History ValuesDissonance / LiveActionTV

** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In the episode "[[StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E16Ethics Ethics]]" some human Starfleet officers have a hard time accepting the values of other cultures. Worf is injured in an accident that renders him as a parapalegic. The cultural norms under which Worf has lived under his entire life compel him to take his own life if he could not function as a warrior, that he could not as a parapalegic. Riker and Crusher are unable to understand or respect Worf's values. Crusher threatens to keep Worf from taking his own life by any means necessecary but Picard talks her into letting Worf undergo a dangerous procedure that would either totally cure or kill him.

* In ''Series/TheHoneymooners'', Ralph threatens to hit his wife every time they have a fight. Those who watch the show will know that his threats are empty and he wouldn't dream of carrying them out, but there is no way a modern sitcom husband could get away with even an empty threat of domestic violence.[[note]]An episode of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' skitting ''The Honeymooners'' played with the idea of what might have happened if Ralph (played by Peter Griffin) had followed through on the threat to punch out Alice (a monochrome Lois). The results are not pretty or played for laughs.[[/note]]
* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'':
** The show began in an era of television in which [[QueerPeopleAreFunny jokes at the expense of queer people were much more common place]] and as a result contains several homophobic and transphobic jokes that wouldn't fly in contemporary times.
** Barney's antics often go way past the point of being TheCasanova and right into unethical and arguably criminal behavior. On numerous occasions, Barney has resorted to or admitted to resorting to manipulation and lies to get women into bed. His actions have involved taking advantage of them while they are drunk, faking identities to grope or spy on them, offering them career opportunities he had no intention of granting them if they slept with him, recording himself having sex with the ex-girlfriend who broke his heart without her knowledge or consent and on one occasion claimed to have sold a woman. Simply being a guy who sleeps around a lot is one thing, but Barney's behavior towards women seems less charming and funny as people have taken abuse and sexual assault more seriously.

* ''Series/TheSingingRingingTree'': The princess gets cursed with ugliness as a reflection of her inner character, with her beauty gradually being restored as this character reforms. What might seem a little jarring to modern viewers (aside from any UnfortunateImplications arising from BeautyEqualsGoodness being invoked here) is that part of this involves her hair being turned green, something which is an acceptable style statement now; but not in the 1950s when the original film it was adapted from was made, ''certainly'' frowned upon as "socially deviant" in East Germany, the country of origin; and probably impossible to achieve in the MedievalEuropeanFantasy setting.

* ''Series/ZCars'', which by today's cop-show standards is exceedingly tame, once ran an episode where the cops have to bust a child-porn ring engaged in making dubious home movies. The series screened in the early evening, just after teatime. This was the 1970s, a time when paedophilia was only just beginning to be recognised as an issue, partly because of the exposure of groups like the Paedophile Information Exchange.[[note]] an "advocacy group" campaigning for sexual relations between adults and under-age children to be legalised. Debate centred on the limits of free speech and whether or not the PIE should be made an illegal organisation[[/note]] However, this was still two decades before an ever-increasing sensitivity on the issue emerged. Nowadays, no one would talk about child porn and the like before the 9 pm [[{{Watershed}} watershed]].

* ''Series/TheSingingRingingTree'': The princess gets cursed with ugliness as a reflection of her inner character, with her beauty gradually being restored as this character reforms. What might seem a little jarring to modern viewers (aside from any UnfortunateImplications arising from BeautyEqualsGoodness being invoked here) is that part of this involves her hair being turned green, something which is an acceptable style statement now, but not in the 1950s when the original film it was adapted from was made, and probably impossible to achieve in the MedievalEuropeanFantasy setting.

** Many AcceptableTargets of the time include mocking Doña Clotilde because she is (or looks like she is) a senior citizen and calling her a witch because of that, mocking people because of their physical appearances, particularly Señor Barriga's and Ñoño's obesity, but basically any "ugly" physical trait (Don Ramon’s thinness, Chilindrinas's size, Quico's cheeks, etc.) earns the character a humiliating nickname. By today's standards that is considered very disrespectful to the adults and bullying to the kids (notice that basically all of Chespirito's sketch characters rely on mocking physical appearances at some point, including Chapulin, Chompiras and Dr. Chapatin, but doing it among adults probably has lesser impact).

