Unintentional Period Piece cleanup

Well, Comic-Book Time mostly exists to suspend the passage of time in regards to characters aging or changing irreversibly.

Theoretically, a series that uses Comic-Book Time can also be UPP, as long as it tries to also cast the present day of the stories as a "timeless" setting (while failing at it).

I think DC Comics in the Silver Age would be an example of UPP, as they tried to avoid tying the stories too much into real world trends, but nonetheless felt a LOT like products of their time.

On the other hand, I think Marvel Comics was never UPP, because like the Simpsons they were quite intentional in using events like the Space Race, the Vietnam War, campus protests, etc. The intention was something like "the Marvel Universe is the world outside your window right now, but with superheroes."

I think the Simpsons is similar: "We're satirizing society as it exists NOW".

Edited by renenarciso2 on Apr 27th 2024 at 6:02:54 AM

I support cutting UnintentionalPeriodPiece.Home Alone 1

I've cut the "Kevin's dad reads a book" entry for now.

The only other dedicated work subpage is UnintentionalPeriodPiece.Calvin And Hobbes.

Removed Unintentional Period Piece for Rear Window.

Miracle of miracles, Calvin and Hobbes actually has some good ones that could maket the cut:

• A few of the '80s strips have Calvin referencing VC Rs and records, commenting on New Wave Music fashion trends, comparing his dad to Gene Siskel, or a couple of Cold War references. The comic books that Calvin devours are clearly from the Dark Age of the medium's history.

• At least two strips have references to Satanism, referencing the Satanic Panic that was sweeping the United States at the time that the comic was running (Calvin, of course, is trying his best to get himself into it, but as a sheltered six-year old he doesn't have any luck).

• While this strip from 1986 still has some punch as a general anti-war message, the two immediately "killing" each other has lost some weight since the end of Mutually Assured Destruction. Then there's Calvin dubbing Hobbes "the loathsome Godless Communist oppressor".

This is all stuff that seems to be more iconic 1980s things, instead of "THIS ISN'T THE 2010s/2020s!!!" And would arguably make the "timeless" Calvin and Hobbes not so timeless.

Of course, we also have a whole subsection full of the mandatory "not having the Internet" misuse.

Also, lots of misuse mentioning appliances and stuff that could as well have come from the 1950s to the 1970s, as this poster admits:

• This also applies to many of the general aesthetics of the strip's setting, which intended a broad late-twentieth century feel that somewhat dates the strip even more because it often references entities and conventions which were much more prevalent during the 50s to 70s when Watterson himself was a kid, and would still be recognizable to many readers during the strip's original run from the '85 to '95, but are now lost on most 21st century readers due to having slipped into obscurity since then.

"Not 21st century" doesn't make something an UPP. because it doesn't date it to any specific time period. Something that could come from the 1950s to the 1970s, in a comic strip that was produced from the 1980s to the 1990s, is clear evidence of the strip NOT looking like a product of its time. It's actually more a case of Two Decades Behind that enhances its timelessness.

I posted that UnintentionalPeriodPiece.Special Cases was getting long in the too long pages and it was brought up that the page needs to be cleaned before it gets split. There's a lot of violations of "Good Examples Are Not General" on the page, many "this politician existed at the time and now doesn't" for clearly era-set media, "this video game was made with the tech/games of the time," and several "this happened before the modern era and so is clearly unintentionally timed" when the things referenced were valid for the time.

This is a long project and I'm not sure where to start.

ETA: For example, there's this:

How dare a game released in the early 2000s not have data on games from the future!

Edited by Nethilia on Apr 30th 2024 at 8:59:05 AM

Since I added the one for The Blue-Nosed Witch in the first place, I've moved it and cleaned up the book's YMMV page. I also removed Rear Window from the long page.

ETA: Also did the same for Soul Train. Should something also be done about the fact that Present Day weirdly has items for the 20s through the 50s in a separate section?

