POST #18 - BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL [COURSEWORK]

Hello, and welcome back to Noah’s Mildly Humourous Media AS Level Blog! Need a better name than that… and a better acronym. NMHMASLB doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. So, breaking the fourth wall in movies. What is it The act of breaking the fourth wall in a piece of media is when a character directly breaks the illusion of a “wall” between the audience and the film, and directly speaks to the audience, or references something that gives away the fact that the character knows they’re in that particular form of media. This is mostly done for comedic or expositional purposes, since people will retain information about the film and it’s details better when they’re being told them explicitly. So, let’s look at examples for both of those reasons for why fourth wall breaking is used.

COMEDIC
(oh wow noah analysing deadpool again that’s so original) IT’S A GREAT FILM ALRIGHT

All of the times Deadpool breaks the fourth wall in Deadpool

So, Deadpool was already established to have fourth wall breaking “abilities” in the Marvel comics centered on him and the X-Men. He often references the comic book writers as gods (e.g. “THE GREAT BENDIS” is a reference to Marvel writer Brian Michael Bendis), and he even talks to voices in his head, which he can SEE, represented by two descriptive comic book boxes; one yellow and with handwriting font, and one white with a typewriter font. In the film, it was somewhat tricky to pull off a lot of this, so they decided to keep the fourth wall breaking effective & Deadpool-esque, while also being simple to do, and wouldn’t be too heavily complicated. So, what did they do? They had Deadpool talk to the audience about the behind the scenes of films, more specifically superhero films. In fact, our first fourth wall break is a jab the X-Men franchise.

“Oh, hello! I know, right? Whose balls did I have to fondle to get a movie? Well, I won’t tell you who, but it rhymes with ‘Polverine’! And I’ll tell ya, he’s got a nice pair’a smooth criminals down under!” - Deadpool

... And...

“…It’s funny how I only ever see two (X-Men)… It’s almost like the studio couldn’t afford another X-Man.” - Deadpool

Are both examples of some jokes it throws in about the film industry, which are not only amusing for a general audience, but some of his fourth wall breaks are jokes that really pay off for people who know a lot about the lore and backstory of Deadpool, such as the joke with an action figure of Deadpool as he appeared in the abysmal “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”, which he brushes aside as if to pretend it was never there. By using fourth wall breaks for humour, the jokes are more unexpected, since the audience never expects a character to directly talk to them from the cinema screen.

EXPOSITION
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, a 1985 classic, uses a lot of fourth wall breaking in the beginning and ending, more specifically the after-credits scene.

Opening monologue from Ferris Bueller's Day Off

The opening monologue is all one big fourth wall break, as an example. After Ferris’s parents have left him at home ill, Ferris jumps out of bed the second they’re gone and starts giving exposition to the camera. He tells us of how he probably won’t be able to pull a stunt like this again, and how he doesn’t want to waste this opportunity.

 “This is my ninth sick day this semester. It’s getting pretty tough coming up with new illnesses. If I go for ten, I’ll probably have to barf up a lung… so I better make this one count.” - Ferris Bueller

By telling us this directly, the audience now knows what Ferris's motives and goals are clear to us now, as well as some light history of his history doing this.

He then sits down in front of the camera, and tells us how he fooled his parents as if we we're students and he's the teacher. 

We then see him roaming throughout the house, going through his routine, and talking to the audience as he does about what he thinks about various things; life, school, parents, etc.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." - Ferris Bueller 

 By telling us this directly as if the audience and Ferris are actually talking, we retain the information better, and makes certain aspects of the film more memorable.

However, FBDO uses fourth wall breaking for comedy as well, with an after credits scene having Ferris walking towards the camera, and saying...

"You're still here? It's over. Go home... Go." - Ferris Bueller

In fact, this scene was also done by Deadpool in the movie Deadpool, for it's after credits scenes; a staple of Marvel movies.

 

So... that's about it for fourth wall breaks! I hope this was a good read!

~ Noah :)