Talk:Fourth wall

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Tabhernandez.

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Cleanup[edit]

I've made an attempt to clean up this article, removing non-notable, irrelevant, and strained usages, and clarifying its nature as a performance convention. It didn't make much sense to have "breaking the fourth wall" sent elsewhere, when it's an integral part of this performance convention (its temporary suspension). The idea that modernist theatre is best understood in terms of a series of assults on the fourth wall is a bit silly, so I've removed it. It's the conventions of illusionism, Naturalism, and psychological realism more generally that are inverted/challenged, etc.

Appropriate topics for expansion of the article would include discussions of the autonomy of drama and its challenges (which is a better framework that simply "audience address" for modernism). Something about the history of drama, provided it's indicated very clearly that such an application is anachronistic and a-historical (locus and platea in early modern English theatre, for example). It would also be appropriate to talk about Stanislavski's public solitude and circles of attention. The convention in cinema (and by extension drama on television) would need to be established clearly as well (maybe acting for camera books provide a source for that, as well as the more obvious film studies). The temporary suspension of the fourth wall in comedy is so frequent that we only really need a few examples for the point to be made. Examples in serious drama would be far more pertinent, since they are more rare.

I was shocked and appalled, as they say, that this utter bullshit--"Breaking the fourth wall should not be confused with the aside or the soliloquy, dramatic devices often used by playwrights where characters on stage are delivering inner monologues, giving the audience insight into their thoughts"--had remained in the article for four and a half years, after being added by anonymous IPs on 30 Jan 2012 and 4 Feb 2012, without anyone removing it. They'd hidden behind a footnote with a source nobody checked. This page receives somewhere in the region of 2,000 hits a day. So, we've been misinforming an awful lot of people (or, at least, showing them why Wikipedia can't always be trusted, let's hope). • DP • ^{huh?} 05:06, 6 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but why is this “utter bullshit” ? I'll admit to have only a cursory knowledge of these topics, but that sentence seems to make perfect sense, and I don't think that it could be used as a natural fertilizer.--Abolibibelot (talk) 16:41, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Examples[edit]

Princess Bride has a framing story, and an authorial conceit where the author claims experiences he never had and the existence of an original version of the book that never existed. It might be meta but I can't think of any example of it actually breaking the fourth wall, nor did I find it in the footnoted article. Unless I get a prompt "yes it does" from someone I'll cut it. Also, I'll add the locked room speech in John Dickson Carr's The Hollow Man (Carr novel). David Bofinger (talk) 22:19, 1 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Alfie (1966 film) - Michael Caine -- probably the most famous example of talking to the audience throughout the film. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.11.50.245 (talk) 14:44, 31 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Big Short, House of Cards — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:120b:2c44:c240:6813:a5ed:9ad0:7a85 (talk) 11:19, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Princess Bride and House of Cards are already cited. I see no evidence of The Big Short or The Hollow Man (Carr novel) breaking the fourth wall. I inserted Alfie — Anita5192 (talk) 19:00, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Moonlighting_(TV_series)#Breaking_the_fourth_wall — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wfoj3 (talk • contribs) 00:02, 12 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sub Headline Addition of Literature[edit]

I plan to add a sub headline for the fourth wall in Literature. While Theater, Television, Video Games are all listed, there is an absence currently of valuable info and how this topic has been used and relates to literature throughout history. Tabhernandez (talk) 19:32, 12 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Literally"[edit]

"In the Mel Brooks film Blazing Saddles (1974), the characters literally break the fourth wall." This is a great one: The "fourth wall" is, of course, a metaphor. How do you literally break a metaphorical wall? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a01:c23:706c:7600:b0be:153e:6abc:12d4 (talk) 13:29, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

They have obviously broken a real wall literally and the fourth wall figuratively.—Anita5192 (talk) 17:50, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Too many examples[edit]

This article has become a repository for drive-by editors to insert yet another example. I don't believe we need more than two or three examples in each section unless the text specifically warrants them and I am inclined to delete the multitude of examples beyond that, per Wikipedia:Overlistification#Over-extensive lists and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. I would like to know what other editors think.—Anita5192 (talk) 21:27, 11 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not only that, but the examples aren’t even the best ones. For example, characters that give a “knowing glance” are in, but Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is not. Nsayer (talk) 22:59, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I third this - this is my first comment on Wikipedia in years. Way too many examples especially given they're in paragraph form. I even checked to see if I was on the wrong website cause it reminded me so much of TVTropes.com or whatever it's called. 71.197.66.101 (talk) 08:45, 4 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fifth Wall[edit]

"Fifth Wall" redirects here but there is no mention on the page. Perhaps it would be good to add a blurb about what the term means? Allanlw 14:49, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Those two locutions means the same. Back in the theater days, only three walls were visible on stage, so the fourth wall was conceptual. With the advent of movie making in which all four walls were visible, the fourth wall made little sense as a phrase and people didn't get it right away, so some people started using "fifth wall" instead. 96.127.219.24 (talk) 10:12, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Monty Python troupe?[edit]

Just checking if it's meant to be the "troupe" of comedians, rather than the "trope" of breaking the fourth wall:

"...live-action sketch comedy of Monty Python's Flying Circus, which the trope also brought to their feature films"

I'm either being picky or just missing the point of the sentence 73.77.229.97 (talk) 22:59, 25 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch. I changed it to 'troupe', because it's probably a typo. Another possible correction would be "which trope the troupe also brought to their feature films". Sounds a bit stilted, though. _signed,Willondon (talk) 15:43, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Can mockumentaries really break the fourth wall?[edit]

I was bold and removed the whole paragraph on The Office. I was inspired by the section above, commenting that there were too many examples, and not even the best ones. I didn't have open access to the source (a book), so I wasn't able to see in what context the book discussed the show (it did have a whole chapter on it). Can mockmentaries really break the fourth wall? Seems to me the conceit of a fourth wall isn't there to begin with. Subjects being filmed and interviewed in a documentary know that they're not in an isolated world, unaware of observers. _signed,Willondon (talk) 15:59, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The book has enough pages at Google Books preview to see that they tie the fourth wall to the series, so it is fully appropriate. --Masem (t) 16:09, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, the Google Books preview wouldn't let me see it, though I did see that there was a whole chapter on the show. I guess if they think documentary-style has a fourth wall, they're the experts. _signed,Willondon (talk) 16:18, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]