Edited by Nethilia on Apr 30th 2024 at 9:29:45 AM

Cut them all. Cut them all with extreme prejudice.

By the way, Present Day has this strange, even bizarre sentence: The goal with stories being set in the Present Day is to appeal to audiences of today, instead of audiences of past or future generations.

WTF?

First, this assumes, for some reason, that people from past generations don't enjoy works set in 2024. So, as a Gen-Xer, I must find any works set in the present day unappealing? is that it?

Second, how many directors think I'm not doing this movie for the audiences of today, I'll do it for the future generations!. Nicolas Roeg, I suppose? And even so, I doubt Roeg was thinking shallowly in terms of what time period his movies were set in.

Edited by renenarciso2 on May 1st 2024 at 9:38:28 AM

That part needs to burn in a fire.

I've cut it.

I know there are arguments that people just don’t read trope descriptions, but what do you folks think of this quick checklist to be added to Unintentional Period Piece?

• It must be unintentional. Works that are purposefully set in the time they were made, works that have many references to specific events of their day, works that aim to show how people of today act as compared to people of earlier generations, or works that exist solely to make fun of specific trends of today are very likely to be intentional.

• The work must look like a deliberate exaggeration of the time it was made, just as if it were a period piece made by future generations. It’s not enough if the work has just a couple of elements that “date” it, like a single haircut, or a single reference to a politician or celebrity of the day. It must have multiple such elements, causing the work as a whole to look like a period piece.

• The work must look like a product of its specific time. It’s not enough for the work to have outdated elements. For instance, not having laptops, smartphones, or the Internet can make a work appear non-contemporary, but it doesn’t tie it to a specific time period, since mankind didn’t have those things for a long time. However, if the work has elements that are culturally tied to a specific time, like brick cellphones and VC Rs, it might be an Unintentional Period Piece, as long as there is a lot of such elements (see 2, above). Likewise, pre-21st century lax security at airports and schools isn’t enough to tie a work to a specific time period.

• These period-specific elements must be culturally tied to a specific time period such that many reasonably informed viewers would notice it. Period-specific elements that depend on highly-specialized knowledge are out.

• These elements must be real world cultural trends and elements. A work can’t be classified as a Unintentional Period Piece based solely on in-universe trivia. For instance, a superhero team line-up whose membership consists of characters that were active only at that time period isn’t an UPP. A RPG manual that contains monsters that were a part of the game only at that time period also isn’t an UPP. They can be UPP if the superheroes or monsters in question bring to mind cultural trends of that time period.

Edited by renenarciso2 on May 1st 2024 at 11:59:29 AM

Looks good.

Its very long. Like, i cant imagine the kinds of people who are responsible for misuse caring enough to read through all that.

Plus, im not sure if such a drastic addition to the description is allowed like that. At least, not without taking it through the Description improvement thread.

Isn't this just a lengthened version of post #33?

I mean, if they don't wanna read and just plop things down, that's when someone monitoring the page goes in and removes it and explains why. "They won't read it and will do it anyways" is their problem.

I'm gonna start slicing and dicing the special cases page bit by bit; I have a TLP to launch first.

I was able to fix up the Present Day page. Also added something about how the media should be clear that it's stating or showing it's the present day so it doesn't go Chairs. After all, quite a few media properties are gonna be set in the time they're released.

Yeah, I wasn't aware of it, but post #33 summed it up very nicely, repeating it here:

• Not Unintentional - The media is a deliberate period piece, or is already explicitly set in the time period that it represents
• Easily Predictable - The example deals with something that will predictably become dated (for example, an elected politician will leave office eventually, so "X is mentioned to be the President" is not a valid example)
• Too Broad - The example deals with something that spans a range of time too wide to be considered period-specific
• Too Minor - The dated element is not noteworthy enough to pin the work as a whole as representative of its era
• Not Obsolete - The supposedly dated element is still plausible today (people still go to libraries, companies still make brand new non-smartphones)
• Technology Marches On - Examples that deal with technology that is now outdated yet is treated as normal within the context of the work falls under this trope instead

I'd add these bullets:

• In-Universe Only - The dated element pertains to in-universe trivia only. Such as a superteam line-up or the kinds of Pokemon it features.
• Negative Examples - Lacking cellphones, lacking the Internet, lacking strict security at airports. A period can't be defined by lacking stuff that would only appear later.

