America and the Fourth Wall
By Rachel Mawson
Eng 105, 9:00
America and the Fourth Wall
What is it that makes the Great Wall of China so great? What was it about the Berlin Wall that
begged for its destruction? There are a million other walls in the world that we could question and learn
about, such as the ancient Walls of Jericho, the walls surrounding Old Jerusalem, the Kremlin Walls in
Russia, or the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Each of these walls was built for a purpose; the same purpose
that most walls have: to protect whatever is inside the walls. Of course, in the case of prison walls or the
Green Monster at Fenway in Boston, walls are meant for containment. The list of walls and their purposes
can continue on and on. It could extend down to the walls that hold the roof over your head or the fence
around your yard. With such a long list, though, would it be possible that one of the most significant walls
has been forgotten and long ignored?
The wall I’m referring to is one that you run into every day. You can’t see it and most people
don’t acknowledge its importance in our daily lives. I’m talking about television’s Fourth Wall. Never
heard of it? The Fourth Wall is that clear wall through which we observe our favorite television families
and characters as they go about their lives (TV Tropes). Think about it – how many times have you seen
all four walls in a television scene?
From the beginning of television, the Fourth Wall has existed and it has served its purpose well.
In the 1950s, the wall helped to protect the families inside the television, like to Cleavers, Nelsons, or
Andersons, safe from the outside world. Another important function of the Fourth Wall is to allow the
characters within the screen to act as though the world in which the characters exist is real and the
problems they face are also real. The Fourth Wall allows us to also treat a fictional character’s world as
real for them (TV Tropes). This effect is meant to enhance the viewer’s experience.
What happens, then, when the Fourth Wall is broken down and the characters on television begin
to speak directly to and about the home viewers? You end up with shows like The Simpsons and Family
Guy. Now, you probably noticed that both of these shows are animated. If you didn’t notice then I’ll be
the first to tell you that both of these shows are animated. This doesn’t mean that a show that features no
animation cannot pass through the Fourth Wall and come tumbling into your living room. It’s just that
this whole process is a lot easier to do with an animated series.
For example, say you are watching Grey’s Anatomy. You’ve been an avid follower since the
series premiere and have never missed an episode. You would know then, that towards the end of the
third season, Addison makes a trip to visit some of her old friends in California. This encounter
eventually leads in to her spinoff, Private Practice. You love Grey’s so much that you decide to start
watching this new show as well. Now, let’s say that halfway through the Grey’s episodes titled “The
Other Side of This Life, Parts 1 & 2,” one of the characters turned directly to the camera and made a
comment about the fact that Addison is getting her own spin-off (ABC). How would you react? Would
one of the characters admitting that they are aware that they are on television ruin the whole effect of the
show for you? Sure it would. The viewer is supposed to know that the characters are fake but the
characters cannot know about the viewers or the whole viewer-character dynamic is ruined. Logically,
one could conclude that breaking the Fourth Wall would be a terrible mistake.
By the 1980s, television had made many changes to the families that were portrayed on
television. We had gone from watching the Cleavers of Leave it to Beaver and the Nelsons from Ozzie
and Harriet to the Bundys of Married…With Children and the Conners of Roseanne. The world, too, had
made some major changes between the 1950s and the 1980s. The 1950s saw the world trying to recover
from the effects of World War II. We saw the building of the Berlin wall in late 1961. In November 1989,
that same wall met its demise (“Berlin”). Sometimes a wall has to be moved in order to make progress,
just look at Germany after the falling of the Berlin Wall.
This is where animation stepped in to completely change our world. In December 1989, less than
a month after the destruction of the Berlin Wall, FOX network introduced Americans to the Homer
Simpson family in a new, animated, domestic sitcom The Simpsons. The comedy featured “rapid and
complex plots, less admirable characters, and quicker wit,” than other shows on television at the time
(Tueth). It was the first animated prime-time sitcom to experience any success since The Flintstones in
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the 1960s, and is now shown in over 70 countries (Brooks). The animated world of the Simpsons allows
for thousands of character possibilities and unlimited scene changes in every episode. It also opened the
door to ridiculous plot twists, more physical comedy, faster dialogue, and a more misshapen and
exaggerated view of the American family (Tueth). This animated environment also served as a wrecking
ball for the Fourth Wall.
