Fourth wall

The fourth wall refers to the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play. The term also applies to the boundary between any fictional setting and its audience. When this boundary is "broken" (for example by an actor speaking to the audience directly through the camera in a television sitcom), it is called "breaking the fourth wall."

Origin and meaning

The term was made explicit by Denis Diderot and spread in nineteenth century theatre with the advent of theatrical realism. Critic Vincent Canby described it in 1987 as "that invisible screen that forever separates the audience from the stage." Another among early practitioners of this method (now referred to as the "Fourth Wall") is Thornton Wilder & his 1937 play "Our Town". The term "fourth wall" stems from the absence of a fourth wall on a three-walled set where the audience is viewing the production. The audience is supposed to assume there is a "fourth wall" present, even though it physically is not there. This is widely noticeable on various television programs, such as sitcoms, but the term originated in theatre, where conventional three-walled stage sets provide a more obvious "fourth wall". The term "fourth wall" has been adapted to refer to the boundary between the fiction and the audience. "Fourth wall" is part of the suspension of disbelief between a fictional work and an audience. The audience will accept the presence of the fourth wall without giving it any direct thought, allowing them to enjoy the fiction as if they were observing real events.The presence of a fourth wall is one of the best established conventions of fiction and as such has led some artists to draw direct attention to it for dramatic or comedic effect. This is known as "breaking the fourth wall". For instance, in Puckoon, Spike talks to the author multiple times. Spike also at one stage in the book, looks to see what page the reader is on. Besides theatre and cinema, the term has been adopted by other media, such as television, comics, and more recently, video games. Though some table-top roleplaying games do allow for breaking the fourth wall, these are usually beer and pretzel type games.

Breaking the fourth wall

Theatre

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Paul (Arno Frisch) smirks at the audience in the film Funny Games, which frequently breaks the fourth wall.

The technique of breaking the fourth wall has been used for millennia and was standard practice in Greek comedy.

At one point in the Greek playwright Aristophanes' play Peace, the hero Trygaeus (who is being lifted into the air by a crane situated offstage) tells the crane-handler to be more careful. The fourth wall didn't actually exist in Greek theatre; even in tragedies many characters spoke directly to the audience, aware of their existence. Most often, the fourth wall is broken by having a character directly address the audience (one example is the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder's Our Town, in which three of the "audience" members ask questions that are part of the script and are responded to by the Stage Manager). A similar effect can be achieved by having characters interact with objects outside the context of the work (e.g., a character is handed a prop by a stage hand). Productions of William Shakespeare's plays, which frequently feature asides and soliloquies which the characters in question presumably speak only to themselves, sometimes present the dialogue as being delivered directly to the audience. In Sir Laurence Olivier's 1955 film adaptation of Richard III, Olivier addresses the audience directly, a ground breaking technique in film.

A notable case of Shakespeare breaking the fourth wall is the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which Puck suggests to the audience that they pretend, should they have disliked the play they just saw, that the entire production was only a dream. Sometimes, an actor in a play may physically penetrate the fourth wall. For example, in plays that involve sword (or other melee) fights, such as Romeo and Juliet, fighters may go into the audience. The reasons for doing this are plentiful, but the most obvious reason is that it helps draw the audience into the play. Various artists have used this jarring effect to make a point, as it forces an audience to see the fiction in a new light and to watch it less passively. Bertolt Brecht was known for deliberately breaking the fourth wall to encourage his audience to think more critically about what they were watching, referred to as Verfremdungseffekt ("alienation effect"). Breaking the fourth wall is often employed for comic effect, as a sort of visual non-sequitur; the unexpected departure from normal narrative conventions is often surprising and creates humor. A very early example of this occurs in Francis Beaumont's play The Knight of the Burning Pestle, which contains three characters who are purportedly part of the audience. They frequently interrupt the performance and demand to be consulted on the plot, ordering a number of sudden (and usually extremely awkward) changes throughout the play, with often comical results. Such exploitation of an audience's familiarity with the conventions of fiction is a key element in many works defined as post-modern, which dismantle established rules of fiction. Works which break or directly refer to the fourth wall often utilize other post-modern devices such as meta-reference or breaking character. From the early days of sound motion pictures, stage-to-screen productions often broke this barrier, especially those of the Marx Brothers', most often by having a character look directly into the camera and speak to the audience.