** Creator/JonPertwee-era episodes have an occasional undercurrent of antifeminism, containing StrawFeminist characters and having the Doctor put them in their place. The writers and actors were generally at least feminist-sympathetic (Creator/ElisabethSladen in particular likes to soften the worst of the Doctor's manhandling and verbal abuse by giggling at him in such a way as to make it look like consensual teasing), but few were able to resist poking fun at perceived AcceptableTargets, and [[DependingOnTheWriter some writers]] made it clear in their scripts that they didn't know what feminism actually is, assuming it's about women being in charge or men being inferior. The Creator/TomBaker era eased up on this a lot, due to fewer Earth-bound settings and because Tom disliked playing TallDarkAndSnarky and adlibbed his way out of his nastier scripted lines - but there are still moments. The scene in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E2TheArkInSpace The Ark in Space]]" where the Doctor bellows sexist insults at Sarah in order to snap her out of a panic is particularly difficult to watch - Tom Baker has often expressed discomfort and embarrassment about playing the scene, and even that is heavily toned down from the scripted version, which is longer and meaner.

** One example given is a scene where the main heroes talk about homosexuality as a "major societal problem" on par with things like drug abuse. With LGBT people no longer being {{Acceptable Target}}s like they were back in the 1960s, this of course comes off as pretty homophobic by modern standards.

** The episode "The Pig Who Came to Dinner" features a guest appearance by Bobby Riggs, in which he plays up his sexist public image in the wake of the then-recent "Battle of the Sexes" match (the episode also features Billie Jean King). If similar statements had been made about blacks, for example, they would ''never'' have been tolerated, but women were AcceptableTargets back then and Riggs' bigotry is largely played for laughs.

** When Willow starts dating Tara, she uses expressions like "gay now", even though she had previously had an attraction to men in the first four seasons. Never once is the possibility of bisexuality even mentioned, and Tara even insinuates in Season 5 that she thinks Willow sees her as just an experiment before she goes back to boys, which alludes to the now-hated stereotype of [[AnythingThatMoves bisexuals as promiscuous and unfaithful]]. The show is simply from a time where it was believed that [[NoBisexuals bisexuality didn't exist]], with WordOfGod saying that the network were worried that portraying Willow as bi would make her relationship with Tara come across as a phase.

** The show has a liberal, extremely pro-globalisation, pro-unrestricted trade, pro-Grand Bargain view point. Two years after the show ended the 2008 global financial crisis hit, sending the planet into the 'Great Recession', the most severe recession since the 1930's Great Depression.
** The characters mercilessly attack those on their ideological left. For many viewers with the hindsight of the 2010's and beyond, they would see this failure to embrace their left flank to help the working class, to be the same thing that resulted in the rise of populist right and far-right parties across Europe, the United Kingdom (including Brexit, the idea of which would have been unfathomable to the characters on the show), Australia and the United States.

** In "Eye of the Beholder" doctors and nurses are shown to be spiking within the hospital building. If this were made today doing this would get them fired due to the dangers smoke inhilation could have on the patients or others. Though admittedly this is lessened by the fact that the people in said hospital aren't human, so it is not known how it would affect them.

** A season 3 episode features a great example of values dissonance between countries. When Rachel takes Ross out to dinner with her father, Dr. Green pays for the entire meal but only leaves a 4% tip. He's portrayed as a jerk for both this and for getting mad at Ross for leaving extra money on the table to pad out the tip. To viewers in the US, where waitstaff are often paid lower than minimum wage with customary tipping supposed to make up for it (usually about 15% of the total), Ross's outrage at the small tip makes sense. To viewers in other countries where restaurant wages are better regulated and tipping is just a courtesy (such as the UK), this is not common knowledge, so Ross comes across as a jerk who's being unreasonable by expecting a man who just paid for a very expensive meal to pay even more for the tip. Also consider that many Americans subscribe to the philosophy of "You get the bill, we'll get the tip," so if someone in the group offers to pick up the tab, other members of the party agree to cover the tip.
** During its entire run, the show makes various gay jokes at Chandler, Ross and Joey's expenses. While the show tries to be respectful with the portrayal of a lesbian couple, a show with those jokes made nowadays would quickly receive backlash from the gay community and crooked looks from most viewers. The fact that Chandler watched E! and likes theater, and therefore must be gay, is not very well-received by contemporary watchers, and is one of the main things that turn off new viewers from later generations.

*** The show's tacit acknowledgement that Kira was a member of a terrorist cell during the Cardassian occupation can raise a few eyebrows now that the word has become so much more politically charged now after events such as the September 11th attacks. Had the show been made after [=9/11=] they'd probably have used "partisan" as a description, invoking those forces from World War 2 fighting against occupation by the Axis powers. "Resistance fighter" or even "guerrilla" also might be the label—not "terrorist."

* ''Series/RuPaulsDragRace'' is a meta-example. The show began airing ''juuuuuust'' before a massive paradigm-shift in the art of [[DragQueen drag performance]], where it has become less "men dressing as women" and more about playing with the concept of gender as a whole. Because Creator/{{RuPaul}} has been performing drag since the early 80's, he can be a bit old-fashioned in his views, which viewers and past contestants criticized:
** First, the sewing challenges. In the old days, queens ''had'' to make their own outfits since it was impossible to find man-sized evening dresses unless they were fortunate enough to live in a big city with a specialty drag shop. Nowadays, thanks to the internet and increased queer/trans visibility, queens are able to build entire wardrobes without ever having to touch a sewing machine, and many otherwise-capable queens have struggled with the sewing challenges for this reason.
** NWordPrivileges: In the early days when it wasn't clear that most drag queens weren't transgender women, queens would often humorously describe themselves with transphobic slurs like "shemale" and "tranny." With today's increased respect towards trans people, this has become a major faux-pas if the queen isn't trans themselves, and the show has faced a great deal of controversy over this ("You've got she-mail!").
** Exclusion: A few old-school drag pageants ban transgender women that have medically transitioned to female, and the show did as well, under the belief that such a woman has an unfair advantage over the cis men in the competition. The show (and pageants with this policy) have been heavily criticized for excluding trans female contestants in such a manner. Ru and the producers eventually started allowing post-transitioned women to complete, and even cisgender women as of the third season of the UK series.

* Creator/WhoopiGoldberg got in trouble for this on an episode of ''Series/TheView'', where she expressed the opinion that UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust was not an act of racism, stating that the Nazis were motivated by a hatred of their fellow man detached from ethnicity, then made it worse by arguing with her co-hosts as they tried to explain what antisemitism was to her. To her credit, however, she did not deny the Holocaust happened or downplay the horrors of the Final Solution. She later explained on ''Series/TheLateShowWithStephenColbert'' that she was looking at Nazi antisemitism from the perspective of America in the 21st century, where race is defined by skin colour, and since both ethnic Germans and Jews in 1940's Germany had light skin she didn't realise there was an aspect of racial hatred to the attempted genocide of the Jews, or that Jews (not to mention many Eastern and Southern Europeans) were not seen as white at the time.[[note]]Leaving aside the fact that there are examples throughout human history of ethnically motivated genocides by one group of people against another with the same skin colour, from the Yugolsav Wars to the Rwandan Genocide to the Second Sino-Japanese War.[[/note]]

** In "The Victims," a Walton neighbor experiences DomesticAbuse from her husband, who has returned from WWII with his nerves shattered by PTSD. He truly doesn't mean to hurt her, and that's made clear when the audience sees him having a terrible flashback and unaware of his own surroundings; however, the way the local law enforcement responds to her situation is rather appalling by today's standards. The sheriff openly admits that the police are reluctant to get involved with domestic disputes.

* ''Series/RuPaulsDragRace'' is a meta-example. The show began airing ''juuuuuust'' before a massive paradigm-shift in the art of [[DragQueen drag performance]], where it has become less "men dressing as women" and more about playing with the concept of gender as a whole. Because Creator/{{RuPaul}} has been performing drag since the early 80's, he can be a bit old-fashioned in his views, which have been criticized by viewers and past contestants:
** First, the prevalence of sewing challenges. In the old days, queens ''had'' to make their own outfits since it was impossible to find man-sized evening dresses unless they were fortunate enough to live in a big city with a specialty drag shop. Nowadays, thanks to the internet and increased queer/trans visibility, queens are able to build entire wardrobes without ever having to touch a sewing machine, and many otherwise-capable queens on the show have struggled with the sewing challenges for this reason.
** NWordPrivileges: In the early days when it wasn't clear that drag queens weren't necessarily transgender women, queens would often humorously describe themselves with transphobic slurs like "shemale" and "tranny." With today's increased respect towards trans people, this has become a major faux-pas if the queen isn't trans themselves, and the show has faced a great deal of controversy over this ("You've got she-mail!").

** Presentation: Early drag was all about "the illusion," how well a man can pass himself off as a woman, and queens in the early seasons would be harshly critiqued if their outfit or makeup made them look too masculine. With drag today being more about blurring the gender lines rather than necessarily looking like the opposite physical sex, the judges have become much more accepting of androgyny. Their critiques nowadays are more about the construction/quality of the outfit and makeup, and less about passing as female.

** Some of the child abuse cases, like the case of a boy whipped with an electrical cord, can play out strangely to modern viewers since back thenk every attempt was made to reunite families while abused kids are far more likely to just be removed today.

