Most people aren’t really familiar with the history of the world, especially the period of time that would correspond to ≈ 30-50 years before they graduated secondary school. I assume this is because there seems to be a pattern where you just don’t actually catch up to current events in many history classes.
Also expecting the average person in the US to be familiar enough with world events to even know who Nelson Mandala or Narendra Modi are, is a good way to have a bad time. I don’t like it either, but as Carlin said, “think of the average person, now remember that 50% of people are stupider than that.”
I didn’t forget that he was released, but enough people thought he died in prison, that we named the term after him.
Lilo being strangely obsessed with Elvis is actually period accurate.
The movie seems to be set sometime in the very late '80s to the mid to late '90s. There aren’t any cell phones, except the ones that the government agents have. The TV is a black and white TV which could indicate either the late '80s or the fact that they are extremely poor in the mid to late '90s. None of the vehicles really give anything away as they all seem to be modeled on '50s to early '80s models of cars. The technology that is actually depicted in the film definitely places it at the end of the '80s, as the earliest it could have possibly happened, and probably the mid to late '90s as a more probable timeline.
There were a lot of people obsessed with “The King” at that time, even fairly young (like 5-7 year old) fans. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Elvis’s music is generally more popular amongst certain kids and tweens from 1956 until the late '90s.
Just maybe don’t practice your Cockney accent while there… The locals seem to hate that accent, for some reason.