Meta-reference

Meta-reference, a metafiction technique, is a situation in a work of fiction whereby characters display an awareness that they are in such a work, such as a film, television show or book, and possibly that they are being observed by an audience. Sometimes it may even just be a form of editing or film-making technique that comments on the programme/film/book itself.

Types of meta-reference

Fiction

Meta-reference in fiction can sometimes be jarring to the reader and sometimes comical, such as in Jasper Fforde's novel Lost in a Good Book. The character Thursday Next remarks to her husband that she feels uncomfortable having sex in front of so many people; he is confused since they are alone in their bedroom, so she explains, "all the people reading us". There are several occasions of metareference in Fforde's work. In The Fourth Bear, two characters lament over a bad joke made by the author, saying, "I can't believe he gets away with that." Some novels with first person narration contain instances when the narrator addresses the reader directly, which is one form of metareference. Examples of this type of metareference can be seen in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, and in Philip Reeve's Larklight.

Theatre

Aspects of a play that draw attention to its nature as drama or theatre, or to the circumstances of its performance, can be called instances of metatheatre or metadrama.

These may include: the direct address of the audience (especially in soliloquies, asides, prologues, and epilogues); expression of an awareness of the presence of the audience (whether they are addressed directly or not); an acknowledgement of the fact that the people performing are actors (and not actually the characters they are playing); an element whose meaning depends on the difference between the represented time and place of the drama (the fictional world) and the time and place of its theatrical presentation (the reality of the theatre event); plays-within-plays (or masques, spectacles, or other forms of performance within the drama); references to acting, theatre, dramatic writing, spectatorship, and the frequently employed metaphor according to which "all the world's a stage" (Theatrum mundi); scenes involving eavesdropping or other situations in which one or several characters observe another or others, such that the former relate to the behaviour of the latter as if it were a staged performance for their benefit.

Metatheatricality has been a dimension of drama ever since its invention in the theatre of classical Greece 2,500 years ago. In the modern era, the rise of realism and naturalism lead to the development a performance convention known as the "fourth wall". The metaphor suggests a relationship to the mise-en-scène behind a proscenium arch. When a scene is set indoors and three of the walls of its room are presented onstage, the "fourth" of them would run along the line dividing the room from the auditorium (technically called the "proscenium"). The fourth wall is thus an invisible, imagined wall that separates the actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes, the actors act as if they cannot. In this sense, the "fourth wall" is a convention of acting, rather than of set design, and can be created regardless of the presence of any actual walls in the set or the physical arrangement of the theatre building or performance space. "Breaking the fourth wall", in the strict sense of the phrase, is any instance in which this performance convention, having been adopted more generally in the drama, is disregarded. The temporary suspension of the convention in this way draws attention to its use in the rest of the performance. This act of drawing attention to a play's performance conventions is metatheatrical. A similar effect of metareference is achieved when the performance convention of avoiding direct contact with the camera, generally used by actors in a television drama or film, is temporarily suspended. The phrase "breaking the fourth wall" is used to describe such effects in those media.

Film

One of the earliest metareferences in cinema is in the Marx Brothers' movie Animal Crackers, in which at one point Groucho speaks directly to the camera, saying, "Pardon me while I have a strange interlude." (This is a reference to the play of that title in which characters spoke their inner thoughts to the audience.) Later, after a somewhat feeble joke, Groucho again speaks to the camera, saying, "All the jokes can't be good! You have to expect that once in awhile."

In the Road to... films of the 1940s, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby frequently spoke to the audience and made references to the studio, the movie, and the actors.

In the 1966 film Matinee Mouse, a scene at the end features a fight scene from The Truce Hurts Tom, Jerry, and Spike pause to watch Tom and Jerry fight.

A more recent example comes from Fight Club. A scene near the end of the movie returns to its opening scene, but instead of saying "I can't think of anything," the narrator now says, "I still can't think of anything," demonstrating that he is aware of having been subjected to a cinematic time-shift; another character responds sarcastically with "Ah, flashback humor."

Mel Brooks has made metareference a directorial trademark in several of his films. In Blazing Saddles, a fight within the movie spills over into the film studio where it is being filmed and the characters fight with those from other movies. Several of the main characters flee from the brouhaha to a movie theater to see how their own movie resolves itself. Brooks continued his brand of self-reference in Spaceballs as several characters attempt to figure out what to do next by watching a bootleg of the very movie in which they appear. Brooks continues in similar fashion in Robin Hood: Men in Tights during a scene in which the actors, unsure of the rules of an archery contest, check the movie's script. Later in the same film, Dave Chappelle's character references the plot of Blazing Saddles in his bid to become the new sheriff.

Meta-humor is prevalent in The Great Muppet Caper and Muppet Treasure Island. For example, in the former, Kermit the Frog critiques Miss Piggy's acting; in the latter, a tour group of rats take pictures of "the actual jungle location for the movie Muppet Treasure Island."