* Creator/WhoopiGoldberg got in trouble for this on an episode of ''Series/TheView'', where she expressed the opinion that UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust was not an act of racism, although to her credit she did not downplay the horrors of the Final Solution, she simply stated that the Nazis were motivated by a hatred of their fellow man detached from ethnicity. She later explained on ''Series/TheLateShowWithStephenColbert'' that she was looking at Nazi antisemitism from the perspective of America in the 21st century, where race is defined by skin colour, and since both ethnic Germans and Jews in 1940's Germany had light skin she didn't realise there was an aspect of racial hatred to the attempted genocide of the Jews, or that Jews (not to mention many Eastern and Southern Europeans) were not seen as white at the time.[[note]]Leaving aside the fact that there are examples throughout human history of ethnically motivated genocides by one group of people against another with the same skin colour, from the Yugolsav Wars to the Rwandan Genocide to the Second Sino-Japanese War.[[/note]]

** Even the earlier seasons of New Who are starting to show values dissonance. The 10th Doctor brushing off Martha's concerns about [[NoEqualOpportunityTimeTravel encountering racism]] in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E2TheShakespeareCode The Shakespeare Code]]" has been criticized in contrast to the 12th Doctor's and 13th Doctor's more sensitive reactions in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E3ThinIce Thin Ice]]" and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E3Rosa Rosa]]" respectively.

** The climax of "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" has Robert Wilson open a passenger window on an airplane and pulls a concealed gun out, attempting to shoot the gremlin tearing apart the wing. If this were made in the 21st century there is no way Mr. Wilson would've been able to get away with bringing a concealed weapon onboard a plane, especially with his history of mental breakdowns.

** The DownerEnding of "Time Enough At Last" wherein Henry Bemis breaks his only pair of glasses, leaving him blind and alone in a world of nothing but the books he has salvaged and can’t even read, at least from Rod Serling's intent? It was to punish Henry Bemis because he refused to be "normal". In the modern age where men have strived for pursuits that do not fit the masculine or prescribed stereotypes of men the intent definitely comes off as overkill and extremely derogatory.

* ''Series/TheTenthKingdom'':

** When Willow starts dating Tara, she uses expressions like "[[SuddenlySexuality gay now]]", even though she had previously had an attraction to men in the first four seasons. Never once is the possibility of bisexuality even mentioned, and Tara even insinuates in Season 5 that she thinks Willow sees her as just an experiment before she goes back to boys, which alludes to the now-hated stereotype of [[AnythingThatMoves bisexuals as promiscuous and unfaithful]]. The show is simply from a time where it was believed that [[NoBisexuals bisexuality didn't exist]], with WordOfGod saying that the network were worried that portraying Willow as bi would make her relationship with Tara come across as a phase.

* In ''Series/TheHoneymooners'', Ralph threatens to hit his wife every time they have a fight. Those who watch the show will know that his threats are empty and he wouldn't dream of carrying them out, but there is no way a modern sitcom husband could get away with even an empty threat of domestic violence.

** The show is well-known for its catchy songs [[OurGnomesAreWeirder and goofy themes]], but once did a song titled "Wij Dansen" [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZpi3RTWJ4o in which the main characters pretend]] [[DarkestAfrica to be an African Tribe]], complete with BlackFace. The music video was later removed from the show's official Youtube channel.

* ''Series/FawltyTowers'' has an off-color joke in which the old and slightly senile Major recalls criticizing his girlfriend's use of the word "niggers" to refer to Indians, and instead tells her to [[BaitAndSwitch call them "wogs."]] Even the tactless and conservative [[EveryoneHasStandards Basil looks embarrassed]]. However, these days even joking ''about'' such language is no longer acceptable, and the line is edited out of modern rebroadcasts.

** A 1990 episode has Sam leaping into the body of a man with Down's Syndrome. When he first sees the reflection of the man in the mirror, Sam's first reaction is "I'm retarded." Imagine how that would be viewed today...

*** A reason women are treated as mostly eye-candy on the original series might have to do with the poor reaction of test audiences to the original pilot, "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E0TheCage The Cage]]", in 1964. Creator/GeneRoddenberry claimed that a lot of women objected to seeing a woman in a position of authority (Number One, played by Creator/MajelBarrett), and the fact that the female crew members wore pants.

* ''Series/ZCars'', which by today's cop-show standards is exceedingly tame, once ran an episode where the cops have to bust a child-porn ring engaged in making dubious home movies. The series screened in the early evening, just after teatime. This was the 1970s, a time paedophilia had recently become well-known partly because of the Paedophile Information Exchange, but two decades before an ever-increasing sensitivity on the issue emerged. Nowadays, no one would talk about child porn and the like before the 9 pm [[{{Watershed}} watershed]].