On October 26, Madam Secretary, the new CBS show starring the lovely Tea Leoni as an affable, idealistic secretary of state, aired its sixth episode titled The Call. IMDb lists the episode’s synopsis as “Elizabeth faci[ng] unexpected consequences when she makes a plea to the President to help with a dire situation in Western Africa.” Looks and sounds all good until you realize that the country in question is a made-up country called Republic of West Africa. This isn’t the first time Hollywood has made up an African country. Because, why should it be bothered with geography? Currently, Wikipedia lists 96 fictional African countries in its list of fictional African countries. Close to twice the number the continent has in real life.
It was not the fact that Madam Secretary writers made up a new fictional country that made us uneasy. But, the expectation of more dished Hollywood stereotypes and inaccuracies. We were right! The first couple of questions that sprang to mind during the first few minutes of watching the broadcast were: where on the map is the Republic of West Africa? Which countries surround it? Will Ebola be involved? Thankfully, Ebola was not mentioned. And, we were given the answer to the first two questions. Republic of West Africa is “wedged between Gabon and Cameroon.” Wait, isn’t that Equatorial Guinea? Of which, that means Republic of West Africa is located in Central Africa, to be exact the west border of Central Africa. The frustration of geography is something we all understand. For all our lives, we can’t figure out how a Central African country can be called a West African country. Without any doubt, the Madam Secretary writers could just not be bothered to research the fictional land they are depicting to make it believably real. Was the research team sleeping on a bicycle? Seems so. Continue Reading