Suspension of disbelief is when an audience becomes emotionally invested in a story despite knowing it’s not real. It requires compelling characters and storylines, and the audience must consciously ignore skepticism. Critics use it negatively when a story is absurd or contradictory. Internal consistency is important, and unrealistic plot devices can make the story unbelievable. Humor can make suspension of disbelief easier.
Suspension of disbelief, or willful suspension of disbelief, is an important element in drama and storytelling. It refers to an audience becoming emotionally invested in the story despite their secure knowledge that it’s not really happening. Indeed, the audience implicitly agrees to pretend that the reality of the story is the only reality. To achieve this effect, the storyteller must create compelling characters and compelling storylines. The overall story may be fantastic or downright impossible, but as long as it remains entertaining and internally consistent, audiences will eagerly accept it as plausible.
Storytelling demands a certain license from its audience. No matter how realistic the media used to portray the story, all but the youngest children know it is creative work. Engaging the imagination requires a conscious decision on the part of the audience to ignore the usual skepticism of the rational mind. In 1817, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the phrase “voluntary suspension of disbelief” to describe this phenomenon. While it may seem obvious, the success of creating art and entertainment depends on its existence.
In criticism, the term is often used negatively. Since suspension of disbelief is a fundamental concept that all stories must achieve, critics sometimes accuse a writer or director of failing at this. This usually means the story was absurd, contradicted itself, or had characters doing things that real people probably wouldn’t do. Even if the characters have impossible abilities or live in an impossible world, they should still behave realistically. This allows the audience to sympathize with them, another essential element of good storytelling.
An opposite principle also applies. Suspension of disbelief is easier if the story is very funny. The Star Wars and James Bond film series, to name just two examples, are famous for emphasizing fun and flashy effects over realistic detail. Every decade, numerous films achieve blockbuster status by impressing audiences with cutting-edge special effects. The realistic effects let the audience from all over the world gladly accept the fantastic textures. However, professional critics, who view many of these films on a regular basis, may not be so quick to suspend their disbelief.
Internal consistency is another important aspect of suspension of disbelief. While a story may be filled with fantastical phenomena, it must obey the rules set forth in the story itself. Dead characters cannot come back to life, for example, unless the story has previously established how this is possible. The overuse of such unrealistic devices, especially in comics and movies, has become so common that many risk becoming clichéd. Inconsistent or unrealistic plot devices can make the overall story unbelievable; for a modern audience, suspension of disbelief can be a fragile thing.
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