This is my first answer on here, unsure how I can use sources to answer this question, as it's sort of a logical explanation, but I'll try my best to keep it as professional as possible.

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Roman history is all around us. You don't have to go far to find something relating back to Rome, whether it be architecture, political terminology, or even just everyday phrases. It would be easy for the untrained eye to see past these remnants, but they exist nevertheless. Roman history by its nature consists of many different stages, e.g. the Republic and the Holy Roman Empire, etc, and encompasses a very complex but advanced, and still used to a degree, political nature. Namely, there was structure. And it was complex, and it changed from era to era. Society was quite similar to ours in some aspects - there were people working, people chatting, people shopping, and children playing. At the same time, there was a lot more infantcide - infants left in dumpsters, political stunts being performed to earn one's way into power, people often used their ancestoral ties to gain political office, such as Caitiline's attempt against Cicero in 63 BCE to become consul. The elite families of Rome linked their ancestoral lines back to the gods. You can probably see the similarities and differences by this stage - the similarities exist, but there are some extreme practices that don't occur anymore. '

Now that I've painted a basic picture of your average day on the streets of Rome, let me discuss popular culture today. It is mostly influenced by movies and TV shows, as well as stories. Movies on Rome tend to harbour similar themes; war, warriors, political conflict, and power. Although these were big themes in Ancient Rome, to say that these give a true representation into Roman life and Roman politics is naive. But people aren't going to pay money to see the rise of Augustus, or Cicero's road to the consulship in 63 BCE. They want to see action, fighting, killing, death, power, and all that fast-paced stuff to get their hearts beating. Therefore, directors and producers aren't going to pour time, energy and money into putting together a film that isn't going to make money.

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I hope I vaguely answered your question. I am by no means a classicist, I just study history at university and have no experience studying Rome, but I am currently reading Mary Beard's `SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome`. So I've sort of summarised the first few pages there and logically produced an answer based on the media's reluctance to produce an academically accurate political representation of Rome... Thanks.