Talk:Suspension of disbelief

message: I just noticed that the Doctor Who reference doesn't work that well anymore with the introduction of the new series. That's not low-budget or cheesy by any standards—except when intentionally in homage to the earlier series. 82.92.119.11 22:34, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The "Doctor Who" shows were not all the same. Not only are the Doctors completely different at different times, but the whole appearance of the show has changed during its history. Therefore, one cannot speak of the show as though it is one unchanging presentation. The article was referring to the early shows which presented notoriously inexpensive and unconvincing special effects and stage props.Lestrade (talk) 15:51, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Doctor Who 

message: I think that using predominantly sci-fi and fantasy examples represents a misunderstanding of the concept. Almost all narrative entertainment requires a willing suspension of disbelief--- for example, movies depend on the audience "agreeing" to pretend there is not a camera in the room. In plays, we all agree to pretend there is a fourth wall, or that for some reason nobody laughs when something funny is said. Though the phrase was coined in the context of romantic ideas, it became an important idea because EVERY work of drama is stylized in one way or another. BarkingDoc 21:55, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps the article should start with the aspects of suspension of disbelief involved with the theater, and with fiction in general (for instance, that a first-person narrator can accurately remember and relate the exact words of a hundred-odd conversations they were involved in; or more generally, dialogue that doesn't sound like the way people really talk (e.g., unusually low incidence of hesitation particles (um, uh, hm...) and high proportion of complete sentences)) and then move on to sf and fantasy examples? --Jim Henry 11:30, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examples 

message: These "examples" are nothing but personal opinions. You don't find the Superman/Clark Kent dichotomy logical, but perhaps I do.
Such sentences are not factual and not helpful:
*Suspension of disbelief is an essential ingredient in the enjoyment of many B-grade science fiction films and television series
*One of the most-well known examples of suspension of disbelief is the acceptance that the iconic superhero, Superman, hides his identity from the world by simply donning a pair of glasses, wearing conservative clothing, and acting in a "mild mannered" fashion, which contrasts with the large and in-charge personality of Superman.
*Not only is the disguise so thin as to be ridiculous
The entire section is written in this manner and it doesn't help convey what suspension of belief is.Bantosh 21:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Disputed ''Examples in modern forms of entertainment''