In traditional British pantomime, the audience is encouraged and expected to break the fourth wall by interacting with the cast—booing the villains, who will often respond, cheering the heroes, who will often thank the audience, and by providing hints to the characters as to what to do next, e.g. shouting 'he's behind you' when the villain is sneaking up on the hero, or 'She's in the cellar' when Prince Charming is searching for Cinderella who has been locked in the basement by the Ugly Sisters.

The 1985 Broadway play Drood (originally The Mystery of Edwin Drood) is a musical comedy with a master of ceremonies who speaks directly to the audience. Plus there are three alternate endings and the audience votes for the one they most prefer.

Film

In their 1932 film Horse Feathers, for example, when Chico sits down at a piano to begin a musical interlude, Groucho turns to the camera and deadpans "I've got to stay here, but there's no reason why you folks shouldn't go out into the lobby until this thing blows over." Bob Hope, who also frequently addressed the audience, uses a similar gag in Road to Bali: just as Bing Crosby begins a number, Hope tells us, "He's gonna sing, folks. Now's the time to go out and get your popcorn." The Wizard of Oz has only one fourth wall-breaker. When Dorothy is trapped in the Wicked Witch's castle, an image of Auntie Em appears in the Witch's crystal ball, looking for Dorothy. When Dorothy tries to call to Auntie Em, Auntie Em's image fades out and is replaced by an image of the Wicked Witch, who mocks Dorothy's pleas and then turns to cackle directly at the audience before fading out.

In the 1978 movie Animal House, John Belushi as Blutarsky, watches outside a coed's dorm window as she undresses. As he watches, he looks back over his shoulder at the camera and raises his eyebrows as if to say, "Can you believe this?" In the 1983 movie A Christmas Story, the fourth wall is broken just once when the character Ralphie, played by Peter Billingsley, is getting cleaned up by his mother after getting hit by a BB from his Red Ryder BB gun. During the scene, Ralphie looks directly at the camera and smiles to show the audience his pleasure that his mother believed the lie that he was actually hit by an icicle. In the 1986 comedy film Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Ferris breaks the fourth wall multiple times throughout the film. The 1988 film Casual Sex? begins with the main characters speaking to the audience, and breaks the fourth wall throughout the movie. Many satirical comedy movies use the fourth wall by calling attention to how absurd or hackneyed certain elements of the plot are. Scary Movie involved a scene where the cast laughed at how the situation they found themselves in resembled a bad horror movie, and then joked that the producers would have hired people in their twenties to portray their teen characters. In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back the cast at several points asked who would watch a movie based on the titular characters before pausing to stare at the camera. The movies produced by Mel Brooks often involve a significant breaking of the fourth wall, from a brawl that spreads into the rest of the movie studio in Blazing Saddles to various characters referencing the movie script in Robin Hood: Men In Tights after an unexpected plot twist (specifically, when Robin misses during the archery contest Robin finds this strange, takes out a copy of the script and finds that he gets another shot; when Prince John and the Sheriff hear this they take out their own copies of the script and confirm Robin's assertion).

