Breaking the Fourth Wall
Leaders who subvert the po-faced formality of politics win us over
Breaking the fourth wall is a drama technique where the actor speaks directly to the audience. Depending on how it’s done, it conveys a complicity, a knowingness, a bond with the viewer that draws you in.
The term comes from 18th-century realism. The French philosopher Denis Diderot argued that a stage should behave as if it had three solid walls and an imaginary fourth wall facing the audience. Actors should therefore play as if no one is watching. Once that invisible wall is named, it can be deliberately broken.
But the idea goes back a lot further. In Ancient Greek drama the chorus comments on events, moralises, and speaks to the crowd. In Medieval mystery and morality plays performers sermonise to spectators. In Shakespeare soliloquies, a character often talks directly to the audience.
More recently, in films such as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and in TV shows such as Fleabag, the main character speaks directly to the audience.
I’ve thought for a while that there is something about the best political communicators that draws on this idea of ‘breaking the fourth wall’. What they are doing, in their different ways and different styles - some with humour, some with swagger - is to make clear to the citizen, that this politics’ game is contrived. It is a way for the politician to let people know that they too can see through the artifice, that they are on the side of the public against the established way of doing things.
In recent years a number of politicians have been particularly good at it.
Before he became a terrible Prime Minister, Boris Johnson’s appeal was exactly this. A knowing nod to the audience, that says politics is a bit weird, and humour is the best way of dealing with its absurdities.
Trump
Trump, in his own unique way, breaks the fourth wall a lot. At a rally I went to in Pittsburgh during the 2024 Presidential election campaign, he paused half way through his speech to look up at a big screen with his giant face on it and ask the audience: “Does my hair look good enough, or should I go off stage and brush it?”
Trump constantly points to the media at his rallies and makes common cause with the audience against them - the peddlers of fake news. He is saying to his supporters, you know and I know, that we have to fight this biased media together.
What Trump calls ‘the weave’ is pure fourth wall breaking. Its rambling, discursive form with many asides - “you will never believe……”, “by the way…..”, shows the audience that this is not some formal, overly scripted leader’s speech, but something special for this particular occasion.
In this clip, Trump is both explaining why he fell asleep in his own cabinet meeting, and also happily describing it as boring - an unusual position to take about your own event.
Carney
In recent months, Mark Carney has excelled at breaking the fourth wall - in a very different way to Trump. I first saw him do this at a private gathering in London, shortly after he became Prime Minister, when he made a speech to a group of international think tanks. He punctuated his scripted speech with several asides that lifted the lid on the speech process itself. “This is the point when my advisors have told me I need to do the patriotic bit, so here’s a quote from a Canadian poet.”
This recent clip of him praising the success of the Canadian TV programme Heated Rivalry is another good example. “I’m a politician, I’m not above taking credit for the Canadian funding. I might not have been here when the decision was made. But I am here now.”
Social media and breaking the fourth wall
Much of the best content from politicians on social media platforms plays to this idea of ‘breaking the fourth wall’.
It shows politicians behind the scenes, in unguarded moments, talking directly through the camera to voters, puncturing the formality of politics.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is skilled at this.
Why does breaking the fourth wall matter?
Breaking the fourth wall matters in an age of populism. It is a way of bringing politics closer to the people.
It about understanding the scepticism of the public and not taking politics too seriously.
The politicians who are good at this have a few other things in common:
Sufficient confidence as a communicator that they can play around with the medium.
Confidence that they can win over the public - they are not permanently on the defensive.
A sense of humour and resilience to attacks that allows them to puncture pomposity and seriousness even in very serious and dangerous times.
At best it shows:
Connection: “I’m being real with you.”
Complicity “You and I see the trick”. “The media will hate me for saying this but……”.
Populists often go further. “They are trying to silence me. They don’t want an honest debate.”
And sometimes…..
A Common enemy “They’re lying to you and we won’t let that happen.”
So breaking the fourth wall can be about connection and democratising politics or it can be, in the case of Trump for example, a kind of manipulation, part of his post-truth politics.
One thing is clear - business-as-usual politicians - who don’t try to build rapport, will find it increasingly difficult to win over a public at a time when trust in politics is at an all time low.
Agree. I think Streeting best at this in current govt, using humour and self referential commentary on politics v effectively.
I think the key for its appeal is what you say about breaking through the pomposity of politics/politicians, and for the same reason Farage / Trump appeal to voters even when they do outrageous things that in a previous era would have been punishable by voters.
It makes them seem human, and avoids the virtue signalling / patronising that voters are irked by, especially from those on the left.
Great piece and perspective.