message: And here is a nice little summary of Aristotle's Poetics I found on the web at http://co-5.college-online.com/tom_treffinger/Drama%20Lecture%20Notes.htm
Not that Willingness is key in Aristotle's analysis as the audience must participate....
Drama Lecture Notes
Drama originated in ancient Greece as a religious festival to the god Dionysius, the god of wine, music, and fertility.  At first no dramatic actors were used; the players wore masks and described whom they were representing.  Thespis, the first actor, "became" the character he portrayed.  In doing so, much of the action shifted from the chorus to the actions and speeches of the individual characters.
In most plays the audience participates through its "willing suspension of disbelief."  The audience knows what it is watching is not real but suspends that disbelief during the actual performance.  One force that enables the audience to suspend its disbelief is the "fourth wall":  the notion that the audience is watching what occurs through an invisible wall that separates the actors on stage from the theater-goers in their seats.
These basic conventions are not iron-clad and more modern and contemporary plays and playwrights purposely try to break down the fourth wall and/or to interfere with the willing suspension of disbelief.  Thorton Wilder in Our Town, for instance, uses a character called the "Stage Manager" to directly speak to the audience as if he really were the stage manager and not a character in the play.
Many conventions in plays can be traced back to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle and the ideas he presented in a series of lectures entitled the Poetics. Aristotle outlined what he believed were the six most important elements of drama.  Many playwrights and critics still adhere to the basic premises Aristotle outlines, but even in Aristotle's day not everyone followed his precepts.  The six major elements listed below appear in their order of importance.
1) Plot:  Aristotle said plot is the "life and soul of tragedy."  Plot consists of the arrangement of parts into a consistent and logical pattern that links the actions into an indivisible chain.  Plots have varied from the simple, tightly knit structure of Greek tragedy, to the loose episodes of Medieval drama, to the complicated action of the Elizabethans, to the naturalists' attempts to avoid all semblance of structure, to contemporary absurdists' plays with little attempt for disciplined structure.
Despite these differences, plots are usually arranged to produce a cumulative effect that gives the play tension and emotional momentum.  Aristotle said that plot consists of nine basic elements.
* 1) Exposition:  In the beginning of the play, the playwright must show who the major characters are, what their relationship is to one another, what motivates them, and usually some aspect of the environment.
* 2) Discovery and Reversal:  In revealing the characters' motivations and objectives and their relationships and feelings, the dramatist must also invent and organize a series of interesting and compelling discoveries about the characters that cause for the characters and/or the audience to have a change in attitude about the characters.  Such discoveries can also change the play's course of action.
* 3) Point of Attack: This is the moment in the play when the precipitating force sets the mechanism into motion.  Whatever equilibrium that exists when the play opens is disturbed, turbulence results, and a period of adjustment begins. Thus, without the point of attack, there would be no play.
* 4) Foreshadowing: The playwright makes subsequent action credible by supplying carefully inserted clues in the early parts of the play.
* 5) Complication: A complication is any new force introduced into the play which affects the direction of the course of action.  The point of attack is the first complication.
* 6) Crisis: A crisis is a time of decision, a turning point, or a crossroads when a character is forced to make a decision.  It involves a clash of interests.
* 7) Climax: The climax is the culmination of the course of action.  In some ways most plays are a series of climaxes until the major climax is reached and the emotional impact of the play reaches its highest point.
* 8) Denouement: The denouement or conclusion is the ending of the play and provides the final resolution.  The denouement restores some order and unifies and completes the course of the action.  It usually answers some, but not necessarily all, remaining questions the audience has.
* 9) Unities: There are three unities--time, place, and action.  Aristotle felt a play's action should last no longer than twenty-four hours.  Playwrights have rarely abided by this restriction consistently, but the action of most plays is typically confined to a short space of time.  Similarly, the place of a play should be limited to one location, and dramatists generally concentrate the action in order to keep the focus clear.  By action, Aristotle meant dramas should deal with a single course of events involving little or no extraneous material.  Obviously, this notion of action varies from play to play.
2) Character: Aristotle argued characters in plays must be simplified (but not necessarily simple) with their qualities made clear in a few telling scenes.  Generally, audiences learn about characters in four ways in drama:
* 1) Appearance: The character's physical qualities, including dress.
* 2) Speech: The kind of language the character employs, as well as the manner of speaking, voice quality, etc.
* 3) External Actions: What characters do which reveal clues as to their inner motivation.
* 4) What Others Say: What other characters say about a character and the way in which they react to this character.
3) Thought:  Aristotle called this the reasoning aspect of drama.  Generally speaking this means that plays are not objective debates with factual information presented followed by logical, clear decisions.  Rather, characters in plays make subjective decisions under pressure while they are enmeshed in webs of conflicting, emotional entanglements.
4) Diction:  Diction consists of the language of the play.  The words actors speech must be believable given the context of the play.  Diction does not mean, however, the language of all plays is realistic.
5) Music: Music refers to all auditory material of a play, including sound effects and the tonal patterns of the spoken words.
6) Spectacle: Spectacle refers to all visual aspects of the production, including scenery, lighting, costumes, makeup, and movements on stage.
Aristotle felt all of these elements make drama and/or tragedy valuable because through the willing suspension of disbelief they provide the audience a catharsis, a purging of emotions.  Audience members are able to experience the emotions (fear, disgust, revulsion, joy, etc.) of the "tragic hero" and to gain understanding of life from this experience without, however, having to actually endure the troubling events the tragic hero suffers through.
Dan E. 4/14/2007
The trouble with this reference is that it's not a genuine citation, but rather a college student's gloss. Aristotle doesn't use this term or idea. The idea that tragedy produces a 'purgation' is a Renaissance gloss on catharsis. Modern interpretations (Else, for example) contest the idea that catharsis works in this way at all - and in either case, 'WSDB' isn't part of the process. This is an anachronism.
DionysosProteus 05:03, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Note -- I have reformatted the pasted comment to make reading easier. I did not delete anything other than whitespace, and I did not add anything other than bullets. -- 12.116.162.162 (talk) 17:25, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Aristotle]]'s [[Poetics (Aristotle)|Poetics]]