In the 1953 Merrie Melodies cartoon Duck Amuck, Daffy Duck pleads to the animator who repeatedly makes unwanted changes to the scenery, as well as to Daffy's appearance and voice. A similar situation occurs in Rabbit Rampage, the victim this time being Bugs Bunny.

In The Simpsons Movie, Homer Simpson opines that everybody who watches movies in theaters is a giant sucker, turns to the audience, and says, "Especially you!" A similar reference is made in Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back when Ben Affleck's character, Holden McNeil, asks why anyone would pay to see a movie about Jay and Silent Bob and subsequently stares directly at the camera. Espionage-thriller spoof Top Secret! features a moment where the characters portrayed by Val Kilmer and Lucy Gutteridge remark to each other that the ridiculous situation they find themselves in is like something from a bad movie. Afterwards, they both turn their heads to face the audience.

After the closing credits of Ferris Bueller's Day Off (and presumably after most patrons have left the theater), Ferris (Matthew Broderick) steps out and chides those remaining with, "You're still here? It's over. Go home." [There are numerous occasions of Ferris addressing the audience throughout the film.]. This scene was parodied in a post-credits scene of the 2016 film Deadpool, which also makes extensive use of meta humor throughout the film.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has a main character who often references the situations he is in; he criticises the placement of two extras in a flashback scene, and at the end of the movie, in a hospital, various dead characters from earlier on in the movie (including Abraham Lincoln) reappear as the narrator criticises the Hollywood trend of miraculous recovery of certain characters presumed dead.

In the movie adaptation of the Hitman game series, Agent 47 crashes through a hotel room window and finds two children playing the Hitman game itself on a game console. With a bemused expression on his face, he then makes a hasty exit.

Michael Palin coined the term meta comment during the writing of Monty Python's Flying Circus. It refers to a moment of commentary or dialogue spoken by an actor referring to the situation that character is in. For example, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, following Sir Galahad's discovery of the Castle Anthrax – Dingo is telling the sad tale of her life... she turns to the camera:

Oh, wicked, bad, naughty, evil Zoot! She is a bad person and must pay the penalty... Do you think this scene should have been cut? We were so worried when the boys were writing it, but now, we're glad. It's better than some of the previous scenes, I think...

Metareference is used heavily in Last Action Hero, where the plot revolves around an action film fan, who is magically transferred into the movie he is watching. There he tries to convince the lead actor that he is, indeed, an action film hero, not a real-life police officer, by pointing out the extravagant cars, office spaces, and female extras, which only ever appear this way in movies, but not in real life, or by asking the lead to pronounce a swear word he can't utter, because the movie is rated PG-13. The boy cautions the hero "You can't trust him, he killed Mozart", referring to a character being played by actor F. Murray Abraham, who indeed played the murderous villain in Amadeus and turn out to be crooked. Once convinced, the hero complains about being subjected to a series of – to him real – ordeals "only as a form of entertainment". During the course of the movie, the movie villains learn how to transfer from the movie into real life and the film culminates in a showdown featuring actors meeting characters they have played, Death from Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal walking the streets, and the hero being saved from a deadly wound sustained in real life by being transferred back into his movie, where it is – naturally – only a flesh wound.

Radio

The long-running 1950s and 1960s radio comedy series The Goons frequently made use of meta-reference. In one episode, for example, Eccles reported that he never appeared in a scene with Moriarty because both characters were played by the same actor. The series' announcer, Wallace Greenslade, and musicians Max Geldray and Ray Ellington were occasionally called upon to act as minor characters, and their efforts were often derided on air by the other characters.

Television

It's Garry Shandling's Show starred Garry Shandling as, more or less, himself: a neurotic, somewhat self-obsessed stand-up comedian, who just happens to be aware he is a TV sitcom character. Garry spent just as much time interacting with the studio audience as he did the regular cast members. All the supporting characters also knew they were on a TV show, not just Garry, and the studio audience was often in the storyline. Even the show's theme song lyrics are self-referencing, explaining how the song came to be ("Garry called me up and asked if I would write his theme song") and asking what the listener thinks of it.

Frankie Howerd was famous for his remarks to the audience, especially in the show Up Pompeii! in which he would speak to the camera, feigning innocence about an obvious and risqué double entendre while mockingly censuring the audience for finding it funny.

Many jokes in the Warner Bros. animated series Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Freakazoid!, and Histeria! were meta-references.

The PBS Kids program "WordGirl"'s eponymous heroine is apparently aware that she is on a television program, often talking with the bodiless narrator (voiced by Chris Parnell). In one episode, WordGirl discovers a villain's location by holding the transition wipe mid-screen and peering on the other side after the narrator's refusal to just "tell" her where said villain is, as it would be against the narrator's code. Other characters seem to be able to hear the narrator at times as well.

