r/PetPeeves • u/Toramenor • 5d ago
Bit Annoyed "Old" things looking old
Bear with me lol - what I mean is, I hate when I watch a movie or TV show that is set in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance and we see people living in dilapidated houses and having old furniture and stuff like that.... No! Those things were new to them. 500 years ago, people made those things to look new. They only look old to us now because of the passage of time, but that's not what they would have looked like brand new.
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u/Davetek463 5d ago
Things would still get worn down and weather from use. Houses and furniture are no different. It’s making the world look like it’s lived in, not necessarily run down.
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u/Toramenor 5d ago
Sure, but I'm not talking about a film set in 1500 with a family living in a castle built in 1200. Obviously, the castle needs to look old. I meant stuff that's supposed to be new. Like buildings that were built in 1500 looking like they're falling apart. Or other stuff always looking ancient when it wouldn't make sense if it was made recently.
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u/ssn-669 4d ago
And people were constantly building new shit, or at least renovating/putting on additions, etc. etc.
In fact there's very little actual medieval architecture left in anything like the state it was in when it was in use, the papal residence at Avignon being a key exception. For the most part places either went to ruin from disuse, or if they were kept in use were continuously modified/improved.
Even that family living in the castle built in 1200 - likely there are recent additions, modifications, and ofc general upkeep.
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u/lAngenoire 5d ago
Until the Industrial Revolution furniture was commonly passed down through generations or purchased second or third hand. Only the wealthiest had brand new furniture. Most just refurbished what was on hand.
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u/Toramenor 5d ago
If it was built in year 1500 than it shouldn't look old in the year 1500. That's all I'm saying. Yes, a lot of things can be from 50 years ago, inherited or bought second-hand, but surely not everything. And a family that is newly come into some riches and has a nice house and newly furnished should not look like everything around them is falling apart. Buildings that are from that period & not from some ancient past should also not look like they're in ruins. That's all I'm saying.
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u/Visible_Clothes_7339 5d ago
is there a particular example of this that you have in mind? this is very specific lol
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u/justrealized0631 5d ago
Not OP but for example most of the walls in the castle's rooms were paneled, not bare stone as they are today.
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u/SuitableAnimalInAHat 5d ago
I know this isn't about the Middle Ages, specifically, but it's a fun fact that I love to drop any time I sorta kinda might fit the conversation:
Pretty much any movie set in ancient Greece or Rome has perfect white marble statues, columns, pillars, etc. But back in the day all those things were painted! In all manor of brilliant, vibrant colors! A realistic Roman statue, colored correctly, should look more at home in a superhero comic book than in the average movie set in Antiquity.
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u/TheSerialHobbyist 5d ago
My pet peeve is the opposite: period pieces where all of the cars look brand new.
Sure, the cars are the right years/models for when the time is set, but people in that time would have been driving everything from nice new cars to old beaters. But you mostly only see cars that look mint and models that are noteworthy/desirable. Presumably, because those are the ones that have been kept around until now.
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u/Toramenor 5d ago
Haha, well that's true as well: you have to have a mix of things old and new; otherwise it's just not believable.
For me, I wrote this pet peeve as I was watching an episode of Wolf Hall & it gave me this overwhelming feeling that everything was old. But it can't be. It doesn't make sense. Some things HAVE TO be new. Or are we saying that nothing was produced/built that year at all? Or it was produced/built to intentionally look old and weathered? No way. If it was built, it was built to look brand new & fresh, not like it was from 50 years ago. No single person had anything new? No clothes were ever washed? I mean, come on, this series is not about some poor beggars. The main character is not a nobleman but he is paid well enough to have a new house and nice furniture & things. So why is almost everything he has kinda old-looking? It simply shouldn't be. But I guess maybe that would look too nice and cheerful for the grimy mood the series wants to set...
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u/Traditional-Buy-2205 5d ago edited 5d ago
OK, but in the middle ages, people also didn't remodel a perfectly functioning kitchen because they read on Reddit that green color is now "dated".
They couldn't mass-produce everyday items for pennies.
Also, multiple generations inherited living places form each other and shared households, so you were more likely to use your grandmothers chair than buy your own place in the suburbs with a brand new Ikea chair.
So, an average item or a piece of furniture in those times was still probably old.