Similarly, in the film Spaceballs, when the villains lose track of the protagonists, they obtain a copy of the videotape of the film they are in to discover the heroes' location.Films from Hal Roach regulars Laurel and Hardy often featured Oliver Hardy looking towards the camera to garner sympathy (albeit in the form of laughter) from the audience for either Stan Laurel's seemingly unbelievable, naive activities or for "another fine mess" he'd gotten them into, usually resulting in harm coming to "Ollie".In Annie Hall, Diane Keaton's character mistakenly says "wife" instead of "life". Woody Allen's character points this out. She denies it and so he turns to the camera and says "You heard that!".The technique was arguably first employed in the modern sense in the sensational 1921 premiere of Pirandello's play Sei Personaggi in Cerca d'Autore (Six Characters in Search of an Author), wherein six ordinary people come to the rehearsal of a play to demand that their stories be told as part of the performance. This type of fourth wall breaking is also used in The Aliens Are Coming! The Aliens Are Coming! when it becomes impossible to tell what is 'real' and what is not in the play, as the aliens end up everywhere.The fourth wall is sometimes included as part of the narrative, when a character discovers that they are part of a fiction and 'breaks the fourth wall' to make contact with "the real world", as in films like Tom Jones, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1963, Woody Allen's Annie Hall (with Marshall McLuhan) and The Purple Rose of Cairo, Last Action Hero and Jonathan Gash's Lovejoy novels. Both Peter Pan and Captain Hook break the fourth wall in the 1954 musical adaptation of Peter Pan. George Burns commonly addressed the audience in his 1950s TV comedy show, and sometimes even watched it on TV in another room. More recently The Truman Show depicted a man whose entire life was a TV show and how he broke through the fourth wall to discover the real world.

Literature

The fourth wall has also been broken in literature such as The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth, Midnight's Children and The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie, Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote by Jorge Luis Borges, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino, Travelling People by B.S. Johnson, Double or Nothing by Raymond Federman, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco and The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles, which has the author inserting himself into the story and discussing the possible endings he was considering, thus causing the reader to wonder which ending he would choose. It can be intentional; some television series involve a character telling the audience important facts, such as citing statistics on gun violence in schools, helping people with certain kinds of diseases, coping with death in the immediate family, and so on.

Comics

Comics can occasionally break the fourth wall, as Marvel Comics characters Deadpool and She-Hulk are aware that they are comic book characters. The Joker often addresses the comic reader and has even at times forced his way out of the comic frames to do things such as help turn the page, and Marvel Comics' Squirrel Girl has also been known to address the reader at times. Animal Man has also broken the fourth wall by actually confronting the then-writer of his book, Grant Morrison, about the death of his family. The comic character Opus is also aware that he is a comic character, and usually consults with the "Creator" character (Berkeley Breathed, the artist). Also in a Peanuts comic that can be found in the book Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schlutz shows Schroeder playing piano and he gets a perfect pitch. When he tells Charlie Brown he tells Schroeder that he must mean "A perfect pitch" and that baseball season is over besides. Schroeder then responds as he walks off, "Sometimes I should put for a transfer to a new comic strip!" In the Marvel Comics of the 1960s, Stan Lee's style of writing regularly broke the fourth wall when writing captions and narration.

Television

The fourth wall is frequently broken in cartoons, often in ways difficult or impossible with live actors. Perhaps one of the most humorous is to "fight the iris": right before the picture ends and while the image is diminished by a contracting circle, a character forces the "eye" open to interject a wry comment or complaint. The character may appear onscreen after the iris is closed, walking or running over a solid black background. The award-winning cartoon Duck Amuck breaks the fourth-wall for the entire running-time, with Daffy Duck arguing with the off-screen animator (Bugs Bunny) throughout the cartoon. In a similar vein, characters can occasionally be seen in other episodes, running right off the "edge" of the display, leaving them standing in a blank white space, accompanied by a stretch of movie film rolling by along one edge of the screen. In the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Donatello decodes a villain's clue as written in latitude and longitude, Raphael makes an aside comment, "And they say cartoons aren't educational." In the Jem episode "The Day The Music Died", the fourth wall is broken at least twice. For instance, Kimber interrupts the episode's opening titles to inform the audience that "there will be no story today." Later in the episode, Riot reassures the audience that an unconscious Jem will be alright, only for Jem to awaken and ask "who are you talking to?" In the The Simpsons episode Duffless, for example, Moe Szyslak says to a character in his bar "You'll be back", turns to another to say "And you", and then turns to face the camera directly and says, apparently to the audience, "And you." He appears to have broken the fourth wall, before the shot zooms out to show that he was in fact facing and addressing Barney Gumble.

