The Sons of Anarchy TV Show is Fictional Drama and not real!
As most of you probably know, and some of you may not know, there is a TV show on the FX cable channel called Sons of Anarchy. You can check out their official website by clicking here.
The TV show is set in a fictional California town called Charming, California, and it revolves around a fictional motorcycle club called the “Sons of Anarchy.”
I have held out about writing about this show until now. The TV show has become real popular, and I think it is creating a negative stereotype for bikers and motorcyclist.
Hell I know many of the guys who work as extras on the show.
The ironic thing about the TV show the Sons of Anarchy is that it is all fiction. The show portrays motorcycle club members as murderers, gun runners, drug dealers, organized criminals, etc.
Basically the TV show portrays motorcycle club members as everything you have ever seen in bad B movies, or read about in fiction novels.
I myself have been involved with motorcycle clubs for many years, and have friends and clients in what some would consider the top motorcycle clubs in the world. I can assure you, none of them do the crap that is portrayed in the TV show.
Basically the TV show does nothing for Bikers and Motorcyclist but portray us in a bad light to the public.
Now I know that many of you are saying “geez, everyone knows this is just a fictional drama, and is not really true.” Well from my experience so far, there are actually people out there who believe that the crap they see on TV happens in real life.
What is worse, law enforcement, and main stream media perpetrate the myth that all motorcycle club members are members of outlaw street gangs that are armed and dangerous.
Although it may be true that a very small minority of motorcycle club members may commit crimes from time to time, just like members of every other segment of society, that does not mean that all members of motorcycle clubs are gang members and criminals.
You cannot lump the acts of a few bad apples onto everyone. If this were true, then Walmart or the Los Angeles Police Department could be called a criminal street gang.
TV shows like the Sons of Anarchy just help to perpetrate the myth that members of motorcycle clubs are all criminal gorillas, which in my personal experience in riding with, hanging out with, and being friends of guys in motorcycle clubs, is bullshit.
I will be frank; I actually do watch and enjoy the show. I enjoy it for what it is, fictional drama.
However, the world does need to know and realize, The Sons of Anarchy is fictional drama and not real.
I would like to hear your comments about this show. You may leave them by clicking on comments below.
By California Motorcycle Accident Attorney, and Biker Lawyer, Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq., © 2010
Welcome, my name is 
I concur with everything you said. Althugh I do not think that the media perpetrates the myths, they perpetuate them.
SOA is fiction. Most MCs are 3%ers not 1%ers.
The other 97% of bikers are who police go after, cuz they don’t shoot back.
As for LAPD, every hear of Rampart? Or LA Secret Police?
Actually, shows like SOA and Justified paint cops worse than bikers.
I have never watched this show.
My reasons are how people who ride bikes are portrayed. Pure crap!! : [
I ride with many different personalities from lawyers to carpenters. I personally do not know anyone who does these things…..
I do not see how some of the shows get sponsorship.
My question to you is….who does watch this junk?
I do watch it because it is pure crap. It’s like watching batman or a cartoon. My problem is with those that think batman or cartoons are real.
Norm
You got that right : ]
Norm, I love your motivation for watching Sons of Anarchy — “I watch it because its pure crap.” It gave me a chuckle.
I worry about people who confuse “make believe world” (Hollywood) with reality, too. I wrote a blog on legal lessons I learned from The Social Network. But I’ve had people tell me they were saddened by how the movie ends, with (billionaire) Mark Zuckerberg alone. Of course, in reality, Mark is dating the same women he date at Harvard, but people WANT to believe the movie version.
Oy!
Lee
(Attorney and motorcycle rider in Texas)
IMHO SoA don’t paint biker clubs as outlaws. I doubt that cops confuse outlaws with Yuppies Who Dress As Pirates. I’d like to see an episode where SoA crosses paths with Wild Hogs. Hilarity would ensue.
But cops do see pirates as yuppies, and easy pickins for traffic tickets and public drunkeness arrests at Million Man biker rallies, since they almost never put up a fight in court, unlike real Outlaws. The real threat to the average biker is the average biker’s failure to fight traffic tickets, or to sabotage their own case for BD or DUI, because then cops, prosecutors, judges and politicians go hog wild with a Police State.
The best part of real-world outlaw bikers is they STFU during police encounters, and immediately get lawyered up with competent criminal defense attorneys when arrested. That’s smart advice for everyone. SAMCRO does seem too quick to roll over and rat for the cops, but maybe that’s how it is in the Real World, where “confidential informants” almost always get immunity for their crimes.
SoA has bikers killin cops by justified first-degree murder, aided and abeted by pot-smokin police chiefs. Cops are nothing more than gangbangers killed in Mafia Wars. Even the “honest” cops are hooked up with meth-dealin politicians, before gettign knocked off by Mexican Mafia working for The Man. Four more seasons of copkillin to go.