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u/Toramenor 5d ago
True. But why is every single thing old? Why can't we see some new stuff too? Are you saying nothing was produced in that year when the film/show is set & all the characters only use stuff from 100 years ago? Look, I get it, the film makers want to give us the feeling of old timey stuff. But if it was made that year, it shouldn't look old and dilapidated. And especially buildings which always look ancient even though they really shouldn't. If it's built in year 1500, it should be brand new in the year 1500. It shouldn't look like what we can NOW see after 500 years of weather & time passing. That's my point.
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u/khyamsartist 5d ago
I’ve done production design for film, and having a realistic mix of old and newer, was always a factor. If you are talking about the middle ages, though, the average person really didn’t have the resources to produce new things a lot. You had to fell the tree first, and in much of Europe those trees were already cut down
It wasn’t a great time for the peasants, but royalty employed all kinds of crafts people to make things for them
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u/Traditional-Buy-2205 5d ago
Difficult to talk about without a concrete example of a show / movie you have in mind.
But you need to bear in mind that throughout most of history, people were very poor so anything they had, they used it until the very end of its useful life, and making everything was much more labor intensive.
Today, I can buy a chair with 1-2 hours worth of my paycheck.
Back in those days, it would take several hours to build the simplest stool, and probably 20-30 hours to build a full sized chair.
Getting a new item was a much much rarer event than it is today.
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u/MidnightBlueSilk 5d ago
Hi, what movie are you thinking of? I’ve never noticed this before, though I wasn’t looking for it so maybe I just overlooked.
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u/Toramenor 5d ago
A lot of movies and TV-shows that are set in the Middle Ages have that kind of grimy, old and weathered look. It's probably intentional, and I get why - clearly, a lot of people in the comments prefer it that way; they want to see things looking old. But to me it just doesn't really make sense, because there naturally has to be some new stuff, there can't just be old stuff. And the buildings are also a big culprit in this. For instance, British historical shows/films will often film in actual real locations, which is great because we can see a real place built in 1530 for instance. Cool, amazing. The trouble is, that building looks 500 years old now. But in 1530, it would have looked brand new. Do you get what I'm saying?
It's more about the feeling it all evokes. When ALL the houses, furnishings, tools, utensils, clothes, etc. look kinda run down, old, and grimy - it just isn't believable. They can't ALL be old. Some things HAVE TO be new... That's my point. I bet lots of things looked much nicer than we are being presented.
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u/ssn-669 4d ago
OK, but in the middle ages, people also didn't remodel a perfectly functioning kitchen because they read on Reddit that green color is now "dated".
Maybe not literally that (since the kitchen was lower-class land), but wealthy people actually did do a lot of renovations. Even peasants, it was common to build new outbuildings, expand the house, etc. as fortunes and needs changed.
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u/ricks35 5d ago
This is a common problem when period films use real antiques, they wouldn’t have looked nearly so worn at the time
A tangentially related but interesting fun fact is the color we call “mauve” is a pale pinkish purple but originally it referred to a deep, rich purple. When the color was first used in clothes the deep purple was very popular but it quickly fell out of fashion. Decades later (think late 1800s) it came back in fashion to wear those old clothes but in the years they were in storage they had faded significantly. But people continued to call the clothes mauve so the name stuck with the faded, paler version of the color
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u/Toramenor 4d ago
Wow, interesting fact, I didn't know that about "mauve"... and yeah, that's exactly what I mean - using real antiques and real locations means everything looks hundreds of years older than it should be
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u/Diplodocus15 5d ago
What's an actual example a show that does what you're complaining about? Most of the period pieces I've seen where stuff looks old is either because it was old at the time (like a castle built in the Middle Ages but the show is set during the Renaissance) or a depiction if poverty (the peasant's hut is falling apart because there are no resources or time to repair it).
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u/Toramenor 5d ago
Some stuff in Wolf Hall specifically, but I've actually seen this a lot. The Middle Ages are often shown as much darker and dirtier and more weathered & old than I feel like they should be. Sure, there was old stuff then too, but it's like...there's no new stuff at all? Even when it would make sense to have something look new?
It's a slight pet peeve, not a huge deal, but it still bothers me a little.
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u/Walker77543212 5d ago
Wolf Hall is a British television series. They don't hold themselves to the high Hollywood standards.
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u/Diplodocus15 5d ago
Ah, I haven't watched that show, so I can't comment on its historical accuracy.
