Purely Aesthetic Era: Difference between revisions

'''Woman''': Can't you tell by what you're wearing?|''God'' by [[Woody Allen]]}}

When writers attempt to set a story in a vaguely historical time period, but [[Did Not Do the Research|Do Not Do The Research]], an [[Anachronism Stew]] can arise--citiesarise—cities, people, inventions, and terms get thrown around in places they're entirely inappropriate. While an ordinary person won't notice them, someone interested in history will have their [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief|suspension of disbelief]] [[Dan Browned|shattered to pieces.]]

However, sometimes, telling a story (or being [[Rule of Funny|funny]]) is more important than being historically accurate. So while a story may theoretically be set in, say, [[The Emperor's New Groove|ancient Peru]], you'll find [[Greasy Spoon|truck stops]], [[Humiliation Conga|people slipping on over-waxed floors]], [[Lawyer-Friendly Cameo|Lawyer -Friendly]] [[Scout Out|Boy Scouts]], and who knows what else. A bit like [[Present Day Past]], only applied to the whole of history-- liberallyhistory—liberally and without remorse for all those [[Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying|poor history majors.]] While an [[Anachronism Stew]] can be pretty subtle if you [[Viewers are Morons|don't pay attention in history class]]-- —"Hey! They didn't [[Pirates of the Caribbean|call it the Caribbean]] during the 1600s!"-- a—a Purely Aesthetic Era is ''blatant'' and intentional. It may be [[Hand Wave|Hand Waved]]d with an [[Alternate History]], but most folks don't even try to explain it.

Contrast [[Decade Dissonance]], where it's ostensibly done on purpose by the inhabitants.

** It's modern age, just their part of the world is quite retro.

** [[Word of God]] is that they have access all aspects of modern technology outside of weapons and transportation.

* ''[[Asterix]]''. The series is less [[Anachronism Stew]] than an Anachronism *''Steak*''. The comics largely use Roman-era cultures with modern day cultural stereotypes, characters have [[Punny Names|names]] like Fulliautomatix (a blacksmith) and Timandahaf (a viking chieftain) and there are 1st-century equivalents of modern day things, including sports chariots and text-messenger pigeons. Oddly enough combined with [[Shown Their Work]], as the artists are usually making up a modern connection half the time and accurately depicting something modern that [[Older Than They Think|actually existed at the time]] for the other half.

== [[Film]] - Animated ==

* ''[[The Emperor's New Groove|The Emperors New Groove]]'' goes crazy with this one. It's allegedly set in a fictional, Inca-like Peruvian empire, but it makes no attempt to stay true to this. At one point, the producers themselves even admitted, "What the heck--we've broken every other historical rule; let's [[Greasy Spoon|throw in a truck stop]]."

** Its [[Recycled: the Series]], ''[[The Emperor's New School|The Emperors New School]],'' goes even further: Yzma tries to figure out whether she wants to take over the world or buy a plasma screen TV with her money.

* [[Disney Animated Canon|Disney movies]] do this a lot. Disney's ''[[Hercules (Disney1997 film)||Hercules]]'' had Hercules action figures and soft drinks for sale, promoting the eponymous hero--nohero—no telling where the plastic came from in ancient Greece. Not to mention a credit card...

* The infamous ''[[League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]'' movie: While tanks, automatic rifles and a [[Cool Car]] might be justified as [[Alternate History]] with minor [[Steampunk]] and/or [[Diesel PunkDieselpunk]] elements (the film is ostensibly set in 1899, and all of the above would be invented by the 1920s), when you have the aforementioned car having the performance of a Ferrari despite it supposedly being the ''first'' automobile ever made and a ''[[Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea|Nautilus]]'' the size and shape of the bottom half of an aircraft carrier equipped with ''cruise missiles'' and ''radar tracking'', it's a clear sign that this trope is in effect.

* Any [[Mel Brooks]] film that isn't set in the present.

* Giddily played with in Tom Stoppard's ''[[Shakespeare in Love]].'' Though the film is otherwise quite compliant about historical accuracy, there are little digs put in, such as a mug reading [[Shout-Out|"Souvenir of Stratford-Upon-Avon"]] and an [[There Are No Therapists|Apothecaryastrologer to whom Will relates all his...]] [[Freud Was Right|inspiration troubles.]]

