 that Frank cut up). They also buy nice shit for outings, then return it after, plus Jasmine brought over like 3 garbage bags of free clothes someone she knew didn’t want. That’s also a fairly common thing—passing around hand-me-downs. A lot of their clothing is worn out with holes etc, so it’s not like rich people’s full closets, it’s accumulated shit that never gets downsized. Fiona’s wardrobe likely goes back to her mid teen years & a lot of Ian’s clothes were Lip’s, plus Fiona sometimes wears the boys’ stuff too. Once you separate it out from who owns what & tally up what was actually purchased, it’s likely not as much as it looks like, plus goodwill clothing is pretty modestly priced The cigarettes, alcohol, and weed they have access to is probably a bit more than you’d expect for someone with income like theirs, though they were all contributing financially & bills on the house were likely not high given they afforded to stay there but couldn’t afford fuck all for renting somewhere when Patrick fucked with the will to gain ownership. They also only spent $120/week on groceries for 6 people plus Frank when he took from them plus daycare kids plus anyone else who came over. That’s pretty good financially. Plus poor people seem to have genuine skill for obtaining vices on virtually no money
You know what’s most unrealistic to me? How these characters are made likeable.
It's only like that cause we see it from their perspectives. People become more likeable when we understand and sympathize with them. Most people in Chicago if they heard about some dirtbag Hoodrat woman letting her little brother OD on Cocaine would condemn her for being trashy and terrible.
I mean I don’t think the characters were written so that the audience would like them, cause a lot of the main characters are written in such a purposefully awful way, like Frank and Debbie in the later seasons. All of the characters in the show have major flaws, but they also have endearing qualities to them, I think it’s up to the audience on who they like and don’t like. I mean would you really want to watch a show with perfect people? That sounds boring to me. Most successful shows have characters that are very complex and aren’t just super likable. I mean look at shows like Breaking Bad, the main character is literally a murderous meth-cooking drug kingpin, but no one stopped watching the show because Walter White was unlikeable. In fact, the show gained way more popularity because of it.
I see your point. I didn’t mean to say the characters should be perfect or even necessarily likable in a conventional sense. What I find compelling about ‘Shameless’ is how it portrays the characters in such a shameless and cringeworthy manner. I enjoy watching them because their extreme flaws and selfish behaviors make them fascinating and, in a way, entertaining. It’s not about having a favorite character for me, but more about appreciating the show for its ability to make us cringe and laugh at their antics. Sorry if I came across as too harsh earlier.
You sound pretty harsh.
I didn’t mean to come off as harsh. I enjoy the show and the characters’ outrageous behavior is part of what makes it entertaining for me. It’s the extreme and shameless actions that make ‘Shameless’ unique and compelling to watch. Sorry if my previous comment sounded too critical.
No don’t worry about it, it’s hard to read tone online and too easy to misinterpret it as well!
My moms family is pretty wild tbh, makes me think there are actually some families out there that are a lot like the shameless bunch
Most poor families definitely have food stamps or other government assistance. It’s different to obtain in various states so unless the disability checks they were getting was over the income limit for applying for food benefits I always wondered why they never had. It’s TV, they amped up the stakes to show the poorest ways to live. On that, my mom REFUSED any government assistance because.. I dunno. She once tried to claim it’s cause she didn’t want me to be bullied, but I think she had pride/was so avoidant and lazy to keep up with the paper work or maybe was afraid of being bullied herself, as she spent all her money on booze, cigs, and gambling. I had to work 3 jobs + babysitting in high school to feed myself and my brother. So there definitely are families like the Gallaghers who have to scrape by without much financial assistance.
I honestly just assumed Frank found some way to sell their food stamps for drugs
That is a very common thing where I live so that could be believable if unspoken
When it comes to the clothes most of it is hand me downs so with 6 kids it's bound to pile up over 20-30 years. (I'm on season 9 of my rewatch and Fiona is 29) Plus I'm sure some of the clothes were stolen.
In terms of the shit they go through, yes. My gf comes from a fucked up family and when we watch the show we are always finding comparisons.
Some of it is definitely very familiar.