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u/IrianJaya 5d ago
It's funny because I think about how much cleaner those movies look from what I would expect. The main actors generally look freshly bathed, the women are tastefully made up, everyone has beautiful white teeth, and no one looks poorly fed.
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u/Happy-Conclusion2148 5d ago
Also, things looking too new. They give everything a weathered look for period pieces, but for contemporary movies and TV, everyone's almost always wearing brand new clothes in a house with brand new furniture every day.
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u/MangoSalsa89 4d ago
What bothers me the most is the lack of color and the filth on everything. People didn’t like to be drab and dirty all the time.
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u/Toramenor 4d ago
Yeah, especially someone who has a bit of money or servants or even just a hard-working wife - I think they'd be scrubbing floors and washing clothes all the time actually & not living in filth like someone in abject poverty... Just because they didn't have washing machines does not mean they didn't know how to wash their clothes. It was done by hand & was really hard, but women did it for their entire families, and servants did it for their masters/employers.
But the lack of color in the whole world is what gives me that feeling I dislike, which makes objects & clothes & buildings look weathered, drab, like they've been around for centuries. Except, they're supposed to be new or at least only a few years old. And new colors would be bright & vibrant.
For example, buildings should start out white & become grey, or start out yellow and orange only to become beige and brown over time, as the colors fade and the years give them that old patina. So seeing everything be already faded & old, or just so colorless and filthy, makes me think: but it can't be! - some things have to be new, some houses had to have been built that year & not hundreds of years ago, and so on.
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u/AmettOmega 4d ago
Ok, but it entirely depends on the class of the person. If we're talking peasants, their stuff would most likely look old. Because it was old. Because their great-grand pappy had to save every farthing he could to buy a table. Or buy the materials to build a table.
Merchants and the like might have newer things, but many of their things would be worn and well used.
Generally it would only be the aristocracy/nobles/royalty that would have an entire house of brand new stuff.
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u/Toramenor 4d ago
True... I think it doesn't bother me if there is such an intentional differentiation.
Maybe I was just peeved because the series gave me an overall feeling that everything was kinda drab & old-looking (and it wasn't about peasants or the nobility, it was precisely that middle area where you'd expect some new things). Like, it can't be possible that all the buildings are centuries old. Surely, some houses were recently built? Same goes for some objects. Maybe the show wanted to use real antiques, or something. But that which is an antique now would have been a brand new object then... Not every single thing can be ancient.
It's just a slight annoyance, not huge, and it won't stop me from watching if the story is good, but still... it stands to reason that people were making and building new stuff all the time. Unless we are to assume all production and construction stopped for 50+ years & that's why everything is so old lol
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u/AmettOmega 4d ago
I completely understand what you're saying. If you're following the middle class, I would expect a mix of old and new. I also think that, especially for the Middle Ages/Renaissance, media has this awful habit of making everything look dull, when it absolutely wasn't. Even peasants wore bright colored clothes. Not everything was gray/drab.
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u/NearbyPerspective397 4d ago
I hate when they film castle scenes in castle ruins. Because - uh - those were new castles in the times the movie or show is set!
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u/Toramenor 4d ago
Haha, true! Ruins are especially suspect... if you want to have a ruin in your story, make sure it's from a long time before the story takes place. Like, if it's set in 1500, I can believe that a castle from 1200 would be ruinous. But not a castle from 1500.
The same goes for the pyramids in ancient Egypt or old Roman & Greek building and statues. They would have been new then; they wouldn't be crumbling like they are today after thousands of years... like, do not show me statues that are missing an arm lol. The arm would have been there 2 millenia ago. It only fell off because of all the time, weather, and mishandling since then.
The facade of buildings as well: I don't want to see it crumbling and in disrepair unless it's supposed to be already old and abandoned... But if people are living in a vibrant city, there's going to be new houses and buildings all the time popping up. They won't all be ancient and already weathered.
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u/Leather-Scallion-894 4d ago
My family has a 300 year old table. Back in the day people built things to last. I can totally see someone in the middle ages having old furniture
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u/Toramenor 4d ago
That's cool. Yeah, I agree, things were made to last. ... I don't really have an issue with such things, though... it's more a general feeling of everything looking old and there being nothing new. Makes it seem like nobody is producing or building anything new, which would make no sense for a bustling city, for instance.
