History ValuesDissonance / Theater

* [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] by the Creator/HenrikIbsen play ''Theatre/ADollsHouse''. Audiences at the time were shocked by the end, in which [[spoiler:Nora leaves her marriage]], and Ibsen was forced to rewrite it. (The alternate ending is something of a WriterCopOut, and Ibsen himself called the change a "[[CreatorBacklash barbaric atrocity]].") Modern audiences generally find the original ending perfectly acceptable.

*** "Ethiop" seems to have been a favourite insult of Elizabethans -- Lysander calls the dark skinned Hermia this in ''A Midsummer Night's Dream.''
*** This could likely be a ValuesDissonance in regard to food culture as well, as Europeans almost never ate raw meat when they could avoid it, save for a few backwoods hermit-y types. Therefore being compared with someone who ate raw meat (look up Ethiopian dishes sometime), which is something not even the lowest commoner would sink to, would be seen as equally vulgar an insult.
* Everyone remembers ''Theatre/{{Othello}}'' for the (then) [[MalignedMixedMarriage controversial interracial marriage]] of its hero and Desdemona. Nowadays people are far more likely to take issue at the fact Desdemona can only be sixteen at the very most... and Othello's roughly the same age as her father (who was once his friend). It's disturbing that so many characters speak so lustfully about her, considering how young she is.
** Another case of ValuesDissonance. At the time, a 16 year old would have been considered fully adult and capable of raising a family. Indeed, in much of the world, that's still the case today. Furthermore, Desdemona is described as a competent and mature young woman who has been managing her father's household for years -- no sheltered innocent.
*** How about Juliet? She's ''thirteen.'' Even in the sixteenth century, that was so young that a lampshade is hung on it in the play: her father originally thinks she's too young to marry and her suitor Paris will just have to wait... for ''three'' years.
**** However, in some adaptations (most notably the 1968 movie), the reason her father was hesitant was because it was implied that he married Juliet's mother too young and had grown to regret it.
**** On that note, Juliet's mother comments at one point that she was about Juliet's age when she was married and started having children.
**** Creator/IsaacAsimov suggested that Juliet's extreme youth was a plot point: that she's hardly more than a child, and is at least as much in love with the idea of an intrigue -- "My only love, sprung from my only hate" -- as with Romeo himself.
* ''The Merchant of Venice'' has a happy ending, as the villain has been forgiven for his attempted judicial murder and has even become a Christian, thus giving him the chance to go to Heaven. At least, that is what the original audiences would have thought. Modern productions are more likely to sympathize with Shylock: the Royal Shakespeare Company once put on a production where most of the cast were dressed as [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped Nazi stormtroopers.]] (One critical essay pointed out that for a woman who speaks so movingly about "mercy," Portia is a vindictive bitch: she forces Shylock to renounce his religion and give his property away to the daughter who betrayed and stole from him.)
** She also tricks her boyfriend into making it look like he had betrayed her (by making him give her a ring she made him promise to never give to anyone else while in disguise), then pretends to act like he had cheated on her. This is played for comedy, rather than as an indication that she is psychopathic.
*** On that note, it's telling that the ValuesDissonance is such that the play was written a comedy, but now is almost always portrayed as a tragedy.
** It's worth noting, however, that Shylock is one of the earliest examples of a sympathetic antagonist, and notably is the only major character in the play who does not indulge in deceit, and whose famous monologue is clearly written to humanize Shylock's and provide justification for his motives, in a time when many still believed Jews had horns. The play makes it clear that, even beyond the anti-Semitism he faces in society, Shylock's got perfectly good reason to hold a grudge against Antonio.
** Speaking of Portia, she's also quite racist to her two suitors that come before Bassanio and nothing is made of it. She dislikes the Prince of Morocco simply for his dark skin and when he chooses the wrong casket she says "may all of his complexion choose me so". With the Prince of Aragon her dislike is a little more justified since he is indeed vain and arrogant and England was in the midst of the Armada so of course a Spanish character wasn't going to be likeable.

* In ''Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance'', Frederick's "[[HonorBeforeReason slave of duty]]" mindset will tend to strike modern audiences as merely silly. Englishmen of [[GilbertAndSullivan Gilbert's]] day, though, would have recognized it as a parody of their own code of conduct.

