When actors and actresses are on a set/stage they have three walls surrounding them and the camera filming them or an audience sitting in front of them.  The fourth wall is an invisible, imagined wall that separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this “wall”, the actors act as if they cannot. Thus, making it also like another world.

Sometimes the fourth wall can be broken, mostly in children shows. To break the fourth wall is when the actors talk to the audience, as if they took a break from the show and began to talk to you one-on-one. A good example is in Dora the Explorer. In this toddlers tv program the main character constantly talks to the person on the other side of the screen. The writers/directors do this to keep the children engaged and help them learn. The fourth wall is also broken in comedy’s to make/state a joke to the audience, and sometimes shows us what is going on inside the character’s head. But if you break the fourth wall a large amount of times it will soon lose it’s touch throughout the movie and become meaningless.