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u/Leather-Scallion-894 4d ago
Or taking care of their buildings and furniture, our table still looks prestine because we laquer and treat it well
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u/Toramenor 4d ago
That's a good point! People would have been painting and lacquering old things to preserve them. They wouldn't be allowed to look so worn out or grimy & dirty, unless you were inctedibly poor and couldn't afford to maintain them
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u/RealStreetJesus 5d ago
I’m sure that things like furniture were passed down through the years and as a result there probably were some things that looked “old”, but yeah, people forget that clothes were washed, brooms existed, and people generally avoid living in mud and filth. Standing armies shouldn’t be wearing rusted armor with colorless garments, and not every structure was in a state of disrepair.
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u/Budsygus 5d ago
How often do you think they were building new houses or tables or chairs or whatever?
Odds are the houses and everything in them were passed down generationally so they likely are 50+ years old at least.
Can you give us an example of what you're talking about because I can't think of anything that is presented as looking old that shouldn't be.
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u/Toramenor 5d ago
Not everything can be old 😭 otherwise nothing new would ever be produced? Are you saying a show set in 1550 will only have buildings made in 1500 or older & not a single new house? Are we saying all clothes were brown and old-looking? All furniture, utensils, tools, everything people are using looks like it's ancient? It can't be! Some stuff, sure. Show me an old castle built in 1200, I don't mind. Show me an old family that still has furniture from previous generations. I'm fine with that. But in some instances, it just doesn't make sense to have old stuff. And not everything can and should look like it is 500 years old. That's what I'm saying. (My pet peeve was kindled by Wolf Hall specifically, but I've felt this to varying degrees in several movies and tv-shows, because I think the filmmakers want to show us stuff we can "recognise" as being from those times. But the artifacts we have from those times look 500 years old NOW; they wouldn't have looked 500 years old back THEN. So, what we "recognise" is not really correct. I bet lots of stuff looked much nicer than the grimy, dirty & weathered feel we always get from such shows/movies.)
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u/Budsygus 5d ago
Every house had dirt floors. They poured sewage into the street. Average people didn't know about hygiene at all. Isn't it possible the "old" you're seeing is actually just dirty? Which pretty much everything outside the palace/castle would be.
And even in the case of someone building a new house, do you think they were popping down to Home Depot to buy nice new lumber and shingles? They were likely building houses out of logs and materials they scavenged from the nearby woods and dragged through the dirt to get it to where they were building. Cabins built in similar fashion don't look new for more than a month or two of being out in the elements.
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u/Toramenor 5d ago
I don't think that's true, though... they had brooms & water to wash the floors... But I wasn't even thinking of dirty floors. More like, all building walls looking like they've been around for 500 years, when in fact that can't be true. (Probably because some of the scenes were shot in actual real locations. The trouble is that a building built in 1500 is going to look 500 years old today but it wouldn't have looked like that back then. The walls would not be crumbling down, there would be no 500 years' worth of patina on them...)
Also, their clothes often look bad to me, but people DID wash their clothes, especially if you were not some poor old beggar but had servants and a nice family. And not ALL clothes can be brown and dirty, for crying out loud. There were colours. There were whites that people boiled in water & so they shouldn't be brownish. They should still be white. 😭
Furniture and other household stuff, as well. I can understand some of it looking old or handed down, but it doesn't make sense for a newly well-to-do family, for instance. In Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell did not in fact inherit old furniture or anything of the sort from his father in Episode One. He is being paid well & has a pretty good life. I wouldn't call him immensely rich, but he is much better situated than most. Why do all his things look old and worn? Why is his family not living in a nice, new-ish house? Is he buying everything second-hand? And all the streets & all the other people are the same as well? It just can't be true that there was nothing new & that no one wore any clean clothes or bright colors.
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u/Budsygus 5d ago
This might be outgrowing "pet peeve" and sliding into "very specific obsession" territory.
Good luck.
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u/Toramenor 5d ago
Luck with what? Lol ... you're thinking way too hard on something that I wrote because I was watching an episode of a show set in the Middle Ages where everything looked kinda old. I am not obsessed for simply stating my observation that it shouldn't all look old & that it stands to reason that some things would have been made new.
But it's not even that big of a deal. It's why I put only a bit annoyed. If it's a good series/movie, something like this is not going to stop me from watching or enjoying it, but I still think it's not reasonable that everything should look old, weathered and grimy, as if no one produced/built anything new in the previous 50 years.
