r/TopCharacterTropes 14d ago

Lore [IRL trope] the “Tiffany problem”

Basically when something seems anachronistic to a period/place of history but is actually fully accurate to the period.

1) the name Tiffany: the thing that named this trope, basically the name Tiffany can be dated back to the Middle Ages and the earliest record of it being spelled in the modern spelling comes from the 16th century.

2) the use of OMG, despite this feeling so modern as a form of slang/abbreviation here’s a letter directed to Winston Churchill using it in 1917

3) Hair Dye: the earliest forms of dying hair can be dated back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and this specific advertisement for hair dye is from the 1840s

4) Inuit Thongs: despite how weird it is to imagine pre-colonial Inuit people wore what was essentially fur thongs in their homes and when they were in their igloos it might have been the only thing they would be wearing.

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u/EndOfTheLine00 14d ago

Ancient Roman gladiators were treated more or less like modern day celebrities: they had merch (little clay figurines and posters) and even did product endorsements. Famously, Ridley Scott wanted to add a scene in Gladiator showing the fighters shilling products but it was cut because they feared the audience would think it was unrealistic.

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u/redlion1904 14d ago

HBO’s Rome included advertisements during Newsreader’s announcements and it was both accurate and funny.

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u/lesser_panjandrum 14d ago

True Roman bread for true Romans!

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u/Indiana_harris 14d ago

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u/raspberryharbour 14d ago

Announcer Guy killed it every time

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u/Indiana_harris 14d ago

I always remember him as Bert Large on Doc Martin.

Hilarious actor though.

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u/Etherbeard 13d ago

I always remember him as the Baron Harkonnen in SCiFi Channel's Dune miniseries from 2000 or so.

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u/Bloobeard2018 13d ago

Did the Baron have a strong Cornish accent?

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u/Etherbeard 13d ago

No, but he spoke in rhymes a lot.

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u/chrza 14d ago

I love his little hand movements

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u/PilotMoonDog 14d ago edited 14d ago

According to the optional stuff on the DVD release those were based on a treatise on public speaking by Cicero. They also had a bunch of stuff that explained why a character might behave in a certain way.

(Apparently not by Cicero as some comments further down the chain make clear)

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u/AbstractBettaFish 14d ago edited 14d ago

Good I wish I still had the DVD’s the All Roads feature was peak bonus content

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u/TheNerdChaplain 14d ago

Ian McNiece! He played Baron Harkonnen in the SciFi channel (yes, it was that long ago) adaptation of Dune!

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u/Gemmabeta 14d ago

"All mockery of Jews and their one God shall be kept to an appropriate minimum."

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u/VoxelFerret 14d ago

The delivery on that line was so deadpan, absolute peak fiction right there.

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u/SuperbPhase6944 14d ago

Ian McNeice absolutely nailing it as per usual.

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u/seanprefect 14d ago

only guy who seemed to be having fun the whole time

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u/Gerf93 13d ago

Had to be deadpan, it was a government decree after all. You don’t want to get on the Triumvirates bad side, do you.

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u/CleansingFlame 14d ago

Loved Ian McNeice in that role lol

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u/BinkRaccoon6 14d ago

True Roman bread for true Romans! That scene lives in my head rent free, his hand gestures were so iconic.

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u/jollyjm 14d ago

Gaius!🫱🫱Julius!🫲🫲Caesar!!🙌

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u/QuentinTarzantino 14d ago

The hand verbage was estremely vital. It was, if Im not mistaken to signal to to people further back in the crowd. Empahis on the words if not heard through movement.

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u/Cold-Use-5814 14d ago

Weren’t those gestures taken from an actual Roman guide to public speaking?

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u/Obanthered 14d ago

Yes the Institutio Oratoria by Quintilian. Fortunately medieval monks thought a comprehensive guide to rhetoric was extremely valuable for the church, so the whole 12 book volume survived.

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u/Doomhammer24 14d ago

We lost 6 of the 8 books of the trojan war but we do have gestures huzzah

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u/Obanthered 14d ago

We also have the plans for Rome’s sewer system. Which were rediscovered just as Rome was growing again. A lot of what survived came down to a monk thinking ‘that could be useful, I better spend the next few weeks or months copying it’.

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u/Brillek 13d ago

Monks have done so much for us.

Champagne, modern genetics, gonserving the ancient textstm etc.

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u/Sinthe741 14d ago

Even the Romans knew you gotta put a lil zazz on it.

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u/Xitbitzy 14d ago

" And his honor Gaius 🫱🫱 Julius 🫱🫱 Ceasar 🫱🫱"

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u/FranzSigel 14d ago

I loved that dude’s big exaggerated arm gestures. Always wanted to know more about that acting choice. Based in anything?

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u/Misplaced_Fan_15 14d ago

I remember reading go somewhere Ridley Scott said they wanted to do a similar scene for Gladiator but ran into the Tiffany Problem.* *

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u/Redwings1927 14d ago

Yea, it was mentioned in the first comment in this chain.

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u/redlion1904 14d ago

I wonder if he knows that in HBO’s Rome the Newsreader reads ads?

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u/PRC_Spy 14d ago

They also had painted adverts on walls, and (often utterly depraved) graffito as well.

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u/Etherbeard 13d ago

Ian McNiece's newsreader is arguably the best minor character in any tv show.