Suspension of disbelief
Related: fiction - fourth wall
Definition
Suspension of disbelief is a willingness in the reader or viewer to suspend their critical faculties in order to "go along for the ride." The phrase was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his Biographia Literaria (pub. 1817). The audience accepts limitations in the story being presented, sacrificing realism (and occasionally logic and believability) for the sake of enjoyment.
Suspension of disbelief is an essential component in live theatre.
It is an essential ingredient in the enjoyment of many B-grade science fiction films and TV series such as Doctor Who, when the audience willingly ignores low-budget "cheesy" props, plot holes, and poor acting in order to engage fully in the enjoyable and outrageous story.
As budgets have risen and special effects have become more and more lifelike, audiences have become less inclined to engage in suspension of disbelief. It is not uncommon for movie-going audiences to compare modern-day Hollywood blockbusters to movies made several decades ago and pronounce the former superior because the computer-generated special effects are more impressive than the effects used in the past, rather than accepting that at the time these movies were made such techniques were not available. A similar attitude applies to colour vs black and white films. --http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief
The term 'Suspension of disbelief' was originally coined by the romanticist Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his Biographia Literaria (1817):
"(...) it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."--http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief [Jan 2006]
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