The Victory project being modelled after the 1950s makes sense with how in that time period, wives were expected to stay home, cook, and take care of their husbands while their husbands went to work. In the real world, Alice is the one who works while Jack stays at home. Yet despite the 30 hour shifts Alice works, Jack still expects her to cook instead of doing it himself. In a sense, it's like Jack rejects the real world's values for the old fashioned values of the 1950s.
None of the real men in Victory are there to work; they're there to enjoy their leisure time with their "chosen wives". The trolley driver (along with the waiters, shopkeepers, etc.) isn't a person, he's a program. He isn't being stubborn and uncaring when he refuses to come with Alice when she goes to investigate a crashed plane, he literally cannot leave his designated route. Also, as a program, he might well not be programmed to "see" the plane, either.
Alice barely hesitates to go out into the desert to help the downed plane because she's a surgeon and is therefore used to helping people in high-pressure situations.
The Reveal does offer an indirect explanation for some of things about Victory that aren't consistent with Real Life 1950s America:
While all of the characters drink, very few of them smoke, which would have been unusual for the 1950s, where smoking rates peaked at 45%.
All the food we see being cooked looks appetizing and isn't too outlandish - bacon and eggs for breakfast, steak and veggies for dinner, etc. In Real Life, the 1950s had food trends like hors d'oeuvres consisting of vegetables suspended in gelatin and desserts like blancmange.
The intensely polished look of Victory feels much more reminiscent of a Fifties-themed magazine ad by Tom Ford rather than say, a candid snapshot from a new suburb somewhere in California.
Victory's racial egalitarianism would be quite out of place in 1950s America. You might initially explain it away as a founding principle that sets it apart from the "chaos" of regular society, but if so, you'd think Frank would point it out at some point, given how novel it would be. Instead, it's simply a product of that fact that the community was founded on outdated gender roles rather than racism.
Also there was a woman at Frank's pool party who seemed to be fully topless. Even if she wasn't, she and several of the other guests were definitely in bikinis. Bikinis did exist in the Fifties, but they were controversial and scandalous, not the sort of thing that multiple respectable suburban housewives would wear to a neighborhood pool party without comment.
Early on, Doctor Collins mentions "Keep Calm and Carry On", citing it as a popular British phrase. While the quote originated as an unreleased motivational poster in wartime Britain, the phrase did not become widely used until its rediscovery in the 2000s and subsequent status as a Memetic Mutation.
Jack's accent raises some questions about how he ended up in Victory. He sounds like someone from a relatively working-class background somewhere in The Midlands. While the late 1950s and 1960s were a time when higher education was becoming more accessible to people from working-class backgrounds, Jack would have still been pretty unusual amongst his male peers to go to university to study the sort of technical degree he would need to work on "progressive materials", either in Britain or emigrating to the States to do it. Most of his peers would probably have left school at 15 or 16 to work in manufacturing or to take up a trade apprenticeship.
The women's clothes, hair and makeup follow the modern 'vintage inspired' fashion, rather than being authentic 1950s looks. There are also no full petticoats or girdles, and the only undergarments Alice wears are underpants. She also doesn't do wet sets for her hair. The men who create this fantasy wouldn't consider what went on behind the scenes to make those beautiful looks they see in the old photos.
One of the women is heavily pregnant and never progresses or gives birth. It could be that her "husband" fetishizes pregnancy, and is in the simulation so that he can have a pregnant wife without worrying about the inevitable responsibilities of raising children.
In the flashback to Jack's interview with Dr. Collins, he is applicant 426. It could be that Frank and Collins inflated their numbers to make it sound like the Victory Project had more interest than it actually did.
Fridge Horror
When the real world's Jack is signing himself and Alice up for the Victory project, he is casually asked whether their relationship is "pre-existing". Though Jack and Alice were already together before the simulation, it's highly likely many of the women in Victory are not romantically involved with or even know their "husbands" in the real world. Some of these men are not abusive or possessive partners like Jack, but outright kidnappers.
There are no real children in Victory, and all of the sex - being a computer simulation - will never result in any. All of the children are created for a specific reason as a part of the fantasy. The only one of those reasons that's even close to positive are Bunny's children, who were created because of her grief over her children's death in the real world. Frank and Shelley's children are (their idea of) perfect status symbols. Peg's perpetual pregnancies may be because a perpetually-pregnant wife and/or a passel of kids might be part of her "husband's" Fifties fantasy, or it may be an outright Baby Trap to keep her under control. Since she was one of the first to shake off the illusion once Alice broke it and to push her husband away when she did, she may be one of the stronger women in real life. When Jack suggests having a baby to Alice, it's almost certainly to bind her more tightly to himself and the illusion.
When we get a glimpse of the real world, we see Alice cuffed to her bed. Hopefully, she did not wake up to find herself still cuffed next to Jack's dead body. For that matter, even if she has woken up, how is she going to be able to free herself from her imprisonment and raise the alarm?
Considering how the men don't have to be in a pre-existing relationship with their chosen wife, what are the odds that at least one of them is actually a lesbian and this was the man's attempt to "cure the gay"?
In the opening, Shelley announces on the radio that it is day 987 of the Victory Project. Unless Frank greatly inflated the numbers to make it seem like it's been going on longer than it actually has, just how long have all these women been missing?