* On [[Discworld]] we've seen [[Discworld/Moving Pictures|Moving Pictures]], [[Discworld/Soul Music (novel)|rock and roll]], action figures of Captain Carrot, and a clacks system that is suspiciously similar to the Internet.

** Leading to the bizarre occurrence of the Internet being invented before [[Discworld/The Truth|newspapers.]] And before a [[Discworld/Going Postal (Discworld)|working postal system.]] Things are strange on the Disc.

*** In Ankh-Morpork's defense, it'd had a working postal system a generation ago; ''[[Discworld/Going Postal (Discworld)|Going Postal]]'' was about how it was brought back into service after decades of neglect.

*** There was also a postal system of sorts operating anyway. There are numerous references to getting the days postal delivery distributed to its' intended recipients at Unseen University and the Opera House, and one of Shawn Ogg's numerous jobs in Lancre is dealing with the mail (a lot of which comes from or goes tooto Ankh-Morpork). The traffic between seems to be carried on the old Mail Coaches, which never stopped running (since passenger traffic was still a viable operation). Sam Vimes also reflects that the money being sent to the dwarf towns in the Hub Mountains by Dwarfs in the city mostly comes back to pay for the goods ordered from the best Dwarf craftsmancraftsmen, who mostly live in Ankh-Morpork now.

* Played with in George Herman's two-act play ''[[A Company Ofof Wayward Saints]]''. Ostensibly set during the ''commedia dell'arte'' era (16th-17th century Italy), the characters will occasionally mention something vaguely anachronistic just to keep audiences on their toes - and at one point, a character refers to whatever town they're in at the moment (Green Bay, Wisconsin, for example) just to get a laugh and some [[Cheap Heat]]. The gimmick is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in the scene in which two of the actors have to improvise a depiction of human adolescence for a (fictional) duke. Scapino, the [[Loveable Rogue]] of the troupe, puts on a straw hat and begins to act like [[Mark Twain|Tom Sawyer]], complete with a 19th-century Missouri dialect - at a time when most people should be barely aware that America exists at all! Scapino's fellow troupe members are puzzled by this; even their leader, Harlequin, can only guess that Scapino just made up the accent on the spot!

** "Must be this shoddy, 17th -century electrical wiring..."

* The setting of the ''[[Iron Grip]]'' series is best described as this. Fully justified, since it's a textbook example of a [[Punk Punk]] [[Constructed World]].

* ''[[Bruno the Bandit]]'' is chock full of this. Roughly medieval setting, with phones (cellular and otherwise), computers, TV, modern-style advertising agencies (or parodies thereof, anyway)...

* ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'' likes this. The values and knowledge pool of the characters tend to match up with modern day including having the local [[Wizarding School]] set up like a high school, all of this despite the comic being set in the "standard medieval fantasy setting" time-period.

* [[Noka]] lives in a universe best described as a car crash consisting of several settings, with medieval fantasy and modern day in the middle of it all. While magic does exist, most people that ''do'' possess the ability to use it [[Mundane Utility|spend more time powering dead remote controls]] rather than shooting bolts of lightning.

* ''[[The Flintstones]]'' may not have done it first, but they definitely did it [[Trope Codifier|most visibly]]. It had cavemen ''celebrating Christmas.'' They have to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ[[FlintstonesFlintstone Theming|rock]], of course.

*** A mid-'90s TV movie ''[[Yet Another Christmas Carol|A Flintstones Christmas Carol]]'' shows the gang putting on a (rather faithful) adaption of [[A Christmas Carol|the Dickens novel]] as a community play--orplay—or Charles ''Brickens'', in their case.

* ''[[Dave the Barbarian]]'' is theoretically set in Europe in the Middle Ages. That doesn't stop the heroes from dropping by the local <s>mall</s> ''Great Indoor Marketplace'', though, or making musicals about donuts.

** There was also the time when Dave invented a megaphone out of a squirrel, rope, and... a megaphone.

* Another ''Flintstones''-[[Follow the Leader|inspired]] cartoon was the short-lived ''[[The Roman Holidays]]''. [[The Roman Empire]] meets [[The Sixties]].