Other ways to break the fourth wall
I first got intrigued by the idea of breaking the fourth wall when I was watching Kevin Spacey in House of Cards. It seemed like a big deal at the time. Lately I have stumbled upon two very subtle instances of breaking the fourth wall that I really liked. Let me show you.
The first one was Bridgerton. When Vitamin String Quartet’s “thank u, next” accompanied a dance scene, I was taken aback by how brilliant the idea was. The show did not pretend that it was a period piece trying to live up to whatever historical accuracy some analysts might want to see or critique about. No. It did not employ Baroque or Romantic classical music in a way that Versailles might have employed. Instead, by evoking a popular song by Ariana Grande released in 2019 and still going strong in coffee shops and Uber cars in 2021, it straight up admitted that this is a show produced by a contemporary crew for a contemporary audience. This is a light-weight rom-com. Just enjoy it. We made it so fun because we know what you like. We know what you like today. We don’t care about what people might actually have liked back in the days. No. That wasn’t the point. We want to make money in the economy in the present. And that’s Okay! It’s brave to admit that honestly.
The second one was The White Lotus. The two college-aged girlfriends carried an air of irreverent cynicism around them that really shined. They always appear to read some heavy critical theory or continental philosophy, yet they also don’t seem to actually care that deeply. The titles of their book choices are definitely interesting. In one scene, when a guy tries to flirt with them at the pool and asks them what books they are reading, they straight up admitted that those books are “just props picked by a stylist”. That’s so convincingly hilarious. It brings us back to the “reality” that this is all produced. It’s a TV show. But those lines also worked to function in the plot. Brilliant.
So, what do those two “breaking the wall” instances have in common? How are they different from Kevin Spacey’s wall breaking? Spacey’s wall breaking was directed at the camera. It was solely visual and he stayed “within the frame” of the cinematography. He is acting on stage and he stays within the confinement of the stage. The Bridgerton instance was executed through the medium of sound. And it had more information carried in it. The information itself, a melody composed by Ariana Grande in 2019, contradicts the universe presented in the cinematography. It brings outside information that destroys the “realness” of the stage, a stage meant to construct a cohesive reality. The music collapsed the stage and played for the audience, not for the characters in their respective universe.
The White Lotus instance went further and just exposed the technicalities of TV production. It made me really excited since I’m always reading the end credits of movies and TV shows as if reading a list of job positions that might be hiring.
I remember it is a tradition in TV news anchoring that at the end of one show, the reporters talk to each other casually and wrap up the papers in front of them, and the camera zooms out gradually. A clean frame carefully selected to only show the anchors suddenly collapses and shows us all the background information on how the show is made, how the stage is just an artificially set-up corner in a dark studio, how there are so many gear and wires and staff members all spreading around in a seemingly chaotic way.
Anyway, I guess at the end of this essay I want to link a music video that I really like that breaks the fourth wall at the end kinda like the news example. Here you go: https://youtu.be/PXAlCazm3J0
(Now that I think about it, SNL also likes to choreograph dances that stretches out all the way to the hallways of the studio even into the elevators. Cool.)