* Shakespeare's ''Theatre/TheTamingOfTheShrew'' contains so much values dissonance that this troper's grade ten class were asked their opinions about whether or not Kate's final monologue (about how a woman should be subservient to her husband and obey his every wish, because he works every day so she can eat) should be included in classroom readings of the play. Not to mention the whole idea of a woman who dared speak up for herself being a "shrew" who needed to be made "proper"...
** Yet this troper's college-level class discussed the facts that:
*** The play is written as a comedy.
*** The story of Kate/Petruchio is a play within the play - an admitted fantasy and as such is not supposed to resemble reality.
*** Petruchio acts more like a shrew than Kate - and contemporary 'sequels' have it that Kate tames him between the plays.
*** The speech is a public display, which indicates her as just playing - she continually shows that isn't a dumb blonde.
*** The wording can easily be heard as sarcastic, especially given Petruchio's personality and that the beta couple shows kindness is a better way - Bianca is pretty 'shrewish' herself.
*** One bad quarto even has the framing device return at the end, with Christopher Sly returned to his real life as a drunken tinker, remarking "I know now how to tame a shrew." He's clearly going to try Petruchio's methods on the Hostess - and fail miserably. Which undermines the whole play-within-the-play.
*** Also, the play was inverted in its own time. In 1610, John Fletcher wrote "The Tamer Tamed", in which Kate is dead, Petruchio has remarried, and the new wife "tames" ''him''. Shakespeare's reaction? Very shortly afterwards, he entered a writing partnership with Fletcher, which lasted for the rest of his career. He must have liked it!
** Those said, there is a values dissonance in the induction sketch of the drunkard being tricked by the baron...But, as stated, it's a comedy. And it could easily be played straight today for comedy.

** Later she and her daughter share a moment where they discuss how "sometimes when someone hits you, it feels like a kiss."
*** That sounds like... something else entirely.

* [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] by the HenrikIbsen play ''Theatre/ADollsHouse''. Audiences at the time were shocked by the end, in which [[spoiler:Nora leaves her marriage]], and Ibsen was forced to rewrite it. (The alternate ending is something of a WriterCopOut, and Ibsen himself called the change a "[[CreatorBacklash barbaric atrocity]].") Modern audiences generally find the original ending perfectly acceptable.

* ''The Duchess of Malfi'' revolves around a forbidden marriage and what we would nowadays consider to be an honour killing. While her behavior in disobeying her family, marrying her steward, and actually proposing to him rather than vice versa, would have met with strong disapproval from most audiences, Webster is clearly depicting her as the most noble character in the play, the only one who didn't do anything seriously wrong; the rest of the court is populated by scheming tyrants, incestuous brothers, hypocrites, and murderers -- the anti-hero protagonist is a killer-for-hire. This was a very radical play when it premiered. Nowadays sympathies are entirely with the lovers.

* Something which always provokes a gasp whenever people who have only seen the Baz Luhrman film read ''Romeo and Juliet'': Romeo kills Paris, for absolutely no reason. While his murder of Tybalt can be (very shakily) justified, poor Paris is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It would seem Shakespeare's contemporaries would have no trouble whatsoever with this; modern adaptations always omit it as it makes Romeo seem far less sympathetic (ironically, the line by the Prince at the end about losing "a brace of kinsman" is usually kept, even though Paris' death is excluded, thus making Mercutio the only kinsman he lost.)

*** ''A Doll's House'' also has a straighter example of this trope -- when [[spoiler:Nora leaves her husband, she leaves her children behind as well]]. At the time, the concept that [[spoiler:men had automatic custody rights to any children from a marriage]] was completely natural and that particular decision wouldn't raise an eyebrow. To modern audiences, this is much less natural and has levelled charges of irresponsibility on the guilty party. To be fair, Nora probably wasn't necessarily leaving the children to their father, but rather the governess. An [[Foreshadowing earlier scene]] indicates that Nora deeply trusts her children's governess (who was also her governess too) to become the maternal figure should anything happen to Nora.

** On the other hand, [[spoiler: Pamina is initiated with Tamino]]. Considering that both Mozart and Emanuel Schikaneder (who wrote the libretto) were both Freemasons and that the opera is full of Masonic themes, and that to this day most Masonic loges do not initiate women...

** Another case of ValuesDissonance. At the time, a 16 year old would have been considered fully adult and capable of raising a family. Indeed, in much of the world, that's still the case today.

** MyFairLady was based off George Bernard Shaw's ''Pygmalion,'' and the original ended with Eliza going off to marry Freddie, not returning to Higgins. Subsequent versions changed his play's ending to one similar to MyFairLady. Shaw was so upset with the people who changed the ending that he wrote an essay explaining why Eliza and Higgins would never end up together, and why Eliza would be happy with Freddie.

