breaking the fourth wall
Addressing viewers directly
Breaking the fourth wall is acknowledging the audience directly in a work of fiction, disrupting the illusion that the story exists independently of viewers.
The term comes from theater, where three walls form the set and an invisible fourth separates performers from the audience.
When a character looks at the camera and addresses viewers, or comments on being in a movie, they break that barrier: Deadpool constantly breaks the fourth wall with his asides to the audience.
Brief theatrical digression
- soliloquyDramatic speech to oneself
- monologueUninterrupted solo address
- direct addressSpeaking to someone named
- audienceGathered viewers collectively
proscenium · stage · Ferris Bueller · Deadpool · dramaturgy · theatricality · presentational · Brechtian
Tolerating fiction's implausibilities
- engagementCommitment to wed or attend
- intimacyEmotional closeness between people
- connectionA joining or relation
- acknowledgmentConfirmation of receipt
eye contact · complicity · audience participation · interactivity · dramatic irony · voyeurism · transparency · confessional
Brief one-eyed closure
- lampoonHarsh public mockery
- parodySatirical imitation
- satireMockery exposing vice
- self-deprecationBelittling oneself deliberately
Mel Brooks · Monty Python · mockumentary · knowing glance · sight gag · running joke · absurdist · irony
Storyteller whose credibility wavers
- self-referentialAlluding to itself
- postmodernSkeptical of metanarratives
- deconstructionAnalysis exposing self-contradiction
- intertextualityConnections between written works
aside
Brief theatrical digression
- soliloquyDramatic speech to oneself
- monologueUninterrupted solo address
- direct addressSpeaking to someone named
audience · proscenium · stage · Ferris Bueller · Deadpool · dramaturgy · theatricality · presentational · Brechtian · Greek chorus
suspension of disbelief
Tolerating fiction's implausibilities
- engagementCommitment to wed or attend
- intimacyEmotional closeness between people
- connectionA joining or relation
acknowledgment · eye contact · complicity · audience participation · interactivity · dramatic irony · voyeurism · transparency · confessional · revelation
wink
Brief one-eyed closure
self-deprecation · Mel Brooks · Monty Python · mockumentary · knowing glance · sight gag · running joke · absurdist · irony · deadpan
unreliable narrator
Storyteller whose credibility wavers
- self-referentialAlluding to itself
- postmodernSkeptical of metanarratives
- deconstructionAnalysis exposing self-contradiction
- comedy termsjokes, puns, wit, sarcasm, irony
- comedy tropespratfall, parody, sight gag, running gag, satire
- metafictionself-reference, metanarrative, metafiction, self-referential, authorial intrusion
- Metatheatrereflexivity, self-reference, backstage drama, breaking character
- Tropeschosen one, hero's journey, red herring, deus ex machina, damsel in distress
breaking the fourth wallsuspension of disbelief
Tolerating fiction's implausibilities
verisimilitude · theatrical illusion · method acting · total immersion · naturalism
breaks, breaker, breakers, breakage, unbreakable, outbreak, breakdown, breakthrough, fourth