message: "This action would seem to challenge the audience's suspension of disbelief, which would according to the theory make the audience unable to enjoy the fiction."
In a previous example, concerning game mechanics, the suspension is required for overlooking conventions equal to self-references... someone telling a character to press a button is stepping out of the fictional universe just as is a character addressing the audience.
Wouldn't you need the suspension of disbelief to overlook this detail that actually makes you disbelieve?
Again, fallacious logic. Someone change it, it's wrong and misleading.
#*Shouldn't then you include any film which states that (along the lines of) 'the events in this film are based on a true events, etc', such as The Great Escape, Titanic or Munich? Colt .55 (talk) 12:54, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Issues with self-reference 

message: Also Armageddon, where Max says to a doctor holding a large syringe "Ever see Pulp Fiction?" which also stars Bruce Willis -Kinkify 01:40, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canon-puncturing 

message: However, many of these criticisms simply fail to notice that Coleridge's original statement came in a restrictive clause. The formulation "...that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment which constitutes poetic faith," of necessity implies that there are different sorts of suspension of disbelief and specifies that poetic faith is one instance of a larger class. One need not choose to believe that a character in a horror film is a real person in order, for example, to choose to believe that the character is looking at the building seen in the following reverse-shot. More often than not, both beliefs would be equally false.
This seems like a defense that shouldn't be in a neutral article, but I'm far too ignorant of the subject to want to change it myself --Abyaly 20:10, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism of the theory 

message: the line "It’s interesting that Hillary would chose such words to call a four star General a liar." doesnt seem necessary to me. BelalHaniffa 10:51, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It was indeed, and rightfully so.  However, when I came to this article the paragraph on Clinton's usage of the term was completely vague.  It didn't say who she was talking about, when she said it, or what she was referring to.  I think we can do that without becoming nasty and unencyclopedic (and besides, there were also no references), so I gave it a go.  I provided the New York Sun article (which apparently is what Huffington post was using as reference at the time)and to a site that has the excerpt from CSPAN where she starts talking.  CSPAN seems to have the whole hearing on their website, too, but I will have to watch a lot of video to find where it is.  Basically I googled Hillary Clinton and the term to find out what this article was talking about, and guessed that was the incident in question.  I guess the removed line confirms the origin.  If I find the original CSPAN video we can try that instead for citation ... hopefully I at least got my fields right.  Rifter0x0000 (talk) 21:48, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hilary Clinton 

message: "(due to graphical limitations during the time)"
I'm fairly sure this is quite incorrect; From what I've heard, the reason for his stunts in TTS is a different animation director, who, IIRC, was a huge fan of The Matrix; Kojima supposedly even rejected some of his first cutscenes.
Can anyone find a reliable source for this? Tubba Blubba (talk) 21:24, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Snake's stunts in The Twin Snakes

message: Maybe I'm stupid, but I don't see what "breaking the fourth wall" has got to do with the issue at hand in the paragraph on video games. Discordia23 (talk) 16:34, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Video Games