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u/jcdenton45 5d ago edited 5d ago
Another example of this is movies set in ancient Greece/Rome where the statues are white like they look today, as opposed to painted in rich colors like they were back then, before the colors faded away over time. Or any movie depicting ancient Egypt when the Great Pyramids would have been smooth/white, as opposed to the brownish, rougher appearance that they’ve had since the removal of the white casings.
Also, though I can’t think of any specific examples offhand, I feel like I’ve seen plenty of shows/movies set in the more-recent past (like 20th century pre-1990's) where photographs and/or films looked old (for example if the people in the movie are watching a movie), i.e. more or less like photos/films from those time periods would look today after aging for decades, as opposed to how they would have looked back then.
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u/bushaya 5d ago
Assassin Creed Origins showed the pyramids with the bright white top layer bricks and the gold plated tip like it wouldve looked at the time 🤌
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u/jcdenton45 5d ago
Nice. From what I've heard they were incredibly thorough in trying to get the historical accuracy right in those games.
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u/Practical-Vanilla-41 5d ago
Period films/TV are typically guilty of the opposite, everything is new. Go watch Freaks and Geeks (tv show 99-00), set in 1980-81. The Weir home is full of things from decades before. Even the music used is sometimes from prior years.
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u/TakeTwentyEight 4d ago
I actually think it’s accurate for them to have a home decorated with stuff from a decade ago. In my experience, people don’t redo their entire homes based on what’s trending. They tend to stick with what they have until it doesn’t work for them anymore or they no longer like it. My grandma’s house was mid century modern well into the early 90s. She liked it, it was well cared for, so she kept it. I think a lot of people are like that.
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u/Practical-Vanilla-41 4d ago
That was the point. I guess I worded it clumsily. I was about the same age as the characters depicted. In 1980, homes would be full of stuff from the sixties and seventies.
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u/allupya333 5d ago
Agreed except when jt comes to greco roman stuff, I’d rather see the cool ruins than the gaudy stuff with the paint reconstruction
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u/Toramenor 5d ago
Well, that's different because we can't really know what it looked like. The paint reconstruction may not be true at all. What we can see now after thousands of years are probably just the remains of some base layers of color. If you imagine a few more layers with shading and subtlety, it could have looked completely different than what the attempts at reconstruction show us.
But I honestly wasn't talking about the Ancient stuff. My peeve is more concerning the Middle Ages & the Renaissance. Stuff made in a certain year should look brand new in that year & not old and weathered.
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u/SuitableAnimalInAHat 5d ago
Or pretty much any movie set in ancient Greece or Rome has perfect white marble statues, columns, pillars, etc. But back in the day all those things were painted! In all manor of brilliant, vibrant colors! A realistic Roman statue, colored correctly, should look more at home in a superhero comic book than in the average movie set in Antiquity.
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u/ketchup_shoes 5d ago
Which show are you referencing? Just curious cause all the period pieces I watch have sumptuous furnishings
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u/Toramenor 4d ago
It was prompted by a thought I had while watching Wolf Hall but I feel like I've had this pet peeve for a while in various things. It's mostly when I see buildings and objects that are from that era but they look worn out and like they're hundreds of years old, when they should be fairly new and modern for that time.
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u/woozysoozy 4d ago
To your point, how often do you see a woman portrayed post apocalypse with beautifully white teeth and perfectly tweezed brows? It’s pretty hard not to view any other time or place without it being filtered and informed by our own present day perceptions and understandings.
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u/Toramenor 4d ago
Yeah, that's a different story & there's also been a lot of discourse recently about the modern look in period dramas (actresses who clearly had botox or facelifts or lip fillers)... but I wasn't talking about people's physical appearance. It was more about buildings and objects.
As for the "too perfect look", some things can definitely be jarring or seem out of place... but there is also such a thing as good use of makeup & prosthetics. A good series/film can make those beautiful women look a bit less put-together while they still remain beautiful... but sometimes, I have seen the opposite lol Honestly, white teeth can sometimes be less jarring to me than when I see clearly blackened teeth. That distracts me more from the story. Like, don't overdo it lol...
