Ever notice the unfiltered dialogues actor personas express aloud about other actor personas within what would in real life be earshot overheard and at a volume that is expressions louder than expected to be unheard? Is this a subtle "television trope"?
So-and-so says some snide, certainly sarcastic or "ironically cool," absolutely discourteous comment to another So-and-so about other So-and-sos and of a disparaging nature. This is a cinematic gimmick used because stage and screen cannot penetrate persons' thoughts, which written word's close, limited-to-one-agonist psychic access third person and first person's default strength can access. The thoughts expressed aloud are of an improvised and spontaneous emotional reaction type. Social commentators might note that such a social phenomena results in less guarded, more impolite public discourse across society. Such is life, right? Technology's influences upon culture made manifest and manifold, and backward social reform in all its glories.
The expression type, too, more so than per se a social phenomena, is a narrative point of view akin to written word's detached narrator with selective omniscient access to superficial thoughts -- for a study of how to artfully, persuasively, subversively manage that narrative point of view's mischief. No thoughts access, every thought expressed aloud: verbalized, vocalized, and nonverbal, nonvocal gestured body language, like cinema's "reaction shot." Also, no need then for she, he, or it thought attributions. Those are volitional emotional reactions to stimuli though of a nonvolitional, unfiltered mien.
Curious, a type of situational irony, what intrigues me at present about the phenomena is the objective nature of its visual-aural representations limit access to its actual blunt subjective parameters. So-and-so says some snide, offensive, insulting remark about So-and-so, who doesn't respond or react, and it is patently a subjective position, yet, because it is expressed aloud, circumstances given make it appear valid on its face.
Or likewise, So-and-so says something that on its face would not usually be said aloud to listeners, like a brag or gloat about the self, yet appears valid and is not, really. A shortfall there for this type of stage and screen expression, that lacks a self-referential contradiction which would express its invalidity or at the least that the expression is open to question and interpretation, if not outright dubious. That latter unintended self-contradictory expression potential is what has me most intrigued. This is situational irony, "occurs when incongruity appears between expectations of something to happen, and what actually happens instead." (literarydevices.net)
An example of a successful remark of the kind might overstate -- hyperbole -- a claim. So-and-so doth gloat, brag, insult, offend, protest overmuch, useth empty -ly adverbs, stray adjectives, repetitions thereof, and bland intensifiers overmuch. "The yackhole deck crew morale is very, very low, just plain off their steadier feet with lazy sloth and cack-handed calumny. Daily floggings then will further continue until corrected."
This is one of foil characters' functions.
[ August 01, 2017, 01:30 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by Reziac (Member # 9345) on :
quote:Originally posted by extrinsic: Ever notice the unfiltered dialogues actor personas express aloud about other actor personas within what would in real life be earshot overheard and at a volume that is expressions louder than expected to be unheard? Is this a subtle "television trope"?
I sometimes gripe to myself about this... the most egregious example being Princess Leia yelling at the top of her lungs, "No, wait, they'll hear!"
At least up through ~1970, afternoon soap operas used a convention of characters speaking their thoughts aloud as asides, treated as audible to no one but the viewing audience.
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Some of this device type's uses are deftly managed, otherwise, they do call undue attention to artifice -- which can be a potent and artful appeal itself. My disappointments arise from artless uses.
Thoughts spoken aloud in a private aside manner to the self are the soliloquy device, a subset of dramatic monologue, which is an aloud speech addressed to an audience, present or otherwise. The apostrophe's address to real or implied persons not present, and epistle's letter address to real, whether fictional or not, persons forms are written-word dramatic monologues. Diary and journal entries recorded for addresses to the self resemble soliloquy.
Thoughts spoken aloud for asides to nearby personas entail soliloquy-like and dramatic monologue-like devices, though are not either type, per se. Those are private conversations between persons and intend to exclude other persons from the conversation. Selected speaker and recipient dialogues, I guess, is what those are. No special label for those otherwise.
Speakers who directly address aside comments not intended for personas' reception within a narrative's dramatic space to an audience "violate" the "fourth wall" "contract," again, potential powerful and artful appeals therein, in deft composer hands and through deft performer deliveries.