My idea would be to add this very visual list to the description of Unintentional Period Piece, also as a tool to quickly justify deletions. I don't know if this thread is the right place to suggest this kind of stuff, though.

There's a reason the trope is called Unintentional Period Piece, not Retroactive Period Piece. Misuse needs to be cut. Retroactive Period Piece would be Chairs at best.

Edited by Nen_desharu on May 1st 2024 at 10:19:22 AM

x8: I like your list. Can't easily think of anything that's missing.

Babylon 5:

Unintentional Period Piece:

• "Incoming message for you, Captain; it's Ambassador Mollari." "Londo? [snorts] Probably calling Collect." (Still funny, though.)

Well, that was one joke. Don't think it makes the entire series an UPP, or even that one episode.

• Zathras proclaiming that he is "trained in crisis management." Buzzwords like that were common in the 90s workplace.

Ditto above, not to mention that this sort of lingo isn't completely unheard even nowadays.

• The Zima ad in the background of T.K.O. was purposely put in there by as a gag. He said he would be amazed if Zima still existed in the 21st Century, let alone the 23rd. (It actually did—briefly.)

Admitedly done as a gag, and so intentional.

This wall of text example regards the Arrowverse:

Arrowverse: References to 2010 pop culture aside (starting from the first episode of Arrow that makes jokes about Lost) and then-president Obama, followed by the sister show The Flash (2014) featuring a nerd among the main cast who regularly references The Big Bang Theory), the building blocks of the shows draw inspiration from the books DC Comics were putting out at the time and the general tone DC's editorial were pushing. Arrow is a Darker and Edgier adaptation that focuses on a Younger and Hipper 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 Younger and Hipper Barry Allen (who was resurrected a few years prior and took lead focus away from his successor Wally West) and has his The Flash: Rebirth backstory, while the extended Flash Family Demoted to Extra or unadapted (they were Exiled from Continuity at the time to maintain sole focus on Barry). All of this would become awkward within their own lifetimes, as DC Rebirth 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 Infinite Frontier 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 The Artifact of the time it was created as a result.

Everything after the first 3 lines is about in-universe trivia, more or less they're saying that TV shows based on DC Comics adapted the comic stories from that period of time, but there is nothing about any of those things that is necessarily a cultural quirk of the 2010s. Younger and Hipper, for instance, isn't a 2010s thing. And I'm not too sure even about the first 3 lines. There are some jokes throughout the series about Lost, Twilight, etc. that DO date the show, but I'm not sure those kinds of jokes are prevalent enough. In any case, jokes about what Oliver missed while he was trapped in an island are valid for UPP, but other references... not so much. Felicity makes a joke about Babylon 5 in a later season, so you see, nerds can make jokes about older shows, so character-jokes-about-TV-show isn't necessarily dating it to a specific time.

Edited by renenarciso2 on May 4th 2024 at 12:25:05 PM

Yeah, the list seems like a good idea.

This is the only example on YMMV.Teen Titans Go S 5 E 52 Teen Titans Roar:

• Unintentional Period Piece: This episode is a spoof of the ThunderCats Roar controversy that occurred in 2018. Thanks to Production Lead Time and Schedule Slip, this episode didn't premiere until April 2020. This caused the episode to be dated immediately when it came out, as the hatedom for ThunderCats Roar was beginning to die off, with the show's low viewership causing it to be cancelled seven months later.

It hasn't been 10 years. Easy cut.

We might take another look come 2030.