'Zup, Caesar!

'zup, Caesar!

Linguistic Anachronisms in Contemporary Movies and TV Shows

A pet peeve of mine: in producing so-called "period pieces," why on earth would the filmmakers spend millions assuring that the sets, costumes, cars, and other details are appropriate for the time frame yet at the same time spend not one cent getting the language right? A glaring example is the most recent version of The Great Gatsby, which not only got the music wrong-- hip hop in place of "the jazz age"-- the characters sounded as if they just stepped out of a Starbucks. That's just one example of many. Even a current show I admire-- Halt and Catch Fire--takes place in the 1980s, but the characters. all brilliantly defined and portrayed, on occasion use expressions from 2016.

Why can't the writers and directors get the expressions accurate for the time frame depicted? Is it indolence keeping them from properly researching the era, or is it sheer pandering to a youthful audience which, incidentally, often prides itself upon having no concept of history? E.g.: "He's like 'World War II?' And I'm like 'why should I care about that? It's before I was born!"

Weigh in on this, my fellow NitLetters. Or as a Tweeter might say in one of today's Biblical movies--IMHO. . .

You appear not to have noticed, Auntie, but civilisation has collapsed around our ankles. If it's not steampunk, its mainstream fascism taking over the globe, because all politicians have been bought and paid for and the electorate has become an irrelevance. Worrying about the great gatsby breakdancing, waving a miller light and vaping whilst screaming wazzaaap? Is the least of our worries. If you want to save the world, shoot a politician. But try and find out who owns them first, because you'll have to take out their corporate sponsor next.

Thank you for caring, Aunty, but I think we're the only two. The odious Dowton Abbey featured a vast host of linguistic anachronisms. Mention them to the series' fans and they treat you like an enemy; mention them to its detractors and they consider you suspect just for knowing about them.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RzY4ieghO0w

I just saw American Graffiti tonight. I think they got the cars right for the early 1960's time period. But if they went too much further back than that I wouldn't know if they got it right or not.

You have a good discussion topic here, Aunty, but I don't think the recent Great Gatsby is a good example, as the "wrong" music and speech you cite are actually deliberate choices by director Baz Luhrmann. He did much the same in his Moulin Rouge, also using sign titles and lyrics in the dialogue. He did something of the reverse in his Romeo + Juliet, where he transplanted Shakespeare's dialogue word for word into a modern setting.

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Originally Posted by YesNo

I just saw American Graffiti tonight. I think they got the cars right for the early 1960's time period. But if they went too much further back than that I wouldn't know if they got it right or not.

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Yer auntie is so damned old she's able to notice such things. I do enjoy movies from before my time (i.e. before I was born as well as reaching the age of so-called "reason"),such as are shown on Turner Classics and Fox Movie Channel. The dialogue seems to be more accurate for the specific time frame in movies of that era as opposed to today, as far as I can tell.

And on a related topic, the regional accent used by actresses in those 30s and 40s movies was completely synthetic-- a combination of pronunciations from upper class East Coast Americans blended with a vaguely British accent. The speech was dubbed (no pun intended) "Mid-Atlantic" as it's geographic origin could only have been the middle of the ocean. That piece of trivia from American culture tickles me-- it's so typical of American upwardly mobile desire.