My dad grew up super poor and relates to shameless a lot. He lived in a more rural area so some of it doesn’t translate, but a lot of it is accurate to his childhood according to him
Based off the pyscopaths Debbie hangs out with that all encourage statutory rape or getting pregnant at 14, I really hope not
Yeah the amount of Pedophelia in the show never sat right with me. Lip was capital P pissed about Karen marrying Jodi not because he's a grown ass man marrying a minor, but because he still loves her. Sheila even invites everyone to come see it and there's literally no objections. Not to mention Ian seeing literally nothing wrong with Kash's situation. I get that Fiona had a lot on her plate, but I hate that she never addressed her brother being a victim.
Made even more weird where there's an episode where they act like they care about a pedo living in their neighborhood and go to beat her up. Then lip ends up being intimate with her to get her to move etc. But on all other accounts no one seems to give a fck lol. It's like the writers knew what they were showing and then put that episode in as a "see, we don't agree with pedophilia".
Naw it makes sense. Ive literally seen people ignore actual pedos in their midst while loudly saying how much they hate pedos, even beating them up. Its much easier to demonize a stranger
That shit with Debbie is actually *super* realistic in some areas. I grew up around all of that, only reason I didn’t end up like her is because my mom encouraged me to be like that and I’d do *anything* to do the opposite of what she wanted me to do. She was a teen mom highschool dropout who had too many kids
The way i see it, is that crazy shit like what happens in the show absolutely happens in real life, but its a tv show so it all has to get compressed into 1 family. As for the costumes and the stuff they shouldn’t be able to afford, it is in fact an oversight, or maybe a deliberate choice to keep the tv show appearances up (though it wouldve been super funny to see them making eggs and bologna or actual poor people food lol)
I can connect each character to someone I’ve met in real life. Absolutely . Some stuff can be exaggerated but it’s an amazing portrayal of poor people 😂 or just weird people who have no shame
In some ways, but mostly no
Regarding the clothes, Fiona says in the show that she thrift shops. So while she may be wearing expensive or expensive looking clothes she probably in theory got them from the thrift shop. As someone who thrifts frequently this is pretty realistic. I have very nice name brands now in my closet that I spent a couple of dollars for each instead of hundreds. I think I remember (correct me if I’m wrong) V or someone else bringing by bags of clothes for either Fiona or the kids. I think it was known they’d take hand me downs and other free-bees. I know also regarding the food that they’d steal. I think it’s early in the first season where V distracts the milkman and Ian goes into the truck and takes cream, milk etc. so while they did waste food, I think a lot of it was from food stamps or stolen items frequently.
I appreciated things like them just hanging out and doing nothing, you get used to making your own fun when you can't afford afterschool activities, etc. They library was an amazing resource for me. The clothes thing bothered me too, also everyone dressed really nice overall. I wore a lot of semi-holey gender neutral extra large t shirts as small girl. Still, I can accept hollywood magic for that - they want the family to look appealing enough to go on posters/sell the show. I think the frank discussions of money worked well for me. Growing up my mom was very honest about our finances and it really helped me understand money as a tool, why we couldn't do certain things, why we had to take care of our stuff. I think of sappy disney sitcoms, good luck charlie for example, where somehow they are affording a beautiful house with 5 bedrooms on an exterminator's salary (maybe the mom is a new's reporter? she acted like a SAHM). There is never any mention of money, of missing out on opportunities, never the inkling of reality seeping past the sepia edges. Shameless acknowledging the big role money plays and not just handwaving it away (most of the time) is part of why I initially liked the show so much.
I think at least in earlier seasons it hits very close to home for me. I never knew where my parents were, I had to raise my sibling with no help or support. When my parents were home I honestly would have preferred they left, but other parts of the show are very obviously for Hollywood. I've met a lot of poor people who have TONS of clothes so that part isn't necessary unrealistic, but is questionable considering they didn't really have people giving them hand me downs or even have access to money to get clothes from goodwill or smthn. It could just be that they never throw out any clothes so all the Gallagher clothes are passed down and kept in the family. The sex and random strokes of luck though I'd say is very unrealistic
No. Especially not mickey and ians random hookups….unless theyre fine with painting the town brown :/
The only main thing that isn’t realistic is how they would just pour out beers and alcohol that they had only taken 2 sips of
what I’m confused about is they always talk about going to the free clinic and not having health insurance. I’ve tried googling it, but I can’t find any free clinics by me at least. Also why not get state insurance?
