Breaking the Fourth Wall in Real Life

The fourth wall is a concept that emerged in stage plays. Normally a play has three walls that the audience is looking onto. The fourth wall is a wall invisible to the audience that they get to look through but to the actors in the play, the audience is not there; hence the fourth wall. The fourth wall also commonly exists in television and film as well. We do not expect characters to interact with us but when they do it is surprisingly pleasant. While this goes back to silent film with people like Charlie Chaplin you have seen it more recently in movies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Fight Club, Malcolm in the Middle, Deadpool (first in comics and then in film), and Trading Places. Sometimes it is subtle and without words and other times it is a direct conversation with the watching audience. Most annoyingly think of kids' shows that awkwardly look to the camera and ask you to solve a puzzle that they will solve anyway. <a href="https://medium.com/@whardaway_23243/breaking-the-fourth-wall-in-real-life-ddbecb5d024e">Website</a>