what does the term 4th wall mean?

[Mystic Muse]

title says it all.

[billtodamax]

The fourth originates from the theater, when sets were constructed with three walls (back and sides) and an invisible fourth wall that the audience would look through. When a character "Breaks the fourth wall" he will traditionally step closer to the audience, right up to the edge of the stage, and start talking to the audience. In modern media, the fourth wall is your computer screen or television screen, and when a character references that faact that the work is fiction, or if they say something to the audience, that's breaking the fourth wall.

[Ravens_cry]

Well, if you watch a play, the sets will have three walls. The fourth wall is the invisible one you see through to watch the play. It has come to mean the separation of the characters in a work of fiction from realizing they are characters in a work of fiction. Bob and Alice think they are real, even if (usually) the actors playing Bob and Alice don't.
TV Tropes article on the Fourth Wall (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FourthWall)
[edit]Eeak!
Ninja mimes!

[Haruki-kun]

^: What they said on the history of theater.

I suppose the Fourth Wall in modern media would be the great barrier dividing the work of fiction and the real world. In some cases, this Fourth Wall is broken in order to produce humor, when a character adresses the audience or references the fact that their world is a work of fiction.

[llamamushroom]

Strangely enough, I found out about the origin of that concept in Drama today.

Constantin Stanislavsky (spelling?) was a Russian (obviously) actor/director, and father of both naturalistic and method acting (similar but slightly different). The 'Fourth Wall' was his way of saying that what the audience was seeing was part of the life of the characters, that the audience is a fly on said wall.

Of course, the majority of modern phrases including the term include the word "breaking" somewhere in there, which is essentially where the audience becomes directly involved in the action.

For instance, Jeffrey Archer's "The Accused" breaks the 4th wall from the get-go, with the Bailiff addressing the audience as the jury (incidentally, there are two endings, depending on the audience's verdict).

By contrast, Nick Enright's "Blackrock" is entirely naturalistic, and the 4th wall is very firmly established.

By the way, having a 4th wall doesn't mean that the actors aren't influenced by the audience - they still have to speak louder/clearer than they would in normal life (one of Stanislavsky's many contradictions), pause for laughter, etc.

Yay, Drama!

[Hzurr]

A couple of examples of "breaking the 4th wall"

Deadpool comics: If you read these, the character Deadpool regularly will talk to the reader, make comments about the author, make comments about the text-boxes, etc., and is constantly "breaking the forth wall" because he addresses the reader directly, and is fully aware that he's in a comic book. No other characters in the comics usually understand this, and they all simply assume that Deadpool is insane (which he is).

Zack, on Saved By the Bell: Remember how Zack would always call "Time Outs," and then turn and address the audience, commenting about what was going on? That's Zack breaking the 4th wall.

[Coidzor]

Asides, delivered directly to the audience, for another example.

[averagejoe]

Note also that in comics "breaking the fourth wall" can also refer to when the artist draws the characters coming out of the comic panels or something similar. For example, this strip. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0518.html) The more conventional fourth wall break is seen here, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0600.html) when Roy and his grandfather are talking about strip 600. This one (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0649.html) does both.

[reorith]

this needs more Deadpool (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadpool)