History Main / UnintentionalPeriodPiece

[[folder:1950s Films]]
%%* ''Film/TheWomanOnPier13'' dates to a very specific point in time when the Cold War was America's biggest concern, and [[RedScare communists were the biggest bogeymen]]. After the fall of the Soviet Union, people are no longer concerned with the spread of Communism as an ethos, and in fact, many people in traditionally-capitalist nations have actually embraced some of Communism's ideals. %How do we know this isn't a period piece?
* ''Film/RearWindow'': World-traveling photographer LB Jeffries (played by [[Creator/JimmyStewart James Stewart]]) is stuck in his apartment for weeks because of a broken leg. He can't take the boredom so he looks out his window to watch his neighbors across the courtyard. If it had been at least 5 years later, he would have just watched television to pass the time, but [=TVs=] weren't in every home in 1954[[note]]It was only late that year when more American households had a TV set[[/note]]. Also, later advances in medicine would have required a far more severe injury than a broken leg to confine him to his home -- if anything, getting out and staying active would be ''encouraged''.[[note]]The 1998 made-for-TV remake of the film reflects these advances in medicine--the main character, here a former architect named Jason Kemp, was played by Creator/ChristopherReeve, in his first role after the 1995 horseback riding accident that left him a quadriplegic.[[/note]]
%%* ''Film/WillSuccessSpoilRockHunter'' takes place in an [[{{Camp}} extremely played-up version]] of the period in which it was made -- accurately predicting how people in the future would remember the fifties. %Lacks details
[[/folder]]

* The book ''Literature/TheBlueNosedWitch'' was published in 1956 and so is this for modern reading. The group of trick-or-treating children Blanche groups up with are allowed to be out [[FreeRangeChildren alone on Halloween night]] without any adults with them. Blanche, outside of her [[RobeAndWizardHat witch's hat]], is dressed fairly ordinary for a girl of the time in a black wide-skirted dress, Mary Jane shoes, and knee socks, which leads to the adults at the party only being slightly concerned that she's out at midnight by herself. Some of the treats mentioned as given out are jelly doughnuts, apples, and caramel apples--and none of them are wrapped or otherwise sealed, something discouraged now since the scare of RazorApples. And along with three {{Bedsheet Ghost}}s, a pirate, a cowboy, and a WitchClassic, one of the children [[ValuesDissonance is dressed as a "gypsy"]] as a costume, something that's heavily discouraged as a {{National Stereotype|s}}.

** ''UnintentionalPeriodPiece/HomeAlone1''

** [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece/TurnOfTheMillenniumLiveActionFilms Live-Action Films]]

* ''Series/{{Arrowverse}}'': References to 2010 pop culture aside (starting from the first episode of ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' that makes jokes about ''Series/{{LOST}})'' and then-president Obama, followed by the sister show ''Series/TheFlash2014'' featuring a nerd among the main cast who regularly references ''Series/TheBigBangTheory''), the building blocks of the shows draw inspiration [[ComicBook/New52 from the books]] Creator/DCComics were putting out at the time and the [[TrueArtIsAngsty general tone DC's editorial were pushing]]. ''Arrow'' is a DarkerAndEdgier adaptation that focuses on a YoungerAndHipper Oliver Queen (as he was in the New 52), that also downplayed the Green Arrow-Black Canary romance (at the time, the two were broken up), and Oliver's political opinions, which are almost all gone (New 52 Green Arrow was notably uncharacteristically apolitical). ''The Flash'' similarly focuses on a YoungerAndHipper Barry Allen (who was resurrected a few years prior and took lead focus away from his successor ComicBook/WallyWest) and has his ''The Flash: Rebirth'' backstory, while the extended Flash Family DemotedToExtra or unadapted (they were ExiledFromContinuity at the time to maintain sole focus on Barry). ''All'' of this would become awkward within their own lifetimes, as ''ComicBook/DCRebirth'' saw a return of Green Arrow's politics and the Arrow-Canary ship, while also seeing the return of Wally West and, later, the Flash Family. With ''ComicBook/InfiniteFrontier'' also seeing Wally West take over the mantle of the primary Flash, the show's continued use of Barry as the lead stands somewhat as TheArtifact of the time it was created as a result.

* The 1939 Literature/FuManchu novel ''The Drums of Fu Manchu'' features the titular doctor out to kill the leaders of various world governments, with his first targets being the leaders of Germany and Italy, as a means of preventing an upcoming war. The novel features the protagonists trying to stop him from doing so, and treats "[[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Rudolf Adlon]]" and "[[UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini Pietro Monaghani]]" in a notably more sympathetic light than Fu Manchu, treating them as cruel and dangerous but nonetheless people you can sit down and talk to. To reiterate: this is a book where the hero's goal is, essentially, to prevent Hitler's assassination. Only a few months later, Fu Manchu's prediction came to pass, and the whole plot proceeded to not so much age badly as instantly crumble to dust.