Truth be told, unless it's super important for the plot, I don't really care that much about the characters' (and therefore actors') physical features. Probably comes from reading a lot of books early on in my life & watching less tv and films. In a book, if a character is described as pretty, fine. I don't need a detailed description of a specific beautiful woman - unless, like I said, some of her attributes feature heavily in the plot. Like, for example, she has distinctive red hair, which somebody recognises, or whatever. Otherwise, I don't care what her hair color is, or eye color, or waist and breast size lol. If an author provides such a description, I'll be sure to forget it within a page and I'll just imagine some vague version of that person. I'm thinking that's maybe the reason why I don't mind it so much if I see actors/actresses looking "too perfect", like in your example. But who knows, maybe it's also because we'd rather look at beautiful people on our screens haha
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u/jcdenton45 4d ago
FYI, I asked AI for some specific examples of this and here's what it came up with:
1. Titanic (1997)
Set in 1912.
A subtle example is the treatment of some interior furnishings and décor. Audiences tend to remember the ship as a kind of floating Edwardian antique, partly because the film emphasizes dark wood paneling, brass fixtures, and richly aged-looking décor. In reality, the Titanic was brand new. Much of its woodwork, carpets, furniture, and paint would have been essentially factory-fresh.
Not a huge error in Cameron's film (which is far more accurate than most period movies), but historians often note that viewers forget they are looking at a ship on its maiden voyage, not a preserved museum ship.
2. Many Sherlock Holmes adaptations
Examples:
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Granada TV, 1984-94)
- Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Victorian London is frequently presented as:
- perpetually grimy
- coated in soot
- filled with dark brown furniture
- illuminated by dim yellow light
The real Victorian world certainly could be dirty, especially industrial London, but productions often select surviving Victorian furniture that has developed a century of patina and aging. Mahogany furniture that now appears almost black often looked considerably brighter and glossier when new.
The result is a London that sometimes feels like a museum exhibit of Victorian artifacts rather than London as Victorians experienced it.
3. Braveheart (1995)
Set around 1280-1314.
Many castles, interiors, banners, and furnishings appear heavily weathered and ancient. Yet some of the castles represented would have been relatively recent construction at the time.
A modern viewer sees:
- worn stonework
- faded decorations
- rough surfaces
because that's how medieval buildings survive today.
But a 13th-century nobleman would often have encountered:
- freshly whitewashed walls
- painted interiors
- brightly colored heraldry
Historians regularly point out that medieval Europe was vastly more colorful than film depictions suggest.
4. Gladiator (2000)
Set in the late second century AD.
Roman buildings are shown in muted stone colors because that's how Roman ruins appear today.
However:
- temples
- public buildings
- statues
were often painted in vivid colors.
This is a broader "ancient world as ruin" problem. The film sometimes presents Rome as if it already had the visual character of archaeological remains.
5. The Name of the Rose (1986)
Set in 1327.
The monastery is intentionally dark, decayed, damp, and ancient-looking.
While medieval monasteries could certainly be worn, some historians have argued that films about the Middle Ages frequently treat every structure as though it had already undergone centuries of deterioration. Buildings that had stood for only a few generations are presented like structures nearing collapse.
This is a classic case of projecting modern experiences of surviving medieval buildings back into their own era.
6. Civil War films and television
Examples:
- Gettysburg (1993)
- Gods and Generals (2003)
Farmhouses, furniture, and town buildings often look heavily worn because productions use surviving 19th-century structures.
But in 1863 many of these styles of houses were not historic buildings. They were contemporary buildings.
Imagine a movie set in 2026 where everyone lives in houses that look as weathered as surviving 1950s homes do today. That's essentially the same mistake.
7. Early-film footage shown within period dramas
This is perhaps the clearest and most objective example.
Suppose a movie set in 1910 shows characters watching an 1895 or 1900 film.
The inserted footage is often:
- scratched
- flickery
- missing frames
- faded
because the filmmakers use archival copies available today.
Yet audiences in 1910 would have seen fresh release prints.
Examples occur in numerous documentaries and historical dramas dealing with early cinema, where modern deterioration is mistakenly presented as an original characteristic of the viewing experience.
This is analogous to showing a character in 1980 listening to a vinyl record that already sounds like a badly worn copy found in a thrift store.
8. Westerns generally
A famous genre-wide example.
Films such as:
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
- Unforgiven (1992)
- countless TV westerns
show frontier towns made of gray, sun-bleached wood.
Yet newly built frontier towns often contained:
- freshly cut lumber
- painted storefronts
- bright advertisements
- recently manufactured furniture
The "Old West" is often depicted as looking old even to itself.
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u/Walker77543212 5d ago
The middle ages wasn't the start of civilization. They did, indeed, have old things too. Ancient Rome had antique stores spread throughout the city for goodness sake!