George Burns started talking to his audience early on in his TV show. In his radio show, Burns would occasionally beg the audience for laughs "Please laugh, folks — that's the only line I got." Later on toward the end of The Burns and Allen Show on TV, George Burns brought in a television set and literally "watched" the characters on his TV show as if he were at home, and not in the studio.

Rocky and Bullwinkle makes frequent meta-references. These include several instances in which the characters speak directly to the audience, or the narrator, and speak about the show in which they are players. One such example included when Rocky protested being eaten by cannibals because the network did not approve. The cannibals say they just intend to roast him and not eat him, which is acceptable. This incident is a reference to the network complaining about Rocky and Bullwinkle being nearly eaten by human cannibals in a previous episode. Another example features Bullwinkle buying a plane ticket to China and wondering whether the audience ever gets curious how they pay for all their travel.

The comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus prominently featured meta-references; examples include:

Meta-references are frequently used on The Simpsons. Though the fourth wall is not directly broken, characters often mention the Fox Network or refer obliquely to the show, the writers, known continuity errors, or popular memes pertaining to the show as a form of self-parody.

In the South Park episode "More Crap", a trophy appears at the bottom of the screen to announce the fact that South Park won an Emmy for "Make Love Not Warcraft". At the end of "More Crap", Randy is awarded said trophy.

In the South Park episode "Red Man's Greed", a new character named Alex Glick is introduced without explanation. Glick had won a charity auction at an AIDS benefit held by Elton John in which South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker offered a one-time guest spot on the show. Glick makes periodic appearances throughout the episode and serves seemingly no purpose in the plot. He is ignored by the other boys until the end of the episode, when he pontificates on the lessons to be learned from the recent events. Stan asks him, "Dude, who the hell are you?", to which he responds, "I'm Alex Glick. I got to come on and do the voice thingy." Kyle tells him "What?! Get the hell out of here!", and Alex leaves after saying "Hi Mom! Hi Dad! Hi Joe!"

In the South Park episode "Cartoon Wars I", Cartman asks,"How would you like it if there was a TV show that made fun of Jews all the time?" Kyle responds by pointing at Cartman.

The Red Dwarf special "Red Dwarf: Back to Earth" is mostly based on a meta-reference premise whereby the characters enter the "real" (although equally fictional) world in which they are characters in a work of fiction, and meet the actors who portray them.

In an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in which the Banks family accompanies Will Smith's character on a visit to his childhood neighborhood in Philadelphia, Smith refers to a bully that he had fought with as "the dude spinning me around on his shoulders in the opening credits." In another episode, he questions, "If we so rich, how come we can't afford no damn ceiling?", at which point the camera pans upwards to reveal the lights and cameras above the open set.

Malcolm in the Middle regularly breaks the fourth wall to provide narration, indicating that an audience exists for Malcolm at least, if not for the other characters.

30 Rock frequently uses metahumor; Liz Lemon and other characters often directly address or wink at the camera. Its live episode continued with this type of humor, referencing (in its show within a show, The Girlie Show) a common flaw of live televised events, "breaking", when actors will laugh unintentionally while they are onscreen. Oftentimes the characters make obvious, intentionally shoehorned-in references to the show's use of product placement; in one instance, the characters Jack Donaghy and Liz Lemon rave excitedly to each other about Verizon Wireless phones, after which Lemon turns directly toward the camera and asks, "Can we have our money now?" Also, in the season 6 episode "Grandmentor", Tracy Morgan's character Tracy Jordan screams "We're on a show within a show, my real name is Tracy Morgan!" after he stops taking his medication.

In season 4 of Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld's character is asked by NBC executives to pitch them an idea for a TV series. Jerry and George conceive and pitch an idea for a "show about nothing" in a storyline that closely mirrors the premise of Seinfeld and the development of the idea for the show by Seinfeld and Larry David. A similar gag occurs in the series finale of Arrested Development: a character pitches the premise of the series to Ron Howard (narrator of the series) as a TV series, and he replies that it would work better as a movie.

In the science fiction show Supernatural season 6 episode 15 "The French Mistake" (a reference to Blazing Saddles mentioned above), Sam and Dean are sent into an alternate reality where they are actors Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles who star on a show called Supernatural. Also appearing is Misha Collins who plays the angel Castiel and Jared's real world wife Genevieve Padalecki, who used to play the demon Ruby in season 4 of the show..

This use of meta in Supernatural is once more continued in the episode "Fan Fiction" (season 10, episode 5), where a school puts on a musical based on the "Supernatural" books. Both Sam and Dean attend the musical, unaware that the book's author Chuck is also present. There is a moment in the episode in which Dean breaks the Fourth Wall and looks directly into the camera as a reaction to a character referencing the non-canon "Destiel", a fan invented queer relationship.

