Topic on Talk:Unintentional Period Piece
This page shows the changes between two versions of a post by Looney Toons in the topic "Does this trope deserve to exist?" on Talk:Unintentional Period Piece.
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I think what makes "Unintentional Period Piece" happen in a work is an unconscious assumption on the part of the creator(s) that some element of the story or setting -- like the raids on gay bars in the ''Barney Miller'' example -- is universal and unchanging when they're not, to the point that to an audience after the time that things changed, the reference is almost incomprehensible. ''Intentional'' period pieces know when they hit these things that they'll need to provide context or explanation for the audience. ''Unintentional'' period pieces assumed everyone would always know what they were; however, they have since been sideswiped by [[History Marches On]] and now confusion and incomprehension is the best they can hope for when an audience stumbles across one of these elements. (If not outright [[Values Dissonance]] -- "How can the good guy cops in [[Barney Miller|''Barney Miller'']] even ''joke'' about raids on gay bars?") It's kind of the funhouse mirror reflection of [[Too Soon]]. |
I think what makes "Unintentional Period Piece" happen in a work is an unconscious assumption on the part of the creator(s) that some element of the story or setting -- like the raids on gay bars in the ''Barney Miller'' example -- is universal and unchanging when they're not, to the point that to an audience after the time that things changed, the reference is almost incomprehensible. ''Intentional'' period pieces know when they hit these things that they'll need to provide context or explanation for the audience. ''Unintentional'' period pieces assumed everyone would always know what they were; however, they have since been sideswiped by [[History Marches On]] and now confusion and incomprehension is the best they can hope for when an audience stumbles across one of these elements. (If not outright [[Values Dissonance]] -- "How can the good guy cops in [[Barney Miller|''Barney Miller'']] even ''joke'' about raids on gay bars?") It's kind of the funhouse mirror reflection of [[Too Soon]]. |
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Another way it happens is when a work goes out of its way to be deliberately oh-so-modern, which generally means pinning itself firmly to specific ephemeral fashions, issues and trends. Some of these may last long enough to still be current when the work finally reaches the audience, but eventually the relevance will fade. A lot of films in the 60s were like that. The [[The War of the Worlds (1953 film)|1953 version of ''The War of the Worlds'']] suffered from this because it tried so hard to update the story to the contemporary era that it's permanently affixed to it. |
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