That wasn't the first time The Simpsons came close in Who Shot Mr. Burns Part 1 Doctor Julius Hibbert says "We can't solve the Mystery...can you?" as he points to the camera...which pulls back to reveal he is asking Wiggum and not the viewer.

The 1987 sitcom I Married Dora starring Elizabeth Peña was cancelled after a mere 13 episodes. At the end of the final show, the cast broke out of character, announced that the show had been cancelled, and gathered together on stage for a curtain call in front of its live audience.

Monty Python's Flying Circus often broke the fourth wall with characters speaking to the audience, asking about their lines or commenting on the content of the sketch. The character 'The Colonel' repeatedly stopped sketches because he thought they were too silly and The Spanish Inquistion remark on the movement of the end credits when they are trying to get to court. Another way of breaking the fourth wall is when a character changes a part of the scene; for example, in Chowder, Schnitzel is often instructed by Mung Daal to change the scene when they are running low on time. In another episode, Chowder starts practicing his writing on the screen, until Gazpacho wipes it off. Chowder asks "about that [drawing]", and points to the Cartoon Network watermark. Gazpacho responds that "It doesn't come off. I know. I've tried." In the February 12, 2009 episode of Chowder, after all the kitchen's money is spent, the characters announce there is no money for animators, at which time the actual real-life voice actors are shown and have to wash cars until they earn enough money for animation once again. One SpongeBob SquarePants episode has a similar method, as SpongeBob is nervous about painting Mr. Krabs' walls and tells himself he will start to work, but it takes about three hours before Patrick says "Can you move it along? I'm running out of time cards."In reality shows such as The Real World, breaking the fourth wall can refer to a direct interaction between the cast and crew. Malcolm in Malcolm in the Middle often breaks the fourth wall by talking to the audience as the other characters are unaware of this. Better off Ted also does this throughout the episodes, the same way Malcom in the Middle does it.

Shows aimed at very young audiences (like toddlers) almost always break the fourth wall. Programs like Sesame Street and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse often asks the viewers to do things like count, perform bodily motions, sing or answer questions.

Video games

In the video game Paper Mario:The Thousand-Year Door, a poorly disguised villain speaks to the player, saying, "You there! In front of the TV. Don't tell the red guy who I am!" Similarly, in Super Paper Mario, when Bestovius gives Mario the ability to flip, and Mario does not know what the "A button" is, Bestovius claims that "...the great beings who watch us will understand." In the Crash Bandicoot series, various characters often break the fourth wall- in one game, for example, Cortex says that Wrath of Cortex (another Crash title) didn't do as well as they hoped. In the PlayStation video game WWF Attitude, Triple H breaks the fourth wall during gameplay by telling the player to "put down the controller, get off of the couch and get to a gym, fatass." The Playstation video game Metal Gear Solid also breaks the fourth wall during the scenes confronting Psycho Mantis. Psycho Mantis will ask the player to put his/her controller on the ground, using the rumble feature to cause it to vibrate (simulating telekinesis).

Misconceptions

A common misconception is that the fourth wall is being broken anytime a character is talking to the audience. In a mockumentary (like The Office) the characters are talking to the camera/audience, but since the plot of the show involves the filming of the documentary and the actors are staying in character, this is not breaking the wall. Another example is a soliloquy in plays: the actors are facing the audience but the characters are just talking to themselves while looking at nothing in particular. In some video games (like the Command & Conquer series) characters are speaking directly to the player (usually in a cut scene), but the player is "acting" as another character and the performers are speaking to that character, not the real-life player.

"Fifth wall"

Main article: Fifth wall

See also

• Corpsing
• Gaze
• Kayfabe, a similar concept in professional wrestling
• Descartes' philosophy - The concept of reality itself being illusory.
• Alternate reality game