Unintentional Period Piece needs a threshold.

Found this on Kung Fu (2021):

• Unintentional Period Piece: Joe says in "Sanctuary" that there hasn't been a single conviction of a cop who murdered a black person. After the episode was written but before it aired, Derek Chauvin was convicted on all counts for murdering George Floyd.

That sounds like it would fit the Instantly Dated idea.

Chauvin wans't the first convicted officer, Jason Van Dyke, the Officer that killed Laquan McDonald was convicted. There was still anger over the amount of years he got.

Edited by randomtroper89 on May 25th 2021 at 3:37:17 AM

More of a general question, but could food in general make a work a UPP, especially given the trends for food by era and types of cookery show etc.?

For example, constant mentions of New Coke in a work produced in the 1980s could tie it to that era when it was in the news, or the Mc Pizza of the 1990s (Mc Donald's don't do pizza much now, I think) etc. - if these appeared in a work, or Fictional Counterpart, would examples of types of food in a work qualify it for a UPP?

I'm trying to think of examples that could fit the UPP page.

It's a broad area, sure, but one to consider, possibly.

I'm looking through UPP and trying to work out what, if any, food-related examples to add.

Unintentional Period Piece is supposed to be where multiple aspects of the work are so dated that you can identify the approximate era it was made to within a few years. The core concept is that it feels like a period piece even though it was modern at the time it was made. A couple mentions of New Coke is simply not good enough, unless maybe it is a characters' dominant Drink Order every chance the story gets as a Running Gag.

Makes sense.

But as for things like the protagonist's Cool Car for instance - a gas-guzzling Ford Crown Victoria V8 sedan as the Cool Car would probably be less common in a modern-day work due to environmental concerns (outside of Period Piece dramas), and also SU Vs and electric/hybrid cars seem to have replaced sedans and gas-guzzling V8 models, so a work with these in would instantly be a UPP and Technology Marches On?

Am I correct in thinking this?

In the case of "environmentally-unfriendly cars are seen as cool," that sounds closer to Values Dissonance, if the work is old enough to qualify.

Yeah, that's where it gets too subjective, as there are plenty of car buff circles that would still appreciate a gas guzzler. The point of the trope is that it dates itself to a certain time period, not that todays specific attitudes are different, simply the example itself may be dated in short order. Such as a theoretical example commenting on a work where a couple buy a home for cheap to fix it up seems odd in today's current market of skyrocketing real estate value, two years from now that may come right back around to being normal again. It's the same reason we have Examples Are Not Recent as a rule.

Fair enough, as a car enthusiast/Mustang fan it makes sense.

But, for financial-related things, like on Schoolhouse Rock! or Dexter's Laboratory, then that does count as a UPP?

Also, with that regard, Dexter's Laboratory had an obscure joke in the episode "Topped Off" with a man called Juan and a donkey in the wardrobe, which probably may go over some of the audience's head (although, maybe back in 1998, it probably wasn't back then).

As it is, this is the UPP from the Trivia page for the work:

• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • The Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory parody's Golden Ticket analogue is a golden Floppy Disk (referred to as a Golden Diskette in the episode, since it sounds more like "golden ticket").
  • Despite the science theme of the series, you rarely if ever see mentions to the internet. While the internet did exist in the late 1990s, it wouldn't become mainstream until the Turn of the Millennium a few years later and wouldn't be ubiquitous until the mid-to-late 2000s.
  • One episode had Dexter scoffing at an old early 1980s video game in comparison to his more modern game. Said video game is a parody of the then-recent Primal Rage.
  • Zig-zagged with "Rushmore Rumble." There is a close up of a penny with 1997 printed very clearly on it, but one could argue that it's simply an old penny now.

The only entry that seems to qualify is the part about the lack of the Internet in a series about science and technology. But a simple fleeting reference to then-modern technology isn't enough to date the series. I rewatched the series a lot in the 2000s and 2010s and I never considered it really dated.

Found this on Trivia.Pico:

• Unintentional Period Piece: One from Pico's School. The depiction of Casandra and the goths, punks, etc. as the school shooters originated from a belief back in 1999, when there was a moral panic that the Columbine killers, which the game took inspiration from, were goths. Nowadays, this belief is discredited by the media, after many studies disproved the correlation. It was also a time when videogames were frequently used as scapegoats for violence, similar as to some reception of Pico's School and other similar games blamed after/for the Columbine shootings- most notably the Doom series. The game, however, does have An Aesop that any form of extremism is bad when Cassandra exclaims not to really care about society aside from her own selfish reason to kill while the rest of her goth friends are simply duped into following her thinking that she empathizes with them being outsiders. Even discriminated subgroups have their own bad apples every once in a while.

The whole bit about extremism seems unrelated, like a Values Resonance entry in disguise. Hell, the whole entry might be a Values Dissonance entry in disguise.

I'm pretty sure the Columbine shooters still influence shooters in the media and there's still a moral panic about Murder Simulators, even if it's died down a bit? The goth/punk aesthetic might be a stronger argument for being an UPP if they're present and dated enough.

There still kind of is a moral panic about video games, but it has died down as of late due to it being perceived as being used by pro-gun politicians to distract from the gun debate. Although President Biden did say something about video games being bad, but I personally doubt he will actually try to do anything about it.

Bringing up the following example from Space Force (2020):

• Unintentional Period Piece: Season 2 was announced by Netflix right after the 2020 US election and Joe Biden being elected the 46th President of the United States, while most of the jokes about Season 1 concern the Donald Trump presidency (even if Trump is never named directly). How the show will carry on with Biden as President remains to be seen.

Uh, now that there's a TRS for this, I'm not sure we want to keep going with this thread. At least for now.

I'm pretty sure if we still need a cleanup thread for this after TRS, we should make an actual cleanup thread in one of the Projects forums.

But no matter what happens, that can be cut because it hasn't even been one year yet, let alone ten.

...Assuming we keep the waiting period.

It's also speculative tropeing. The show could very well pivot with the change in real-life administration and remain up-to-date-ish.

Supergirl (2015)

• Unintentional Period Piece: Season 5 slipped into it in record time, with its major story arc about people relying too much on technological escapism rather than talking to each other face to face coming off very odd after the COVID-19 pandemic.

I'd say it's a shoehorn

If that Supergirl example is valid, then all other shows that have not mentioned the COVID, which is most of them, should be UPP too.

And I have heard people saying the opposite: that the plot is very relevant today because that´s exactly what most people were forced to do this last year and have kept doing even after many countries started lifting restrictions.

Edited by Oculto on Jun 21st 2021 at 1:03:16 PM

I'd say it falls more into fitting in with Clueless Aesop or Hard Truth Aesop rather than a UPP, so it could still work, but not on the YMMV page.

There's a difference between "using technology to safely fulfill your responsibilities during a pandemic" and "using technology to avoid your responsibilities." A message about the latter can still be relevant even in a post-COVID world.

Again, it's violating Examples Are Not Recent because "Seems odd in today's covid-19 pandemic environment" will sound strange 5 years from now.

Edited by EmeraldSource on Jun 21st 2021 at 10:26:51 AM

Breaking Bad S5 E8: "Gliding Over All"

• Unintentional Period Piece: In the age of smartphones, Hank would've passed the time on the toilet on his phone instead of reading the books in the bathroom and discovering Walter's secret.

That seems like misuse. Not everyone uses the phone on the loo.