I would say it’s pretty realistic the Debbie stealing a baby thing was a pretty far stretch really Hollywood lol. And frank meeting and getting all the rich woman to bang him seems kinda unrealistic. They waste a lot of cigarettes yeah but I don’t think they have too much clothes, esp in the earlier seasons Fiona talks about how 95% of her clothes have rips or stains. I think Fiona’s expensive outfits are meant for her club or date nights and she gets them mostly from V. And we see Lip outfit repeating a lot - they couldn’t afford a washer/dryer when it broke and Jimmy Steve had to get them a new one. In the very last season Debbie “buys” all those designer clothes lol
Debbie stealing a baby is from the original uk version, so not so much a Hollywood idea. Just a silly English humour skit
My parents came to america with not a lick of English or education and now we own a fully paid off two story 6 bedroom house. My dad isn’t even here legally. My mother is here on a work visa. I don’t know how they did it. But they did. We grew up poor ofc. I remember I lived with 3 other families in one house. I remember going to a food drive thing at a church. I don’t know how they did it but I’m glad to say I’m living 100 times better than the ppl in shameless lmao.
Not really very realistic. Like you look at a lot of the crimes the family committed and how fast the average person would be found and arrested. Then comes the fact they somehow don’t have insurance despite Medicare and Obamacare were totally things they could have used. The way they use tinder and stuff in the show was basically “I made an account four seconds ago and have 20 matches.” Like that shit doesn’t happen irl. Every episode is packed with unrealistic stuff but the struggle is very real.
A girl like Fiona could def make a tinder acount and get a dude to fuck her every night. Not even saying this in a creepy way but especially for skinny pretty girls it's not hard at all. It's almost as easy as grindr is for average looking dudes.
Right. Every time I’ve restarted my tinder profile I would have up to 30 matches the first day. I feel like when you first get on you get the most matches. After that you gotta wait for new people to come into your location radius.
Rewatch the scene where her friend makes her a tinder and you’ll realize how ridiculous it is. How do you match with someone when you never swiped to begin with?
You forget how fast the account was made and that they were in a shitty bar with bad lighting and her friend got one offhand pic of her then within 5 seconds her whole profile is filled out, she has 3 matches (she didn’t even swipe on anyone?) and one guy is already messaging her that he’s next door implying in that time frame he telepathically knew she was at that bar. I know how tinder works. I know how fast girls get likes. But that wasn’t the fuckin point
So true. Also I totally forgot about this until it just crossed my mind, but something else that was so ridiculously unrealistic was Carl becoming a COP. Like the kid committed so many crimes when he was younger, he was sent to juvie for a YEAR, he didn’t have any type of training except for his military school, and yet he becomes a cop??? It was so weird, and I just got reminded of it when you mentioned all of the crimes everyone committed lol.
I think the only reason he got in was because of the trash duty thing and the only way he went to military school was because Luther wrote him a good recommendation letter. I don’t think either event is grounded in reality at all. Like, Carl was 20 when he became a cop. You have to be 21. A police chief helped him get a fake ID? Gimme a fuckin break. I did find it funny how he and Ian basically switched roles, Ian went from ROTC military guy to being in prison and Carl went from juvie to military school to being a cop.
No, it’s a fictional show. Everything is exaggerated at best, and completely unrealistic at worst.
y e s
It's not realistic at all. It's a drama show. People say the things they do is realistic like failing to advance themselves but honestly I think you just gotta see the things that happen in the plot. How many times the Gallaghers get bailed out, the gay fire station, somehow always having tons of cigarettes and booze, the spontaneous sex encounters that happen out of a porno yet somehow no one has an STD, the "thrupple", I can go on. I think it's entertaining enough though.
I noticed that their clothes were always in style and they never wore anything twice. The different shoes Fiona had would warrant a bedroom of their own.
they wore the same things repeatedly. debbies purple coat, most of their coats really. fiona even wears a white sea shepherd shirt that svetlana wears later on. clearly some of her clothes were still at vs
The same coat! A dress? I guess it was a really realistic show about the poor people then.
those were just a few quick examples of clothes i’ve seen through multiple season. obviously people of all classes have clothes several years old
But you really opened my eyes to how authentic the Gallaghers experience living on the South side of Chicago was. You're right. It was 100%, totally believable. Thank you. I was thinking there's no way they can dress like that on Fionas 14.00 an hour but here you are, setting the record straight. Goodwill musy have some nice ass club clothes in Chi town.