*** ''A Doll's House'' also has a straighter example of this trope -- when [[spoiler:Nora leaves her husband, she leaves her children behind as well]]. At the time, the concept that [[spoiler:men had automatic custody rights to any children from a marriage]] was completely natural and that particular decision wouldn't raise an eyebrow. To modern audiences, this is much less natural and has levelled charges of irresponsibility on the guilty party.
**** To be fair, Nora probably wasn't necessarily leaving the children to their father, but rather the governess. An [[Foreshadoing earlier scene]] indicates that Nora deeply trusts her children's governess (who was also her governess too) to become the maternal figure should anything happen to Nora.

*** ''A Doll's House'' also has a straighter example of this trope -- when [[spoiler:Nora leaves her husband, she leaves her children behind as well]]. At the time, the concept that [[spoiler:men had automatic custody rights to any children from a marriage]] was completely natural and that particular decision wouldn't raise an eyebrow. To modern audiences, this is much less natural and has levelled charges of irresponsibility on the guilty party. The only ease to that is that an earlier scene indicates that Nora deeply trusts her children's governess (who was also her governess too) to become the maternal figure should anything happen to Nora.

* Most modern productions of Shakespeare's ''MuchAdoAboutNothing'' leave out one of Claudio's lines near the end of the play. To make amends for his part in Hero's supposed death, he agrees to marry her cousin, but is told that he can't see her face until he swears it before the friar. He replies that he would take her in marriage even if she were "an Ethiope" (that is, an African).

** MyFairLady was based off George Bernard Shaw's ''Pygmalion,'' and the original ended with Eliza going off to marry Freddie, not returning to Higgins. Subsequent versions changed his play's ending to one similar to MyFairLady Shaw was so upset with the people who changed the ending that he wrote an essay explaining why Eliza and Higgins would never end up together, and why Eliza would be happy with Freddie.

* In ''TheLaramieProject'', one of the interviewees is a straight stage actor discussing how he once played the lead role in ''AngelsInAmerica'', but his parents refused to attend the play because they didn't want to see him play a gay man. However, he also played the title character in ''{{Macbeth}}'' back in high school, and they were right there in the front row as he portrayed a mass murderer.

* ''Theatre/TheMagicFlute'': To the extent that the opera has AnAesop, it's about how you shouldn't trust or even listen to women, and how women need a man to guide them lest they become too uppity. (On the other hand, it doesn't hurt that all the parts about the brave and noble men overcoming every challenge are [[YourMileageMayVary complete]] [[GoodIsBoring snooze fests]], while the villainous [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen of the Night]] gets [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome the two]] [[EvilIsCool best arias]] in the whole opera, including one of the most famous in the entire genre.) With a side of "black men are too ugly to get any, so they'll resort to [[ScaryBlackMan raping white women]], to whom they are [[WhereDaWhiteWomenAt irresistibly attracted]]."

* [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] by the HenrikIbsen play ''Theatre/ADollsHouse''. Audiences at the time were shocked by the end, in which [[spoiler:Nora leaves her marriage]], and Ibsen was forced to rewrite it. (The alternate ending is something of a {{Writer Cop Out}}, and Ibsen himself called the change a "[[CreatorBacklash barbaric atrocity]].") Modern audiences generally find the original ending perfectly acceptable.

* Shakespeare's ''TheTamingOfTheShrew'' contains so much values dissonance that this troper's grade ten class were asked their opinions about whether or not Kate's final monologue (about how a woman should be subservient to her husband and obey his every wish, because he works every day so she can eat) should be included in classroom readings of the play. Not to mention the whole idea of a woman who dared speak up for herself being a "shrew" who needed to be made "proper"...

* Put simply, in the ancient Greek play ''Theatre/{{Antigone}},'' the title character wants to bury her brother, against the wishes of her uncle the king. In ancient Greece, they would see Antigone as caught between two horrible options; not honoring the dead, or defying her rightful ruler. Thanks to liberalism, individualism, feminism and the separation of church and state, a modern reader would see Antigone as rebelling against a corrupt and authoritarian state, with the only problem being the possibility of getting caught doing it.
** However, because Antigone seems to be unquestionably doing the right thing to modern eyes, modern performances of the play usually shift the focus to her uncle, and instead emphasize his two horrible options; condemning his niece and nephew to dishonorable deaths as is required by the laws of the city, or placing his family above those laws by burying his nephew and sparing his niece.
** Most scholars will tell you that this is how the play is meant to be interpreted. Remember, it is the Chorus that is supposed to embody the focus of the piece, and both the Chorus and the play itself spend a great deal of time explaining Creaon's predicament and the possibility of an impending invasion, the implication being that if he appears weak and emotional, he believes the state will be weakened and fall.

* Everyone remembers ''Theatre/{{Othello}}'' for the (then) [[MalignedMixedMarriage controversial interracial marriage]] of its hero and Desdemona. Nowadays people are far more likely to take issue at the fact Desdemona can only be sixteen at the very most... and Othello's roughly the same age as her father (who was once his friend). It's disturbing that so many characters speak so lustfully about her, considering how young she is.

**** However, in some adaptations (most notably the 1968 movie), the reason her father was hesitant was because it was implied that he married Juliet's mother too young and had grown to regret it.
**** IsaacAsimov suggested that Juliet's extreme youth was a plot point: that she's hardly more than a child, and is at least as much in love with the idea of an intrigue -- "My only love, sprung from my only hate" -- as with Romeo himself.

** She also tricks her boyfriend into making it look like he had betrayed her (by making him give her a ring she made him promise to never give to anyone else while in disguise), then pretends to act like he had cheated on her. This is played for comedy, rather than as an indication that she is psychopathic.

** It's worth noting, however, that Shylock is one of the earliest examples of a sympathetic antagonist, and notably is the only major character in the play who does not indulge in deceit, and whose famous monologue is clearly written to humanize Shylock's and provide justification for his motives, in a time when many still believed Jews had horns. The play makes it clear that, even beyond the anti-Semitism he faces in society, Shylock's got perfectly good reason to hold a grudge against Antonio.

** Ibsen was way ahead of his time in his other writings, too -- think of ''HeddaGabler'' and ''Ghosts'', to name but two. The first shows an angry upper class woman who is miserable and depressed, desperate to seek an outlet in any way possible, [[spoiler: inciting a man to kill himself, and committing suicide when her role in his death is discovered]]. At the time critics considered Hedda to be monstrous and the entire play squalid; while Hedda still isn't very sympathetic, modern audiences can appreciate why she behaves the way she does. Even a seemingly secondary character is allowed to ditch her husband to be with the man she loves. ''Ghosts'' deals with VD and [[spoiler:has a character suffer a syphillitic breakdown on stage]]; this would have been outrageous when it was first shown. The heroine Mrs. Alving was lambasted, not least for encouraging BrotherSisterIncest. Contemporary audiences view her in a much softer light, though adaptations still insinuate she's too close to her son.

* Shakespeare's ''TheTamingOfTheShrew'' contains so much values dissonance that this troper's grade ten class were asked their opinions about whether or not Kate's final monologue (about how a woman should be subservient to her husband and obey his every wish, because he works every day so she can eat) should be included in classroom readings of the play. Not to mention the whole idea of a woman who dared speak up for herself being a "shrew" who needed to be made "proper"...

* [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] by the Henrik Ibsen play ''A Doll's House''. Audiences at the time were shocked by the end, in which [[spoiler:Nora leaves her marriage]], and Ibsen was forced to rewrite it. (The alternate ending is something of a {{Writer Cop Out}}, and Ibsen himself called the change a "[[CreatorBacklash barbaric atrocity]].") Modern audiences generally find the original ending perfectly acceptable.
** Ibsen was way ahead of his time in his other writings, too -- think of ''Hedda Gabler'' and ''Ghosts'', to name but two. The first shows an angry upper class woman who is miserable and depressed, desperate to seek an outlet in any way possible, [[spoiler: inciting a man to kill himself, and committing suicide when her role in his death is discovered]]. At the time critics considered Hedda to be monstrous and the entire play squalid; while Hedda still isn't very sympathetic, modern audiences can appreciate why she behaves the way she does. Even a seemingly secondary character is allowed to ditch her husband to be with the man she loves. ''Ghosts'' deals with VD and [[spoiler:has a character suffer a syphillitic breakdown on stage]]; this would have been outrageous when it was first shown. The heroine Mrs. Alving was lambasted, not least for encouraging BrotherSisterIncest. Contemporary audiences view her in a much softer light, though adaptations still insinuate she's too close to her son.

*** ''A Doll's House'' also has a straighter example of this trope -- when [[spoiler:Nora leaves her husband, she leaves her children behind as well]]. At the time, the concept that [[spoiler:men had automatic custody rights to any children from a marriage]] was completely natural and that particular decision wouldn't raise an eyebrow. To modern audiences, this is much less natural and has levelled charges of irresponsibility on the guilty party.