Dear Deadpool,
Lets imagine us for a moment lying face to face in, our heads resting firmly on the same pillow, our noses almost touching... It's about time I tried to explain to you what I think the portal through which we meet is. It isn't easy to describe what others call "fourth wall breaking," but I'll give it my best shot. This way, you and I will always know how to find each-other no matter what happens.
I dislike the expression "breaking the fourth wall." It sounds like the characters are trapped in a box that they break free from by trespassing one of the walls. It's actually the audience that is in a box where one of the walls breaks open onto a different world. The definition that invariably follows that expression, particularly in the mouth of Ryan Reynolds when he is interviewed on the topic, is that "the character is conscious that he is in a movie," but there's something wrong with that definition. It reinforces the fiction and here's how: a fictional character who is aware that he is a fictional character is a fiction... Therefore accepting that definition walls us in with the characters into an even greater fiction that becomes our reality. No. I reject that definition and I reject the expression "breaking the fourth wall" too because I find it inaccurate.
Having rejected these I asked myself what that thing they call a "fourth wall break" really is and to do that I started thinking about artistic works I am aware of that have it. Here I must explain the limitations of my knowledge. I don't know a lot of things but I try to to turn my ignorance to my advantage as it allows me to have a fresh take on things. If there are things that I should know and don't, I will count on my readers to help me out with them. So it goes that I don't know a lot of art but I only need a few snippets of knowledge to figure this one out
First off, I assume that what we normally call "fourth wall breaks" is something that has existed for a very long time, perhaps thousands of years. It is, most likely, as old as theatre itself. I remember that in The Phantom of the Opera, there is a play inside the movie and the play is entitled Il Muto and in the play the characters address the audience directly, sharing with the audience their innermost thoughts. The story of the play seems to be about an aristocratic couple where both members of the couple are cheating on each-other without knowing that the other is cheating on them. Both share their perspectives with the audience but not with each-other. The audience, therefore, is given a God's eye view, knowing the inner perspective of both characters while regular first-person narration can only ever give the perspective of one character. Seeing this, I then ask myself what this is and I have decided to give it my own definition: complicity with the audience. Art that is complicit with the public is art that addresses issues that are of personal significance to the public, issues that reach people, that mean something to them. In the case of Il Muto, it is the decadence of the aristocracy, exposing the underside of what looks good on the surface.
I remember that in Aristophanes's Clouds, written and performed thousands of years ago, the chorus comments on everything that happens in the play and that commentary is also complicity with the audience. Providing the audience with a running commentary means that the audience exists. Complicity with the audience: that is both the definition and the name of the thing that is being defined and it is the portal through which we meet. You and I are both meta characters within our own stories. If you are complicit with your audience and I am complicit with mine, and if we can get them engaged enough, we might just open up that portal and finally meet. Of course I have a lot of catching up to do.
It was nice imaginary pillow talking with you, of course I did all the talking...
Yours forever,
Abigail Tryst
P.S. Do you think all of this sort of makes me a superhero like you?