message: This is a commonly heard phrase, but is it true? I somehow doubt that space is a vacum, and, anyway, most space battles take place near objects of interest (How else are people going to find each other?), and these objects might have lose particles around them, allowing sound to be transmitted. It seems un encyclopedic to put up an example like that, unless you can prove it..........  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Crakker (talk • contribs) 18:28, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sound is caused by wave pressure through AIR (oxygen nigrogen etc...) Since space is a vaccum, no air = no sound. Think Alien_(movie) "In space no one can hear you scream". This fact is well known if you had done a bit of research BEFORE you posted. 220.101.4.140 (talk) 15:31, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It isn't really necessary to adopt an insulting tone and to be so dismissive particularly as like many "well known facts", this one isn't a "fact". Space is not a perfect vacuum. QU TalkQu 15:35, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

text:  Sorry, Wasn't intended to be a negative tone but this is a "fact". Perfect vacuum or not, it's close enough. If you think Im wrong, please explain.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.101.4.140 (talk) 15:51, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Space as a vaccum 

message: In two films, Terror by Night and Voice of Terror, the device is used of having the identity of Watson's school chum become an important part of the story. Is it possible for a person to mistake a former close acquaintance or even a former mate? Aging changes people's appearance, voice, and behavior, but a fundamental identity is usually recognized.  Sommersby and The Return of Martin Guerre try to make this credible. These are cases in which Coleridge's willing suspension of disbelief might be necessary if the film is to be tolerated as entertainment.Lestrade (talk) 04:24, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Scarcely credible

message: What about the fact that in the show Lost, the male characters NEVER grow beards despite the fact that they've been stuck for God-knows how many months on the island? (Even Matthew Fox showed up one season with a new haircut). And the fact that Hurley doesn't seem to have lost a single pound since the beginning of the show in spite of the fact that he's probably living on a diet mostly consisting of berries and fish and the manual labor he has to do in order to survive? That is a serious case of suspension of disbelief that could be added in the article. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 07:18, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Male characters in Lost usually sporting beards: Michael, Mr Eko, Sawyer, Desmond, Sayid, Charlie, Paulo, Hurley, Miles...are you sure you weren't watching Charlie's Angels? 86.159.79.128 (talk) 20:16, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lost 

message: I think to some extent "suspension of disbelief" refers to "plausibility within the constraints defined by a combination of the actually existing context #and# the fictional representation presented" - and there has to be a degree of plausibility in the combination. It is when there is a blatent discontinuety that the problems arise (eg ignoring basic health and safety or relatives 'appearing out of nowhere' and automatically accepted) Jackiespeel (talk) 18:40, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Definitions

message: Some TV mockumentaries are more entertaining because they do not have as much suspension of disbelief (for example The Office) --Matthew Bauer (talk) 02:54, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: The Office

message: Shouldn't you include any film which states that (along the lines of) 'the events in this film are based on a true events, etc', such as The Great Escape, Titanic or Munich? Colt .55 (talk) 12:58, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Films and books based on True Stories/Events 

message: I added a small paragraph to the lead, re: magic / sideshow acts. There should be a section, perhaps 'Performance' under 'In popular culture' section which expands on this.  There presumably are other examples of 'Performance art' or whatever that could be included. ~Eric F 74.60.29.141 (talk) 19:35, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Performance 

message: At the moment, there is a lonely little article hardly discussing 'central conceit'. I suggest that topic be moved here, perhaps as a section or whatever. I defer to editors more familiar with these types of articles.--→gab 24dot grab← 20:16, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge 'Central conceit' 

message: Seriously though, most of the video games stuff is useless and unhelpful here. VelvetCommuter (talk) 20:55, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Video Games 

message: Few citations, much of it opinion or essay style. I removed a chunk of text, and will rebuild from there. Harizotoh9 (talk) 02:21, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Good. It was becoming necessary to suspend disbelief that this was Wikipedia or had anything to do with Coleridge's concept. Straw Cat (talk) 16:21, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terrible article 

message: These examples had questionable relevance, gave undue weight to subjects unrelated to this article, and did little to help explain the concept.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.150.10.206 (talk) 19:08, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed Politics and Popular Culture sections 