One thing that The Simpsons and Family Guy do well is to include the audience in every laugh.
How many times has the release of a movie been followed by that one quote that that was soon stamped
on every T-shirt across America (think: Vote for Pedro or Team Edward)? The writers of the shows that
currently populate FOX’s “Animation Domination” block (The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad,
and The Cleveland Show) latched on to this and began to make pop culture references to everything from
movies, to songs, to Broadway, to their own television shows. These jokes are made without referencing
where they came from – as an inside joke between the viewers and the characters. The viewers who
understand the jokes laugh and become a small part of the “community” of viewers (Dalton). Yet, unlike
many communities in the suburbs, this community is built without a wall.
One of the most notable examples of The Simpsons breaking the fourth wall comes to us in the
episode “Behind the Laughter” at the end of the eleventh season. In this episode, we are given a behind
the scenes look at the production of The Simpsons, in the fashion of VH1’s Behind the Scenes. The show
begins with Homer pitching the pilot that eventually led his family to stardom. Then we see the family
move into MC Hammer’s mansion, struggle with addiction and make poor investments. Eventually, they
have a huge fight and refuse to speak to each other, forcing FOX to put the show on a hiatus, a.k.a. the
break between seasons.
There is no show on television today that does a more thorough job of breaking the Fourth Wall
than Family Guy. There’s the episode “Saving Private Brian” in which Stewie is trying to convince Brian
to not leave the army. He says, “You can't leave, man, that's desertion. They'll come after you like Peter
went after that hockey coach. [he pauses, but there's no cutaway. He begins talking to the production
crew] Oh, no clip? Oh, thought we had a clip. Nope? Okay. [Talking to Brian again] Uh-uh, you can't
leave, Brian...” There’s the episode “Not All Dogs Go To Heaven” when Peter turns to the camera and
tells the audience that he wouldn’t mind if they changed the channel. Or, there’s the episode “Baby Not
on Board,” when Cleveland turns to Quagmire and casually asks, “Did I tell you I was getting a spinoff?”
That doesn’t sound quite so weird coming from his mouth, does it? And we can’t forget the episode “The
Three Kings.” In this episode, there is a parody of The Shawshank Redemption where Peter says, “Since
you’re Black and I'm White, that's makes it more special for the audience,” and then turns and smiles at
the home viewers.
The list goes on and on, proving just how easy it is for a cartoon to break that invisible barrier
that surrounds the rest of television, but does that mean that it is impossible for a live-action comedy to
break the barrier? No, it just means that it takes a little more guts and some imagination to pull it off in
the live-action environment. Shows like 30 Rock and Better off Ted have done a pretty good job at
hacking a hole in the infamous Fourth Wall. Yet, the Fourth Wall remains an ever-present force in the
television world. The question remains: Is the Fourth Wall more like the Great Wall of China or the
Berlin Wall? Should we leave the wall standing but allow people to go through a gate? Or should we just
tear the wall down?
Works Cited
ABC Studios. “The Other Side of This Life.” Grey’s Anatomy Episode Guide. Season 3, Episode 22. 08
Nov
2009.
<http://abc.go.com/shows/greys-anatomy/episode-guide/the-other-side-of-thislife/89767>.
“Berlin Wall History.” Berlin Wall Online. 08 Nov 2009. <http://www.dailysoft.com/berlinwall/>.
Brooks, Marla. The American Family on Television: A Chronology of 121 Shows, 1948-2004. Jefferson,
NC & London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2005.
3
Dalton, Mary, and Linder Laura. The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed. Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2005. 261-271.
FOX Studios. “Behind the Laughter.” The Simpsons Show Recaps. Season 11, Episode 22. 08 Nov 2009.
<http://www.thesimpsons.com/recaps/season11/index.htm>.
Tueth, Michael V.. Laughter in the Living Room: Television Comedy and the American Home Audience.
New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2005. 191-215
"TV Tropes: Fourth Wall". 08 Nov 2009 <http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FourthWall>.