Needs Help: Unintentional Period Piece

A lot of the examples are either zero context, or just "this obviously took place in that decade", or "there is this one scene that makes it seem like this". And the nature of the trope makes it seem like YMMV (as in what would look like a period piece to some viewers could look normal to others).

I'd do a wick check, but I'm also not sure about the exact definition to tell if there is misue. Is this basically "dated work", or is there more to it?

In short, there is quite a bit about this trope that seems to need work.

edited 25th Feb '12 10:43:28 PM by DragonQuestZ

Is this basically "dated work", or is there more to it?

I think this is the key line in the description: "so full of the culture of the time it resembles a deliberate exaggeration of the era in a work made later."

In other words it's about really dated works.

I'm not sure the examples all agree with that, but they aren't too bad.

edited 25th Feb '12 11:05:01 PM by abk0100

The thing is, a lot of works were meant to be exaggerated in the first place, so would it be valid to call them this, when they weren't meant to be proper to the period anyway?

I could probably endorse this trope, if it were called Carbon Dated Works.

I started from the assumption that this is a basically sound trope, but some of the examples are a mess. Especially when you get to 2000s and 2010s works, where you get things like "this work is now dated because it mentions Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears"... so? Doesn't that happen to every single work of fiction that survives for more than one year?

I don't know what use this trope has. I honestly don't know.

Yeah, I'm really confused about what this is supposed to mean, and by what standard we are defining something as being too much like the period in which it was set and made.

My research has become stymied by the seeming lack of an index for tropes that involve period pieces and dating.

If I were to make a rule for this I would say that you're not allowed to name any movies made less than 15-20 years ago. This is because what the culture thinks of a distinct period (decade) only comes with perspective, which takes time to differentiate from what life is now.

edited 26th Feb '12 11:13:11 AM by RickGriffin

That's roughly my view as well; in fact, comments in the 2000s and 2010s sections explicitly state that we have to wait until 2015 and 2025 to add any entries to either, without very strong provided justifications, due to various forms of myopia. I wouldn't be adverse to making that source comment into an explicit comment.

The only stuff that should be listed after 2000 is stuff that has dated unusually quickly; Seltzer And Friedberg get the nod, along with the various stages of Post-9/11 Terrorism Movie.

Thanks
Luc "Ancient" French

edited 26th Feb '12 11:49:14 AM by Luc

Being topical should not be a qualifier, unless people think a topic will always be relevant. As for the "Reverence Movie" guys (can never remember how to spell the wick name), basing them here could smack of complaining.

I agree with the proposal to limit this to works that are 20+ years old.

Some further thoughts: what I think about when I see this name is a fantasy or SF work that is intensely dateable because of, say, hairstyles or fashion. (For example, I've seen a poster for a 50s [?] film adaptation of The Time Machine where Weena had a very 1950s hairstyle. Similarly, I suspect that people who watch the Lord Of The Rings movies a few decades from now will think that Arwen's hairstyle and looks are obviously from the 2000s.) But the description and examples are purely about works set in our world in the "present day", and I can't find the trope I'm thinking of.

Either way, I still think that this is getting abused to mean Works Get Dated. If nothing else, it needs a thorough scrub... after we've decided what exactly it should be, of course.

edited 26th Feb '12 1:47:59 PM by DoktorvonEurotrash

BTW, it seems to me like this is trivia or Audience Reaction at best, not a story telling convention.

Well that should be obvious; you can't intentionally make an unintentional period piece. If there are stories that include unintentional period pieces inside of them, THAT might count, though.

edited 26th Feb '12 2:18:59 PM by RickGriffin

The first mental step I make is to remove examples which are simply extremely dated because of identiable things, and start looking at the ones that are dated because they went out of their way to include elements that were intended to give them currency at the time and establish them in time. So when a creator includes such a thing, what is supposed to happen? What is the aimed for effect?

What does it say about me that when I first saw this name, I thought it involved apparent overuse of Totally Radical and other similar tropes?

Perhaps that you have a better idea of what this trope is trying to be than the actual page does.

I always thought this was a work that really shows off the time period it was made in?

That's the impression I got from the actual article, basically.

Take The Wizard or Miami Vice watch it now and you can instantly tell when it was made.

There is some misuse for say Back To The Future which while the first movie's 1985 is an example (everything in it was meant to be modern) everything else is not an example as it was meant to be a period piece.

However some of the examples here are say made in the 90s but make it a plot point to be amazed by a Cellphone which is a very 80s reaction.

Also there are some examples that are Title1985 which is the year they were made or such.

It's kindof Dated By Wikipedia, where a "modern" setting gets thoroughly dated by specific elements that are noteworthy of their era.

Clocking due to inactivity.

I think the trope is pretty well defined; a work that is very obviously set in a given era, because of the inclusion of cultural or topical elements that were current at the time but are now iconic for, or at least very strongly associated with, that specific period.

It could use a bit of cleanup, but I think it's otherwise fine. I agree that very recent works shouldn't be included; we don't know what people 20 years from now are going to see as the elements that scream "made in the '00s". (Except for 9/11 references, I'd put a big stack of cash on that one.)

That's still not a trope. It's just an audience reaction at best. All is really means is "X is of this era, X is is in this work, therefore this work is in this era". It's not a trope it's a deduction. Sine there is no intention, any attempt to pass off as a trope is people sit on chairs (since something time specific just happens, but with no purpose).