Movies, Theatre, Television And Books

Well, not really.  But, if they did it would be an anachronism.  Whoa!  Big word there fella, do you really know what it means.  Um, well yes I do, and I know what an anachronism, thanks to our friend the wristwatch wearing caveman.  Anachronism is one of those big words you have to learn in English class, and for some reason it was an easy one for me, right up there with alliteration.  But, that’s a story for another day.  I think, the reason I remember so vividly what an anachronism is has to do with a story someone told me to help explain it.  I do like a story, and if I can visualize something it’s much easier for me to learn.  I think it was my dad that told me the story.

We all of course know, that an anachronism is the placement of a person, place, thing or idea into a time period in which it doesn’t belong.  Imagine if you will, that your watching a movie about the dawn of civilization.  You know, volcanoes, dinosaurs, caveman, and pterodactyls flying around all over the place.  During this movie, you a few of the hero caveman main characters wander into the encampment of some neighbouring caveman.  Well, the neighbouring caveman don’t appreciate this intrusion, and amongst all the grunting, posturing and waving about of caveman clubs, a fight starts out.  Well just as the fight get’s going really good, and your quite enthralled by the whole scene, your hero caveman is punched one of the bad guy cavemen, and as his fist flys across the screen, you notice a Cartier replica wristwatch on his wrist.  Hang on you think, that’s not right.  I mean, first of all where would a caveman go to buy replica Cartier watches in the first place?  As your suspension of disbelief is slowly being eroded, you start to wonder, does this caveman have a whole collection of watches at home on his dresser?  Of course not, but it’s kind of funny to think about isn’t it?

Now, if the above movie was meant to be funny, then the scene works, but if is supposed to be a serious caveman move like “Quest For Fire”, than someone messed up big time.  I mean, there are some movie where anachronism works beautifully as comedy.  Take for instance the ever so popular comic series the Flinstones.  Betty and Wilma have some of the nicest modern appliances around.  Fred has a car, albeit a little behind on the technical side being foot powered and all.  But a car none the less.  And of course, everyone knows that caveman and dinosaurs didn’t walk on the earth at the same time.  If you were paying attention, you would have caught that little extra anachronism in my previous example.

Did you ever see the kids movie cartoon Aladdin?  Robin Williams plays the part of the genie, and there’s one particularly hilarious scene where he jumps around all over the place as different characters or makes reference to certain characters like Tarzans Cheetah, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ed Sullivan, Groucho Marx, Gomer Pyle, Peter Lorre, Robert Dinheiro, and an airline stewardess.  Of course none of those characters would exist in Arabian times.  So, now you know what a movie anachronism is.  And the answer to whether cavemen wear watches or not is . . . “it depends”.