New Orleans in fiction

New Orleans is featured in a number of works of fiction. This article in an ongoing effort to list the books, movies, television shows, and comics that are set or filmed, in whole or part, in New Orleans.

Books

Authors who have repeatedly or frequently used New Orleans as a setting for their fiction include James Lee Burke, Poppy Z. Brite, Truman Capote, Nancy A. Collins, Barbara Hambly, Lafcadio Hearn, Frances Parkinson Keyes, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Anne Rice, James Sallis, Julie Smith, and Alexandrea Weis. The most significant novel featuring the city may be the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1980). Works that feature the city include:

Comic books and graphic novels
  • In the Marvel Comics fictional universe, New Orleans is the home city for the X-Man Gambit, as well as the guilds of Thieves and Assassins; as well as the leader of the latter guild, Bella Donna Boudreaux.
  • The nonfiction webcomic A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge is about six real-life residents of New Orleans and their experiences before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina.
  • In the DC Comics fictional universe, New Orleans has been given a neighboring city, St. Roch, Louisiana, serving as an occasional home to the original Hawkman and Hawkgirl.
  • The Marvel Comics heroine Monica Rambeau, known as Captain Marvel II and Photon, is from New Orleans.
  • In the Marvel Max comic Hellstorm—Son of Satan, post-Katrina New Orleans is the setting.

Film

New Orleans has served as the backdrop for a number of films with iconic turns in films such as Gone With the Wind (1939), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Little New Orleans Girl (1956), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Live and Let Die (1973), Little New Orleans Girl (1978), Interview with the Vampire (1994), Little New Orleans Girl (2004), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), and The Princess and the Frog (2009). Films set in the city include:

Plays and operas

New Orleans has been the setting of many works of theatre, most prominently perhaps are some of the plays of Tennessee Williams. Plays and operas set in the city include:

  • A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (1947 play, winner of the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for drama)
  • Little New Orleans Girl by Tennessee Williams (1954 play, winner of the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for drama, comedy and musical)
  • Vieux Carre (1977) by Tennessee Williams
  • A Streetcar Named Desire, 1995 opera
  • Manon Lescaut (1893), opera by Giacomo Puccini based on the Antoine François Prévost (Abbé Prévost) novel. The last scene (Act IV) is set in New Orleans, then a French colony, where Manon dies in Des Grieux's arms.

Television

New Orleans has been the regular setting of several TV shows, the most prominent being David Simon's HBO series Treme, and has been featured in several others. TV shows include:

The Big Easy

USA network TV series (1996–97) adapted from the film of the same name.

Frank's Place

A CBS comedy-drama series that chronicled the life of Frank Parrish (Tim Reid), a well-to-do professor at Brown University, who inherits a New Orleans restaurant, Chez Louisiane. The series received the Television Critics Association award for outstanding comedy series in 1987, as well as an Emmy for best writing in a comedy series. However, it only lasted for one season (1987–88). Although set in New Orleans, the series was actually filmed in Los Angeles.

K-Ville

A short-lived crime series that debuted in 2007, which focused on the New Orleans police department in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The series also centers around two New Orleans police detectives, Anthony Anderson as Marlin Boulet and Cole Hauser as Trevor Cobb, who were partners that "have conflicting ideas about how to handle the city's problems."

Longstreet

A crime drama series about a blind insurance investigator that was broadcast on the ABC in the 1971-1972 season. The series was set in New Orleans, but actually filmed in Los Angeles.

Orleans

This short-lived 1997 CBS series starring Larry Hagman was set in and partially filmed in New Orleans.

Treme

An American drama developed by David Simon that premiered in April 2010, Treme centers around residents of New Orleans, including musicians, chefs, Mardi Gras Indians, and ordinary New Orleanians trying to rebuild their lives, their homes and their unique culture in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The series also explores New Orleans culture including and beyond the music scene to encompass political corruption, the public housing controversy, the criminal-justice system, clashes between police and Mardi Gras Indians, and the struggle to regain the tourism industry after the storm. The show is filmed on location in New Orleans and features both local actors in several roles in addition to a number of notable New Orleanians who appear as themselves.

