Breaking the Fourth Wall in Real Life
In film and television, the story guides the characters on a linear path. Unless you’re Christopher Nolan then the path may wind off but it eventually comes back.
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.
I was speaking to Van Cooley a former designer turned brand strategist and identity coach and when we were talking about the concept of authenticity Van asked about how it feels when I am authentic in an uncommon space. I said it felt like breaking the fourth wall. It was then that I realized that breaking the fourth wall in real life was in fact the key to authenticity.
[WE ARE ALL CHARACTERS ON A STAGE]
In society, we often play into the construct that we have a semi-scripted dialogue with people based on roles, stereotypes, positions, and desires. Depending on the space we often are playing a different character; being a modified version of ourselves. In most situations, our audience is the other characters present in the situation. This is most noticeable to us when the other characters are so detached from our script that we drift further from our own character to make the scene “work.” The scenes, in this case, are the stories we have about spaces. There is a typical scene for many situations often written by our perceptions of society in its many different contexts.
When we are in an authentic place we remember that we are the protagonist of the story and we can drive the scene and do not have to take on one of the other six roles in stories. The most important part of doing this is by breaking the fourth walls of society.
[BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL IN REAL LIFE]
The key aspect of breaking real life’s fourth walls is by acknowledging the character that you are playing out loud or by acknowledging the script present in the room and how it impacts your character.
Think about a “professional” scene at a business meeting. The characters are sitting around a table and the script is pre-written. We all have an idea of what business conduct, professionalism, and the like are. We have observed this specific scene for a really long time. We probably feel very inauthentic in a scene like this because the script for business meetings is very restrictive. No confrontation, appealing to the protagonist at the end of the table, and taking on stereotypes of white-male centric cues, cadences, and tones. Often there may be something unsaid about that scene or your character in the meeting. Once it's stated the fourth wall can come down. Let’s say the conversation is about reaching a new demographic. After the meeting people often confide in people they trust about their thoughts in the meeting but did not have the courage to break that fourth wall in the meeting.
Many fourth walls have to do with taboos; forbidden facts, practices, or behaviors, that we are not acknowledged but that are important to the scene. When we break the fourth wall in real life we are appealing to the context of the script or our character. Sometimes we are re-writing the script, “I think if we are going to talk about getting to the younger demographic we need to talk about how we are perpetuating ageism.” Sometimes we are injecting our true character, “I have to be honest, as a younger person our product doesn’t appeal to me.”
So whether you are presenting or having a conversation and you do not feel fully authentic. See if you can break the fourth wall that is preventing you from being your true self. You don’t have to burn down the wall although sometimes that is necessary, see any Kanye or Dame Dash rant, but there might be a smaller crack in the fourth wall you can open and allow people to see through it.
William Hardaway
Creative Director at WillGo LLC
