Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* Thanks to food and drug guidelines,[[Yes but What Does Zataproximetacine DO|just about every drug commercial]] on American TV is like this, with characters [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick|rattling off side-effects]] in "casual" conversation, sometimes (but [[This Is Reality|surprisingly rarely]]) lampshaded when the other character will say "You sound like you're trying to convince me to use it!"

* A Bamzu.com commercial features [[Two Gamers on a Couch|two people on a couch]] talking about how great Bamzu is. It finishes with the man saying to the woman, "Hey, maybe ''we'' could do a Bamzu commercial!" to which she replies, "You think?"

* One Honda commercial had a man talking about his car and the deal he got from it, while his friend says that he sounds like a car commercial.

 

* Fairly early in the ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' manga, Ako tells an aged-up version of Negi that she envies Negi because she feels like she's just a supporting character and he's the main character. She is, of course, absolutely right. Negi counters that even if she's a minor character in someone else's story, she's still the main character of her own. As she was the main character of [[A Day in the Limelight|that particular mini-arc]], he was right, too.

** In an especially tongue-in-cheek moment, Natsumi refers to herself as a side character right before making a casual observation that turns the chapter (#257) into a [[Wham! Episode]].

* In the ''[[Super Robot Wars Original Generations]]'' anime, a direct translation from the game leads to a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-FfN65U1OIM#t=145s hilarious fourth wall breaking moment.]

 

* ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'':

** "Who watches the Watchm-"

* During the second series of ''[[She-Hulk]]'', the titular character doesn't "lean" on the fourth wall - she blatantly ignores it. In the third series, the second series is regarded as a [[Mutually Fictional]] account of Jenn's adventures. In the final page of issue #3, a collector mentions the [[No Fourth Wall]] nature of the comic and asks her if she can really do "stuff like that". Jenn simply says, "No. I can't", but her sly smirk as she looks towards the reader and says it makes you wonder...

 

* Subverted in the fanmovie ''[[Metal Gear Solid Philanthropy|Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy]]''. Pierre teases Snake by saying that he's so cool he'd "make a good video game character, no shit - [[Completely Missing the Point|a Nintendo platformer, I'd say!]]"

* The ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]'' [[Fanfic]] ''A Different Lesson'' has a brilliant send-up of this trope via a bookseller the heroes visit, where a scroll is for sale which tells the story of the movie. Thanks to [[Gossip Evolution]], willful misinterpretation, and a certain amount of [[Shout-Out|Shout Outs]] to [[Fanon]], Po is turned into a [[Fake Ultimate Hero]] who took out Tai Lung all by himself while the Furious Five did next to nothing (the fight at the bridge becomes a "footnote"); Viper [[Flanderization|only cares about makeup and pretty clothes]], [[Mandatory Line|Monkey is mute]], while Shifu's [[Cynical Mentor]] and [[Jerkass]] tendencies are [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]]; the filmmakers' ploy with making Tai Lung ''appear'' to be a mindless beast before [[The Reveal]] of Ian McShane's voice is also referenced by making the snow leopard a drooling savage with [[Hulk Speak]], and...[[Viewer Gender Confusion|Tigress is a man]].

{{quote|''"Were they nothing more but characters, whose capacities for self-determination were undermined by an unfeeling writer—an omnipotent author that had nothing better to do except enthused prostitution to the ideals of entertainment and fame?"''}}

 

* ''[[Fight Club]]'' does this enough times to make the camera a supporting character. The narrator directly addresses the camera upon multiple occasions.

** The "film" even shakes during one of these, to the point where you can see the guide track at the edges.

* the ending of ''[[Blazing Saddles]]'' pretty much consists of this. Governor LePetomane's mob are unable to distinguish between a flat set and the real town, the fight spills across at least two other completely unrelated sound stages and the Sheriff and Waco Kid find themselves out in the street, and go to the cinema to see how it ends... which is where they two of them appear back on screen to Count Basie.....

 

* The main character of Peter David's ''[[Sir Apropos of Nothing]]'' has the epiphany early on that he's a supporting character in the storybook world around him. He's not pleased and sets out to change this.

* At one point in ''[[The Illuminatus Trilogy]]'', a character pens a scathing review of a book that seems strikingly similar to ''[[Illuminatus]]'' itself:

* ''[[Bored of the Rings]]'' doesn't just lean on the fourth wall, at times it seems like the fourth wall is actively propping the book up. For instance, there is the prophecy with which Bromosel arrives at the Council of Orlon: "Five-eleven's your height, one-eighty's your weight/You cash in your chips around page eighty-eight." {{spoiler|It's off by only a few pages.}}

 

* Late in the 11th and last season of ''[[Cheers]]'', some of the gang go to an old drive-in theater and see a [[Godzilla]] movie. Cliff notices that the lead actress in this edition of the Godzilla series has been recast. Cue the following bit of dialogue:

{{quote|'''Norm''': She left halfway through the Godzilla series.

* In one episode of ''[[Kamen Rider Hibiki]]'', the titular hero is seen telling some customers at the restaraunt where he works about this movie that "just came out the other day". He describes it as a period piece about "this group of really cool warriors", or something along those lines. The day before the episode aired, [[The Movie]], ''Kamen Rider Hibiki & The Seven Fighting Demons'', which takes place in Japan's Warring States era, premiered in theaters.

 

Not that music really has much of a [[Fourth Wall]] to begin with, but...

* During the 2012 Grammys, [[Taylor Swift]] switched a line in her song "Mean" to read "Someday, I'll be singing this at the Grammys..."

* On the song "[https://soundcloud.com/fatpossum/004-just-lay-still Just Lay Still]", John Congleton sings "...an unrelenting bass drum beat; a stubbornly persistent backbeat" while accompanied by a prominent bass drum beat that spans the entire song.

 

* ''[[FoxTrot]]'' is all over this trope, usually to make comments about his own writing/drawing process.

** One example is a strip that was released around the time that ''Star Wars Episode I'' was released; Jason goes to see the movie, and when he gets home, Paige asks how he liked it: