History Main / BornInTheWrongCentury

* In a ComicBook/{{Batman}} and ComicBook/MartianManhunter team-up in ''ComicBook/DetectiveComics'' in 1997, Wally Dalbert, a 27th century thief who committed his crimes by travelling backwards in time but had no way of travelling forwards, eventually settled to become a philanthropist in 19th century Gotham, where he had previously indicated he would feel more at home.

* ''ComicBook/TheWarlordDC'': Not exactly time travel, but close enough -- was a lot happier in the savage LostWorld of Skartaris than he ever had been in the 20th century.

* Invoked and deconstructed in French-Italian musical comedy ''Film/BeautiesOfTheNight''. A music teacher Claude lives a very unsatisfying life in the 1950s. His job sucks, children hate his lessons, he writes music at night and keeps falling asleep at day, making the whole town sneer at him; he is harassed by {{Obstructive Bureaucrat}}s, debt collectors and neighbours, who [[{{Jerkass}} take their jokes too far]]. One day he falls asleep at a lesson and dreams that his music is appreciated in TheGayNineties. Then an old man in a bar tells [[NostalgiaFilter how good 19th century was]] and Claude's dream continues. Then in his dream the same old man gets nostalgic about 1830, and Claude slips to 1830s and heroically fights some colonial war. Then the old man gets nostalgic about Louis XVI, and Claude starts giving lessons to aristocrats and campaigning for UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution. He enjoys his three dream lives far more than the waking world (for one, he's more popular with women there), so he downs extra sleeping pills "to never wake up", prompting his friends [[MistakenForSuicidal to start trying to save him]]. Then the dreams become nightmares: revolutionary court [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized mistakenly]] sentences him to death, sultan [[ShotgunWedding chases]] him for visiting his sister and his symphony premiere [[YankTheDogsChain flops]] because he [[AccentuateTheNegative inadvertently included]] every modern sound he hates (klaxons, jackhammers, vacum cleaners). He wakes up, friends try to help him, but nightmares get progressively bizarre and he is chased by anachronistic angry mob through all history from Stone Age through the Deluge, AncientRome, TheMiddleAges and so on. Eventually friends help to solve Claude's legal and financial troubles, his music gets its due recognition, pills wear off and he confesses his love to the GirlNextDoor.

* Exaggerated with Furuya in ''Manga/SeitokaiYakuindomo'', who, being Shino's predecessor, is at most two years older than her. Yet she uses Japanese slang from TheEighties unironically and is so bad with technology that she uses a pocket abacus instead of a calculator.

* In Abel Gance's 1923 film ''Film/LaRoue'', Elie dislikes the hectic modern life of TheRoaringTwenties and wishes he had lived during TheMiddleAges. He has {{Imagine Spot}}s in which he and Norma are engaging in CourtlyLove with appropriate period costumes.

* Sue Tenny in ''Film/SkyHigh2005'' was a {{Technopath}} who went to the titular SuperheroSchool in TheSeventies, when technology [[TechnologyMarchesOn was less developed and pervasive]], and was put in the [[{{Sidekick}} Hero Support]] track and bullied as a science geek by the heroes, leading to her becoming the supervillain Royal Pain. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Gwen Grayson, who in 2005 has the same powers but became a star student in the Hero track instead. [[spoiler:She should know -- [[TheReveal she's actually Sue/Royal Pain]], who was turned back into a toddler by the [[FountainOfYouth Pacifier]] and grown back to her teens so she could return to Sky High and get her revenge.]]

* Not quite the wrong '''century''', but Henry Harrison, the title character of ''Literature/TheExtraMan'', would have fit in much better in [[TheRoaringTwenties the '20s]] than TheEighties.

* The five Lisbon sisters in ''Literature/TheVirginSuicides'' are off by one decade. Their empathy for others, concern for the plight of nature, and distaste for their prudish elders clearly mark them as children of TheSixties, but unfortunately they're growing up in an ultraconservative Detroit suburb in TheSeventies amidst economic chaos. [[spoiler: Tragically, none of them can take it, and every last one kills herself, as if "called to another place" as the narrator puts it]].

-->'''Alex''': I would've been more at home in TheFifties.\\

* Tigerlily Jones in ''Webcomic/SkinHorse'' is a walking {{blaxploitation}} homage despite being a dot-commer who wasn't around in TheSeventies at all. At the Institute for the Sane Study of Mad Science, she's held in the "Temporally Confounded" section along with Debbi, who is similarly trapped in TheEighties, and Immogene Frog (who is ''[[TimeTravel actually]]'' from TheFifties, so has an excuse).