message: Hi! I went ahead and removed an example of circus acts being an example of suspension of disbelief from the content section.  The example felt out of place and unsubstantiated.  I know this article has had a history of adding and removing specific examples of literary and media figures that require suspension of disbelief to engage with, but I do not feel that a this page needs to be responsible for an encompassing list of all the media which requires a suspension of disbelief to enjoy (that would be a long list!).  I also condensed the black-and-white film example into a short sentence after a description of SoD's role in visual media.  Before, the example was unnecessarily detailed and contained repetitive information.  
It might be in our best interest to refrain from providing specific examples as the breadth of SoD is incredibly far-reaching.  With this comes the question of if we should remove the section on "Examples in Literature"?  Right now there is only a single example, and although it may be fitting, it is without citation for being an actual possible nod to SoD.  I think if we cannot provide more examples, the page might be better off without it.  That is, of course, a larger decision to make so I would appreciate hearing if anyone agrees or disagrees with that idea!! Mattt1235 (talk) 05:47, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Circus Example and Examples in Literature Section 

message: In a section above, #Faith and religion, the topic is broached, but this article still has no mention of religious faith. That needs to be fixed.
For an adult, the initial "leap of faith" one takes to enter religious faith takes a bit of "work" and may well involve a very serious existential crisis. (Such a crisis will often ensue if one "leaves" one's faith.) To become a believer, one must suspend disbelief in what rational people consider fiction and impossible nonsense (like miracles), and then, to remain a true believer, one must maintain that approach to any facts that contradict one's beliefs.
That approach involves creating a system of mental gymnastics for dealing with the continual state of cognitive dissonance believers live in. That system aids one in rejecting any facts that contradict one's beliefs. The moment one fails to do that, one begins to "lose one's faith". All it takes may be the discovery of the inadequacy and falseness of a single one of one's foundational beliefs to trigger a collapse of one's belief system. Any system built on a faulty foundation is weak.
For a child, it's a bit different. A small child born into a believing family will normally adopt, without question, the belief system of their parents. There is no clear line of demarcation between fact and fantasy. If their parents believe that God is real, then the child does too. For some children, the discovery that Santa Claus is not a living person can trigger doubts about their belief in God. Most will learn to accept that Santa is a fiction while continuing to suspend disbelief when it comes to believing in God. They believe most facts about reality but learn to compartmentalize religious beliefs into a box where those beliefs are allowed to defy all rules and natural laws that rationalists accept as simple facts. Rationalists consider this suspension of disbelief to be delusional willful ignorance.
The difference between the "temporary belief" of the viewer of theater or reader of fiction is fundamentally different from the "permanent belief" of the true believer of religious faith. It is touched on here:
: "For when we read narrative fiction we never entirely suspend our disbelief, and this difference makes all the difference. “Once religion has revealed itself to you, you are never free,” but fiction is “a special realm of freedom”; it “moves in the shadow of doubt, knows itself to be a true lie, knows that at any moment it might fail to make its case” (p. xiv)."
So yes, we definitely should include religious faith in this article. The above is just my reasoning, and not a RS, so we need to use RS, and they do exist.
Key words: faith, belief, religion, religious
Here are a few RS to start with:
* Book review of: Michael Tomko, Beyond the Willing Suspension of Disbelief: Poetic Faith from Coleridge to Tolkien. New Directions in Religion and Literature. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. xii + 184 pp. ISBN: 978-1-7809-3730-4.
* Theology and Disbelief, Brian Wicker, Life of the Spirit (1946-1964), Vol. 17, No. 194 (OCTOBER 1962), pp. 115-124 (10 pages), Published By: Wiley (need access)
* Review of: The Broken Estate: Essays on Literature and Belief, by James Wood; xvi & 270 pp. New York: Random House, 1999
Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:48, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Faith and religion 2