MovieChat Forums > The Pregnancy Project (2012) Discussion > Toppenish! wtf...

Toppenish! wtf...

posted 12 years ago by SkE83
5 replies | jump to latest

Sorry but I laughed the entire time during this movie. Not because of the storyline or anything like that, but I am from Toppenish!! I don't know Gaby, but Lifetime really screwed up the portrayal of our town, our people and even our damn school colors!! lol. Yes we are Wildcats but we definitely were not BLUE! The only blue in our town is from gang members...which were definitely not featured in the movie haha!

No offense but they showed the school full of white people! When really our school was primarily full of Mexicans, Native Americans, THEN Caucasian...and it seemed like Gaby was the only Mexican in that school haha. Cool thing though..."Mrs. Straehle" was my teacher too!! And "141 Ward Road" on the letter of intent is the real address of the high school.

But our town has no big pretty parks with nice bridges!! Or that many pretty green trees! The school location is going out towards the country with orchards and hops surrounding it lol..I didn't see that in the movie haha.

And in the movie where she lives on "that side of the town"...known to those of us that live here as "the East side" lol...is way nicer than our "nice" side of the town!!
And you definitely can not leave your car parked in the middle of the street and not have it jacked!!!
That Toppenish is a dream...that I'd love to live in haha.

I know it was just a movie, but knowing this happened in my real life hometown and high school I actually graduated from, they should have portrayed it a bit more realistically. Now when I see a "based on a true story" movie again...I'll have to think about how real it was! But I guess the storyline was true to what happened, which is really the point of the movie...and not making the real people of Topppenish, WA happy lol.

[–] beach_df 12 years ago

I've been to Toppenish as well (I'm from Ellensburg, WA with many friends from Toppenish) and was watching the movie thinking "I've been to Toppenish HS and that ain't it'. I also agree that it did make the student body look way more white than it actually is as well.

[–] LovesConfusingJoy 12 years ago

I think it's kinda a stupid thing to be upset about or wanting completely accurate. Every movie makes things look nicer and more affluent than they really are. Even movies that take places in areas that are supposed to be tough or people that are supposed to be poor, they still look better than the actually people and areas. If they got the plot right than I don't see why anyone would care about the rest...

Character is higher than intellect, a great soul will be strong to live as well as think

[–] beach_df 12 years ago

A friend of mine from Toppenish who knows Gaby's fam and so on put it this way: the errors production made in regards to demographics (those I know from Toppenish say that their school is mainly latino kids, some white kids, and very few black kids as opposed to the film which made it look more 'white' than it actually is), how poor a particular part of town is and so on contribute to many of the stereotypes that existed within the time-period of when Gaby did this project. Therefore when production made those errors that eroded the story they were attempting to tell.

[–] IFeedPigeons 12 years ago

lol haha haha lol haha lol haha lol .... ENOUGH already, that makes you sound so damned stupid.

Apparently the school is also churning out massive amounts of dead-headed 'students.'

Jaywalking is RAMPANT!!!
~ Barney Fife

[–] kedem524 11 years ago

In the book Gaby mentions that her school is 75 percent Hispanic. But making predominantly non-white places seem whiter than they really are is quite common on TV programs. I remember once watching a movie on the Disney Channel that was set in an inner city L.A. public high school and except for the main characters it seemed like most of the rest of the school was white. In the L.A. Unified School District, even the schools in the "nice" areas are predominantly Hispanic!