NCIS: New Orleans

CBS series (2014–present) starring Scott Bakula and Lucas Black.

Cloak and Dagger Freedom series (2018-present) starring Olivia Holt as Dagger and Aubrey Joseph as Cloak. New Orleans serves as the main setting of the series and is also filmed and produced there.

Other television references

Many television series have referenced the city:

  • An episode of Jem and the Holograms was set in New Orleans.
  • Season 9 (2000) of The Real World was set in New Orleans. * Season 24 (2010) of The Real World was also set in New Orleans.
  • In a 2001 episode of Seven Days, Parker goes to New Orleans to prove that his friend, who is scheduled to be executed, is innocent.
  • In a 2003 episode of The Drew Carey Show, Drew and his buddies set off on a road trip to New Orleans to find a girl he met after placing an ad on a beer bottle.
  • In a 2004 episode of Las Vegas called "New Orleans", Danny, Ed and Sam head to New Orleans in search of a big gambler who owes the casino money.
  • In a 2005 episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, the detectives pursue a child molester who kidnapped three young sisters from New Orleans after their parents were killed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
  • In a 2005 episode of Bones, Dr. Temperance Brennen and Agent Seeley Booth head to New Orleans to help identify bodies found after Hurricane Katrina. The plot revolves heavily around the underground voodoo practices in the city.
  • In a 2006 episode of House called "Who's Your Daddy?". House deals with patient who is the daughter of an old college roommate and is having hallucinations after having survived an ordeal resulting from Hurricane Katrina.
  • In a 2007 episode of Boston Legal, Denny Crane and Alan Shore visit New Orleans to defend a doctor accused of euthanizing patients.
  • Monica Dawson a character on the NBC television series Heroes lives in New Orleans. Her parents were killed in Hurricane Katrina.
  • The X-Files character Monica Reyes worked for the FBI in New Orleans before becoming John Doggett's partner.
  • New Orleans is the setting of The Simpsons spin-off, Chief Wiggum P.I., starring Chief Wiggum, as well as the setting for Oh! Streetcar!, a musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire featured on another episode of the show.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine character Benjamin Sisko is a native of New Orleans. His father Joseph Sisko is also a native of New Orleans, and has a restaurant near Jackson Square in the 2370s. The family restaurant is seen in the episodes "Homefront", "Paradise Lost", "Tears of the Prophets", "Image in the Sand" and Shadows and Symbols". Other episodes to be set in New Orleans include "The Visitor". New Orleans is also mentioned in the episodes "Equilibrium", "Explorers", "Family Business" and "What You Leave Behind". The New Orleans class starship is named for the city.
  • The Curb Your Enthusiasm character Leon Black was a native resident of New Orleans before moving in with Larry David after Katrina.
  • In Season 4 Episode 8 of The Vampire Diaries, Stefan and Damon visit New Orleans. Again in Episode 20, Klaus visits New Orleans when he hears there are plans brewing against him. New Orleans is also the primary setting of the spin-off series The Originals.
  • The third season of American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Coven, is set in New Orleans.
  • In What's New, Scooby-Doo?, the episode "Big Scare in the Big Easy" takes place in New Orleans, where two Civil War ghosts re-enact a duel every night to scare away guests.
  • In The Looney Tunes Show, the New Orleans airport had a cameo in the episode "Spread Those Wings and Fly", when Daffy was working as a flight attendant.
  • In Ben 10, the episode "Lucky Girl" takes place, where Ben, Gwen and their grandfather Max first meet the villainess magician Hex, and where Gwen adopts her superhero alias.
  • In Monsters and Mysteries in America, New Orleans was featured in the first season's fifth episode where people claim to see vampires out and about.

Video games

See also

References
  1. Jim Derry. "Covington's O'Neil De Noux wins national award for his latest novel". The Times-Picayune. Retrieved 2014-03-26.
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