Dear X-Men: First Class fandom,
I know you love the 1960s. I love the 1960s, too. It was a fun decade. Here's the thing: if you are setting your fic within the timeframe of the movie, we're specifically talking 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in October 1962. Now, I'm well aware the film played rather fast and loose with actual history, and this is probably not the place to nitpick. And I'm going to flat out ignore all the ridiculous kinkmeme requests for things like Charles and Erik posing as a married couple in order to be able to adopt a child (I have actually seen this one, and it wasn't requested as an AU, which, just -- do you even know what US adoption laws in the PRESENT DAY look like?), or getting groovy in a club to Lady Gaga. Because crack!AUs absolutely have their place, and that's fine, whatever floats your boat.
But I'm halfway through an otherwise well-written recruitment roadtrip fic, and I've already been jarred out of it by multiple blatant anachronisms that I was able to double-check in approximately five seconds each on Wikipedia. Look, we're not all experts on life in the US in 1962. God knows I'm not. We're all likely to commit minor errors, and okay, no biggie. But seriously, when it's obvious enough that a non-period-expert-by-any-stretch is pulled right out of your story -- mrf. This is what betas are for. This is what stopping and thinking and doing a quick internet search are for. And, sure, you can fudge things, but none of these were crucial plot elements, just throwaway references, and all it would have taken was a tiny tweak and hey, we're all good.
I don't in any way mean to pick on this one unnamed fic in particular, and otherwise it really is well-written. Which is probably why I am so annoyed, actually -- if it were just sloppy writing all around, I wouldn't care. But this rant has been building for a while, and this came along just in time to be my outlet.
For the record:
1. Yes, the Beatles were playing actively in 1960-2. Mostly in Germany, a bit in England. Their first hit single in the UK was "Love Me Do", released in October 1962. Would our First Classmen have heard of the Beatles? Sure, that's within the realm of possibility. Would the Beatles be playing nonstop on their car radios in the US? Nope. Especially not before October, if we're assuming the roadtrip was more than a week before the beach scene, which I think we can, and even then they didn't really make it onto US airwaves until 1963.
2. "Hippies", as a subculture, did exist by 1962. But that term would not be created by the popular media until the mid-60s, and Charles certainly wouldn't use it in an offhand reference in 1962. "Beatniks" would be a far more likely word to choose.
3. I'm a little hazier on this one, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but while "credit cards" did already exist, they were much rarer and not used in the way they are today. Charles wouldn't slap down his credit card at the airport and have it be declined. That's a much more modern (in)convenience. ETA: I stand corrected -- it's possible he would use a card like this, though uncommon.
4. Cirque de Soleil DID NOT EXIST until the 1980s. No excuse here. Why could this not just be a generic circus?
5. Grey Goose vodka, by that name, was not marketed until 1997. Patrón tequila, 1989. Five seconds on Wikipedia to check that.
Yours in obsessive nitpickiness,
kaydee
I know you love the 1960s. I love the 1960s, too. It was a fun decade. Here's the thing: if you are setting your fic within the timeframe of the movie, we're specifically talking 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in October 1962. Now, I'm well aware the film played rather fast and loose with actual history, and this is probably not the place to nitpick. And I'm going to flat out ignore all the ridiculous kinkmeme requests for things like Charles and Erik posing as a married couple in order to be able to adopt a child (I have actually seen this one, and it wasn't requested as an AU, which, just -- do you even know what US adoption laws in the PRESENT DAY look like?), or getting groovy in a club to Lady Gaga. Because crack!AUs absolutely have their place, and that's fine, whatever floats your boat.
But I'm halfway through an otherwise well-written recruitment roadtrip fic, and I've already been jarred out of it by multiple blatant anachronisms that I was able to double-check in approximately five seconds each on Wikipedia. Look, we're not all experts on life in the US in 1962. God knows I'm not. We're all likely to commit minor errors, and okay, no biggie. But seriously, when it's obvious enough that a non-period-expert-by-any-stretch is pulled right out of your story -- mrf. This is what betas are for. This is what stopping and thinking and doing a quick internet search are for. And, sure, you can fudge things, but none of these were crucial plot elements, just throwaway references, and all it would have taken was a tiny tweak and hey, we're all good.
I don't in any way mean to pick on this one unnamed fic in particular, and otherwise it really is well-written. Which is probably why I am so annoyed, actually -- if it were just sloppy writing all around, I wouldn't care. But this rant has been building for a while, and this came along just in time to be my outlet.
For the record:
1. Yes, the Beatles were playing actively in 1960-2. Mostly in Germany, a bit in England. Their first hit single in the UK was "Love Me Do", released in October 1962. Would our First Classmen have heard of the Beatles? Sure, that's within the realm of possibility. Would the Beatles be playing nonstop on their car radios in the US? Nope. Especially not before October, if we're assuming the roadtrip was more than a week before the beach scene, which I think we can, and even then they didn't really make it onto US airwaves until 1963.
2. "Hippies", as a subculture, did exist by 1962. But that term would not be created by the popular media until the mid-60s, and Charles certainly wouldn't use it in an offhand reference in 1962. "Beatniks" would be a far more likely word to choose.
3. I'm a little hazier on this one, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but while "credit cards" did already exist, they were much rarer and not used in the way they are today. Charles wouldn't slap down his credit card at the airport and have it be declined. That's a much more modern (in)convenience. ETA: I stand corrected -- it's possible he would use a card like this, though uncommon.
4. Cirque de Soleil DID NOT EXIST until the 1980s. No excuse here. Why could this not just be a generic circus?
5. Grey Goose vodka, by that name, was not marketed until 1997. Patrón tequila, 1989. Five seconds on Wikipedia to check that.
Yours in obsessive nitpickiness,
kaydee
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