Aside from some wildly unrealistic plotines and wooden acting by Stallone, Tulsa King has been fun to watch so far. Much like Sheridan’s other shows Yellowstone, Mayor of Kingstown, and 1883, there’s never a shortage of hyper dramatic storylines with some real acting treats (and some stinkers), and with Tulsa Kings, some really funny lines to balance some levity with the violence.

But, my big issue is how Sheridan is portraying Tulsa, a modern American city with over a half million people, as some backwater western town where everyone wears cowboy hats and boots, work as ranch hands, oil field well drillers, or broken-English speaking Indians, where horses run wild down busy downtown streets!

Oklahoma has long had to overcome these outrageous stereotypes, of hat and boot wearing cowboys who ride horses to school (literally had someone ask me this in DC in 1990) and reservation Indians living in tipis (technically there aren’t reservations in Oklahoma, but we do have 39 tribes, many who operate massively successful complex businesses and employ more people than the oil and gas industry). Most Oklahomans have never worn a western hat or owned boots, especially in Tulsa or OKC (a city of more than 1M people).

It’s offensive and damaging to the reputation that so many have worked hard to overcome through extensive investment across this state. What’s worse, it’s totally unnecessary for the show’s plotline. Pretty sure everyone knows that Tulsa, just like KC, Detroit, Memphis, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City, Charlotte aren’t as populated or urban as NYC, but none are some cowtown or frontier city 40 years behind NYC or LA.

Now, there are much smaller rural towns like Woodward(OK), Dodge City(KS) or Amarillo(TX) that fit these stereotypes, so if that was Sheridan’s intent, why not call it Amarillo King?

It’s lazy and obnoxious. Rather than achieving the romanticizing of the western/cowboy/rancher lifestyle Sheridan has achieved with his other shows, the opposite has occurred with Tulsa King.

Just wish he’d rethink this as otherwise it’s a solid show and another great addition to the growing oklahoma film industry.