* Musician and folklorist [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fahey_(musician) John Fahey]] preserved and continued the old blues traditions in his compositions, slipping shellac recordings into thrift shop bins and mailing them to scholars, some of whom believed there actually was a blues musician called Blind Joe Death. [[https://www.johnfahey.com/Blood.htm Fahey later disparaged his early work]] and seemed more at home with the experimental sounds of UsefulNotes/TheNineties. The 1990s, that is.

* Brutally mocked and deconstructed in the Website/CollegeHumor sketch, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc6VP7Qp-Y8 No, You Weren’t “Born in the Wrong Decade”]]. Katie repeatedly tries to claim this, only for Trapp to point out the horrible downside to whatever time period she names. When she tries to gloss those parts over he points out that she doesn't get to only have the good parts of whatever time she is thinking of, and that even if the present isn't perfect it's still objectively better than it was in the past.

* ''[[ComicBook/ItsAGoodLifeIfYouDontWeaken It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken]]'': Seth is obsessed with the past and wishes he lived in the 1920s or 30s.

* ''Film/Hysteria2011'': Charlotte, with her socialist political leanings and passionate support of women's rights and charity to the poor, is basically a 21st-century radical feminist with the misfortune of being born a few centuries earlier as a lady in Victorian-era London.

* In ''Film/TheShapeOfWater'', Giles notes that as a homosexual man he was born in the exact wrong era between two right eras. Earlier and he would have been able to fit in among the open secret that many LGBT+ people had and the future (correctly presuming) that he would be able to be more open about his true sexuality.

* ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld Nicodemus]] invokes this idea of John Marcone, the top crime boss of Chicago. Marcone took over and enforced the "organized" part of organized crime. He brought the drug trade under his tight reign and has few rules people won't cross, namely involving children in drugs, prostitution, or hurting them as retribution. Nicodemus comments a few centuries ago, a man like John Marcone could carve out a kingdom and rule it with the kind of stable, effective-if-ruthless government that people really would appreciate. But it's been a long time since that age of warrior kings. Marcone seems to be aware of it himself, if his choice of magical employees is any indication. Harry appears to take it to heart in ''Skin Game'', where Marcone [[spoiler:honors an ancient Norse-Germanic tradition of ''weregild'' and pays the crime boss for the henchman who died during the robbery to smooth things over. Marcone, after some deliberation, decides he likes the idea (and the fact that the offered payment was a shoebox full of precious gems) and accepts]].

* ''VideoGame/FateSamuraiRemnant'': Miyamoto Iori trains in swordsmanship and dreams of mastering the blade, but he lives in a time of peace [[NoPlaceForAWarrior where swordsmen are seen as redundant]]. His adoptive father Musashi and Musashi's female counterpart both describe him this way since he was born just a few years after an age of conflict. [[spoiler:In a bad ending, Iori pulls a FaceHeelTurn and tries to use the Waxing Moon's wish to plunge Japan into an endless war so that he can experience what his father experienced, only for Saber to kill him.]]

* Amanda Peet from ''Series/LostInAusten'' yearns for the manners of the early 19th century. [[spoiler: Luckily, she gets to stay there.]] Elizabeth Bennet, meanwhile, would rather live in Amanda's time.

** To hear Hobbes tell it, Calvin himself should have been born in the 70s:

* Marie from ''[[Manga/{{Innocent}} Innocent Rogue]]'' gets [[BerserkButton always enraged]] by misgonysts and often [[TheSuffragette advocates that women should have as much rights as men do]], but in 18th century France she's never taken seriously. Also, an ImagineSpot of Jacques Damiens' ambition shows literally modern France. The two have a brief debate about it when they've met.

* Hajime Kashimo from ''Manga/JujutsuKaisen'' is a downplayed example. He was born in the Edo Period and spent his life fighting everyone he perceived as even remotely powerful, eventually defeating all challengers and [[VictoryIsBoring becoming bored and sedentary in his old age.]] He accepts [[TheChessmaster Kenjaku's]] offer to be reincarnated in the present because he missed the Heian Era, the Golden Age of Jujutsu where absolute monsters like [[WorldsStrongestMan Ryomen Sukuna]], [[ThePowerOfCreation Yorozu]], [[AnIcePerson Uraume]], Michizane Sugawara and many other bigshot sorcerers who went to form the major clans of Gojo, Kamo and Zen'in. [[spoiler: Many of whom are now running around in one way or another due to the [[TournamentArc Culling Game.]]]]

** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E30AStopAtWilloughby A Stop at Willoughby]]", Gart Williams is not temperamentally suited to the stress that being an advertising executive entails. He begins to dream about an idyllic small town named Willoughby in 1888 where he can live his life full measure at a slower pace. When Gart tells his wife Janie about Willoughby, she retorts that he was born too late and that it was her mistake to marry a man whose ambition in life is to be [[Literature/AdventuresOfHuckleberryFinn Huckleberry Finn]].
** {{Subverted|Trope}} in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E78OnceUponATime Once Upon a Time]]". Rollo, a scientist from 1962, goes back to 1890 with Mulligan expecting simpler times, only to realize that they also didn't have the simple pleasures of his time such as spring mattresses, TV dinners and bikinis. Mulligan sends him back to 1962 as he has begun to annoy him.
** {{Subverted|Trope}} again in "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E112NoTimeLikeThePast No Time Like the Past]]". After thrice failing to fix history, Paul Driscoll decides to go back to 1881 where none of the modern world's problems exist. After inadvertently causing a fire he intended to stop, he accepts that history has always had disasters none of which he can stop, so he decides to return to his own time and to work to make a better future.

* [[Creator/HarryPartridge Trilby Dogtooth]] is potentially the greatest monster hunter who ever lived. Problem is that he lives in a world where every monster worth slaying has already been slayed and the only ones left are minor nuisances who aren’t even worth killing. This means that he’ll never get a chance to truly prove himself, a fact he is painfully aware of.

* Fry of ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' states at one point that he's much more comfortable in the future (i.e., the show's present) than he had been in the 20th century. This is displayed several times, particularly the episode with his "girlfriend"; indeed, one of the first things he does on realizing he's in the future is realize that everyone he ever knew is dead, and then cheer -- and while he later laments this fact, he quickly gets over it. This was actually a surprise to the creators; much of the humor planned for the show was going to be Fry failing to fit in with the world of the 31st century, but when they realized that Fry was adjusting so well they had to switch to other joke vectors quicker than anticipated.

* ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'': In "Zero LARP Thirty", Linda is a fan of the period drama "Winthorpe Manor" and says she was born in the wrong century. She changes her mind when she participates in a "Winthorpe Manor" LARP as a maid and sees how bad life was for most people.

* ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbean'': Jack Sparrow is a skillset variant. He's the best marksman in the series, frequently making improbable shots, but lives in a time where the number of shots you have is equal to the number of guns you're carrying.

* Peter Mannion in ''Series/TheThickOfIt'' is essentially an old-school Tory who's career has lasted long enough to see him almost, but not quite, completely left behind by the media savvy, image-conscious, management-speak-bullshit infused nonsense his party has evolved into. He's clung on just enough to not quite be entirely irrelevant, but he also makes no secret about the fact that he hates almost everything and everyone about the party he's a member of.

Or maybe the character is an inventor ahead of their time who just can't convince anyone that their crazy ideas could make a benefit for mankind, or a sci-fi buff who only wishes that all those stories about spaceships and flying cars were real, or a subculture waiting for the time when [[TheWorldIsNotReady the world will be ready]] for them.

* An interesting case of the Austrians/Austro-Hungarians is how their Empire was both seen as both backward and progressive for its time. The multinational, multicultural nature of the pre-UsefulNotes/WorldWarI monarchy would have looked much more in place during the days of feudalism or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...just as it would fit very much in 21st-century Europe, where many countries have multicultural immigrant communities. Since the end of the monarchy, the Habsburg family has been in strong support of European peace, UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion, and [[UnitedEurope European integration]].[[note]]Otto von Habsburg, the heir apparent at the time the Empire fell (his father Charles having taken the throne in 1916), went to Bavaria and pushed the Christian Social Union to endorse Europe; he served as a Member of the European Parliament 1979-1999, where he repeatedly brought up his ancestors' Empire--or rather, his father's reformist vision for it--as a guidepost for integration of the whole continent. His son has done the same in Austria.[[/note]]