** The Season 2 episode "Tom's Divorce" (released in 2009) has a joke about Ron being [[PopCulturalOsmosisFailure out of touch with popular culture]] when he tells Tom, who's down in the dumps after realizing he genuinely does like his wife Wendy (who was only in it as a CitizenshipMarriage) to "Take it down a notch. You've already won your Oscar, DiCaprio," with the joke being that Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio was one the most infamous examples of being repeatedly [[AwardSnub snubbed at the Oscars]]. This, of course, became HilariousInHindsight in 2016, when [=DiCaprio=] finally won it for ''Film/TheRevenant''.

* The book ''TheBlueNosedWitch'' was published in 1956 and so is this for modern reading. The group of trick-or-treating children Blanche groups up with are allowed to be out [[FreeRangeChildren alone on Halloween night]] without any adults with them. Blanche, outside of her [[RobeAndWizardHat witch's hat]], is dressed fairly ordinary for a girl of the time in a black wide-skirted dress, Mary Jane shoes, and knee socks, which leads to the adults at the party only being slightly concerned that she's out at midnight by herself. Some of the treats mentioned as given out are jelly doughnuts, apples, and caramel apples--and none of them are wrapped or otherwise sealed, something discouraged now since the scare of RazorApples. And along with three {{Bedsheet Ghost}}s, a pirate, a cowboy, and a WitchClassic, one of the children [[ValuesDissonance is dressed as a "gypsy"]] as a costume, something that's heavily discouraged as a {{National Stereotype|s}}.

* Much like other plays written by Creator/AgathaChristie, Theatre/TheMousetrap has become a period piece, due to how technology has progressed significantly since 1952. During the play's snowstorm, the landline phone in Monkswell Manor is the ''only'' direct method of communication to and from the Manor. Today, much of the play's plot could be avoided, with the invention of the Internet and Cell Phones.

Compare AnachronismStew (when the work has elements from across several different decades), OnceOriginalNowCommon (when a concept was new in its day but is now well-established and evolved beyond that), TwoDecadesBehind (when a work feels like it was intended to be the PresentDay, but was actually produced many years after the relevant period it seems to be based on), ValuesDissonance (when a work's moral elements make it inaccessible to modern audiences) and ValuesResonance (when a dated work's moral messaging manages to feel relevant today). AnimationLeadTime and TheShelfOfMovieLanguishment can result in a work feeling dated before it even gets officially released. {{Zeerust}} is when a work's depiction of the ''future'' becomes dated, without necessarily saying anything about the work's present day, so all works with a far-future setting belong there, not here.

Compare AnachronismStew (when the work has elements from across several different decades), OnceOriginalNowCommon (when a concept was new in its day but is now well-established and evolved beyond that), TwoDecadesBehind (when a work feels like it was intended to be the PresentDay, but was actually produced many years after the relevant period it seems to be based on), ValuesDissonance (when a work's moral elements make it inaccessible to modern audiences) and ValuesResonance (when a dated work's moral messaging manages to feel relevant today). {{Zeerust}} is when a work's depiction of the ''future'' becomes dated, without necessarily saying anything about the work's present day, so all works with a far-future setting belong there, not here.

** In general, some [[https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/5/30/15694916/house-of-cards-review-season-5-netflix reviewers]] have argued that the show's depiction of American politics is pretty dated to the pre-[[UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump Trump]] era. The show is known for its deeply cynical attitude towards the UsefulNotes/AmericanPoliticalSystem's "consensus politics" that followed the Cold War, generally portraying the Republican and Democratic parties as interchangeable groups of establishment figureheads who care more about money and power than about the people they're supposed to represent and only want to maintain the status quo at all costs. That attitude quickly went out of fashion as the Tea Party and Occupy movements that sprung up as a reaction to "neocons" and "neolibs" gained political influence and became finally obliterated after Donald Trump's highly controversial election and presidency brought political polarization to new heights and led to a new wave of active political engagement on both sides of the aisle.

*** The game in general pastiches and parodies multiple franchises that were popular during the early 2010s. The superpowers harken towards ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Crackdown}}'', while the Saints' spaceship and the loyalty missions (and optional romance) with your crew after breaking them out of the villain's [[LotusEaterMachine simulation]] are reminiscent of ''Franchise/MassEffect''. The prologue, named "[[Film/ZeroDarkThirty Zero Saints Thirty]]", is a spot-on parody of ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' and the glut of military-themed shooters in its wake, with linear, setpeace-heavy, and cover-driven gameplay. One DLC pack, "GATV", pokes fun at the game's [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV biggest competitor]], which also launched in 2013 but would not receive a PC version for two years. Another features the cast of ''WebVideo/HeyAshWhatchaPlayin'' as DLC, a series that has since largely been OvershadowedByControversy in the wake of Anthony Burch's personal troubles. The UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} version even threw in as a PreOrderBonus weapons from ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'', as the game was still Valve's main cash cow at the time.