SoA is not accurate in its depiction of cops as laid back peace officers, who never under any circumstances harass the public with speed traps or DUI checkpoints. Same defect in all cop shows, when the reality is 99% of all law enforcement is targeted at honest citizens minding their own business and not harming anyone (easy pickens).
SoA is written, directed, produced and acted by real-life outlaw biker Keith Sutter. Sutter was writer, actor, director and producer of The Shield, where the hero was a dirty cop, and real-world naked body cavity searches in view of the public on public highways was seen in all its nude glory on prime time TV. Sutter is married to SoA’s Jemma Teller a/k/a Katie Sagal.
My complaint about the accuracy of SoA is its depiction of IRA as an autonomous antigovt terrorist organization on top of the food chain. In reality, British MI5 and MI6 have run IRA for decades as a false-flag psyop, with undercover MI5 agents doing “IRA” hits and bombings, as revealed by defense lawyers when British prosecutors arrested their own agents (Shaylergate). When I lived in England for 8 years, I was shocked by how the British Govt censors 100% of IRA “news” reports in USA, since for every IRA shooting or bombing, British TV reported there was always an equal and opposite retaliation shooting or bombing of innocent bystanders by Irish Loyalist “terrorists” (MI5 & MI6), the astroturf support of British martial law in N Ireland. Watch 7/7 Ripple Effect to see how the Brit Govt bombs its own sheeple, now to blame the Arab Semite patsies and “justify” invasion of every nation in the Middle East, and increased Afghan heroin production 10,000% for the German Nazi Queen of England (google British Opium Wars with China).
Maybe you can tip your friends on SoA to incorporate the IRS/MI5 corruption into their scripts? That’s very popular now in Hollywood.
http://www.ugo.com/therush/gallery/kurt-sutter-soa-interview/712/1/
http://sutterink.blogspot.com
The show is a pile of crap.
Be normal, go to the beach like other people.
I don’t care if the tough guy son writes poetry; there have been so many hospital visits I’m surprised
that no one has shot the baby in the incubator, they
honestly do not know what to write about in this show.
Join the reest of the world and see if you can write
a 1500 word essay on American History and pass a
regular college course.
HM
Norm: I am confident I can write a 1500 word essay on American History. LOL : ]
I have just passed a college credit class.
Are “YOU” being asked to join the rest of the world??
I agree the show is “crap”.
I would rather read.
Thanks Sandie.
I like my American History essays. I wish there
was a Canadian Nathan Hale, instead of a surfeit
of Scottish Presbyterians with beer guts.
Cannon Beach in Oregon is nice, I enjoyed that a lot
and regret not setting sights on it twenty years
ago in my real world re-assesment.
Sincerely
HM
Episode: Wild Hogs of Charming:
Jim Bob; Hey Bubba, whatcha warin’ on the ride today?
Bubba; Black t-shirt bro.,,,DUH!
Jim Bob; You warin that one with Eagle with the dragon in it’s talons?
Bubba; Naw, I wore that one yesterday. I think I’ll wear the one with the
Rottweiler in sunglasses and the Harley neckerchief. That is so cool!
Jim Bob; Which bandana? I think I’ll wear the one with the skulls and
lightning.
Bubba; Oh man, skulls are so cool! I think I’ll wear the one with the flaming
skulls. I just love skulls, they make us look so badass.
Jim Bob; You warin them assless chaps?
Bubba; Well DUH Bro!
Jax Teller: Let’s grease these wankers!
Tig Trager: I get dibs on Bubba…
I went to a so called “Biker” party in Waco Texas back in 1987 and it was very much like the “patch” party depicted in SOA. There are Outlaw Bikers. I still live close to Austin, and every once in awhile you see these guys driving up I35 and through Georgetown Texas. They look very dangerous and they are responsible for some of the drug trafficking that occurs along the I35 quarter.
As far as the show SOA…there is something romantic about outlaw bikers…granted they do have a rather skewed since morality but in a world filled with really bad guys the bikers come off looking like the good guys. Sorta like the American Old West….sometimes hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Anyway I like the show even if the SOA characters are dysfunctional going from one crisis to another of their own making.
Bikers are nothing like that? You are aware that a consultant (and occasional guest star on SOA is Sonny Barger?) I would think the former president of the real Hells Angles MC would have some valid insight into what biker clubs do. Most of all, this is television. Nobody is going to tune in to watch video of the local HOG (Harley Owner Group) Toy’s for Tot’s run. The show is meant to be entertainment, not a weekly documentary. Most real life police officers will never draw their weapon in the line of duty but a tv show that showed how boring day to day police work really is would never get a pilot much less a series.
Fortunately this fictional account portrayed on tv does not reflect your personal experience. In the case of those dealing with heroin and other drug addictions, reality is harsher than anything that Hollywood could produce. Recovery is possible for those who truly seek treatment and make the necessary changes.