Boston Legal frequently used meta-humor, with characters often acknowledging their status as fictional characters. In one instance, Alan Shore greets Denny Crane by saying "I've hardly seen you this episode!" In another, Denny mentions to Alan "I once captained my own spaceship" as a reference to his Star Trek character Captain Kirk.

In season 18, episode 17 of Saturday Night Live, an episode of the recurring Hub's Gyros skit ends in a rare meta-reference. After several gags involving variations of the skit's "you like-a the juice, huh?" catchphrase, a customer played by David Spade asks for the sketch to end. Hub replies, "You like-a the sketch to end, huh? Same thing over and over? Getting very boring, huh?" The customer asks for the camera to pan over to "the blond guy with the guitar", to which Hub replies, "You like-a the blond guy with the guitar, huh? I show you the blond guy with the guitar" and points to the band off stage as the sketch ends.

Hospital sitcom Scrubs frequently uses meta-references; characters frequently comment on protagonist J.D.'s habit of daydreaming and frequent narration of his own life, the primary narration technique of the show.

The NBC sitcom Community derives much of its humor from the use of meta-reference; the character Abed often comments on how an episode's plot relates to popular tropes from television and film. In the episode entitled Football, Feminism and You (season 1, episode 6) Abed, observing Jeff and Annie, comments to himself "Will they or won't they? Sexual tension" to which Jeff turns to him and says "Abed, it makes the group uncomfortable when you talk about us like we're characters in a show you're watching." Abed responds "Well, that's sort of my gimmick. But we did lean on it pretty hard last week. I can lay low for an episode."

In CBBC show Dani's House, they frequently zoom out to two aliens, Coordinator Zang and Coordinator Zark, who are watching the show (not including themselves) to study human behaviour.

In the Canadian sitcom Corner Gas, an episode in the third season entitled "Physical Credit" features characters Wanda and Brent talking about films with poor production values when a boom microphone drops into the shot and hits Wanda on the head.

In the seventh episode of the Doctor Who story The Daleks' Master Plan, which was aired on Christmas Day, the Doctor breaks the fourth wall by wishing viewers a happy Christmas. In the story The Caves of Androzani, the villain Morgus addresses frequent asides to the camera, thus making the viewers complicit in his plots. The episode Before the Flood opens with the Doctor explaining the so-called 'Bootstrap Paradox' to the audience.

In the animated show Phineas and Ferb, characters regularly break the fourth wall; for instance, at the end of the theme song, Candace walks into the shot and yells "Mom, Phineas and Ferb are making a title sequence!", and in the episode "Meapless In Seattle", Doofenshmirtz responds to Meap's comment about how long they've been falling by saying sarcastically, "Oh, yeah, joke about the commercial break, that's how I want to spend the last few seconds of my life."

In the U.S. drama House of Cards, protagonist and anti-hero Frank Underwood frequently narrates to the audience about his political plans, often using witty quotes to do so.

The animated Nickelodeon show The Loud House break the fourth wall often, usually with the protagonist Lincoln Loud.

Music

Meta-references are sometimes included in songs, despite not being works of fiction themselves. In Salt N Pepa's 1991 single "Let's Talk About Sex", there is a spoken-word section which says "I don't think this song's going to be played on the radio" due to the repeated use of the word sex. This was a pre-empt to avoid its banning and the song was played on the radio and became a hit.

At the end of the Electric Light Orchestra song "Mr Blue Sky", a vocoder-treated voice says "please turn me over". This is an instruction to the listener to turn the record over as it is the last song on Side Three of the Out of the Blue album.

There are sometimes voiced instructions to the studio personnel which are left in songs. Erasure's Andy Bell can be heard saying "turn it down a bit" in "River Deep Mountain High" on the The Innocents album after a particularly loud section. More explicitly, singer Rachel Stevens says "Can you turn down the track a little bit please" in the song "Negotiate With Love". When it appeared on her Come and Get It album the instruction was included as part of the lyrics to the song.

Video games

In the Elder Scrolls series, a recurring character known as "M'aiq the Liar" frequently references the graphics, gameplay, and other aspects of the game.

In the opening sequence of Fallout: New Vegas, which is viewed from the first person perspective, Benny says "The truth is, the game was rigged from the start" before shooting the player in the head.

During an early cutscene in Sonic Colors, Sonic comments to the screen, "Yeah, I'm just gonna stick with 'aliens' if that's okay with everyone."

Undertale is also notable for its breaking of the fourth wall, in particular examining the player's ability to create, delete, alter and manipulate the game's save files, describing these actions in a similar way to time travel and timelines. If the player wipes the save file after playing a complete run through any of the game's three routes, some of the characters show signs that they remember the player from the previous save file. Flowey directly addresses the player at several points through the game, and in the climactic battle of the Neutral Route, reveals that he too can save and load files of his own.

See also

References

    Further reading

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