* Due to the user-generated nature of the game's content, many older ''VideoGame/{{Roblox}}'' places arguably fall under this trope. Many games from the late 2000s and early 2010s are a time capsule of whatever internet memes were popular at the time of their creation, most frequently Music/JustinBieber, ''Webcomic/RageComics'', and LeetLingo.

** In "Dunny", Chili tells Bluey and Bingo that [[UsefulNotes/QueenElizabethII the Queen of England]] would not use the word that provides the episode's title. A year and a half after that episode premiered, Elizabeth would pass away and King Charles III would take her place.

* The latter-day Creator/MichaelBay ''Film/TransformersFilmSeries'' films were made during a time when Hollywood was pushing as hard as possible to get a piece of the Chinese market, which in those days, was seen as a huge untapped resource. Most of them kept it reserved to a few odd choices (i.e. actors well-known in China, or plot elements specifically chosen to not piss off the Chinese government), but these films stick out for featuring a ''lot'' of product placement for Chinese products, including in places where it would make no sense for those products to feature (i.e. a Chinese ATM displaying clearly Chinese text in a scene taking place in Texas). This went a step further with the finale of ''Film/AgeOfExtinction'', which not only takes place in Hong Kong, but goes so far as to feature the good guys being helped out by a local Chinese military garrison (something that ''no'' Hollywood film could get away with only a few years later, when China's attempts to exert control over Hong Kong became a hot-button topic). Just a few years after ''Film/TheLastKnight'' (which, incidentally, turned out to be a box office disappointment in China), relations between China and the US became increasingly fractious, and the government began sharply cracking down on which films would make it into the country. This brought this era of filmmaking more or less to a close for the foreseeable future, leaving the films as an artifact of a rather odd period.

* [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece/TheNineties 1990s]]

* ''Series/TheHoneymooners'', though the show was always slightly more realistic than other sitcoms around at the time.

[[folder:1960s Comics]]

* The Hungarian gag strip ''ComicStrip/{{Jucika}}'' that ran from 1959 to 1970 referenced cultural phenomena of the time, like supply shortages following the 1956 revolution, crummy infrastructure, life under the oddities of "Goulash Communism", vintage technology, UsefulNotes/YuriGagarin, and the comic's eroticism and {{Fanservice}} in general don't feel special compared to the off-the-wall adult cartoons published later. A Hungarian exhibit about fashion and commercialism under socialism was even titled "What Did Jucika Buy?" because her name is so firmly tied to that era. Had the creator not died so early or if another artist had taken over, the strip would likely have kept up with the changing times and looser censorship of later decades, especially since it was intended to be more explicit than the publisher at the time had allowed. Still, the comic's international popularity boost beginning in 2019 shows most strips have a timeless appeal. The artist's other ongoing cartoon, the pro-Soviet political-military satire ''Joe and Ivan'' is very much a product of its time, though.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' episode "The Copycats" revolves around the Wattersons dealing with a Chinese family copying everything they do. A key plot point is that the Chinese family has an equivalent of everyone in the Watterson family except Anais. At the time it was produced, China was enforcing a policy limiting families to only have two children, and daughters tended to be aborted as sons were preferred. This policy came to effect in 2016, so it was still relevant when the episode premiered in 2017. This lasted until May 31st, 2021 when China proclaimed they've updated their policy to allow three-child families. However, this episode was a deliberate TakeThat at a series of Chinese advertisements that ripped off the series, and the CrappyOffBrand family was a one-to-one parody of those ads.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' episode "The Copycats" revolves around the Wattersons dealing with a Chinese family copying everything they do. A key plot point is that the Chinese family has an equivalent of everyone in the Watterson family except Anais. At the time it was produced, China was enforcing a policy limiting families to only have two children, and daughters tended to be aborted as sons were preferred. This policy came to effect in 2016, so it was still relevant when the episode premiered in 2017. This lasted until May 31st, 2021 when China proclaimed they've updated their policy to allow three-child families.

* Though not within the normal 10-year cutoff, the 2017 anti-suicide song “1-800-273-8255”, by Music/{{Logic}} featuring Music/AlessiaCara and Khaled, qualifies because the title was then the actual phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the US. While the number remains in service for that very purpose, it was superseded in July 2022 by the three-digit code 9-8-8.

* ''Series/ScreamQueens2015'''s second season heavily dates itself to 2016. They range from the superficial -- a TakeThat to ''Film/BatmanVsSuperman'' and Denise dressing up as the [[Series/GameOfThrones Khaleesi]] for Halloween -- to the major. Denise goes into a coma and wakes up asking how Hillary Clinton is doing as the first female president -- as the series aired while the presidential election was going on.