Editing Distancing effect (section)

{{short description|Theatrical technique}}
[[File:Model of Stage Design for Mother Courage - Bert-Brecht-Haus - Augsburg - Germany.jpg|thumb|Set design for a production of Brecht's ''[[Mother Courage and Her Children]]'', featuring a large scene-setting caption ''Polen'' ("Poland") above the stage]]
The '''distancing effect''', also translated as '''alienation effect''' ({{langx|de|Verfremdungseffekt}} or ''V-Effekt''), is a concept in [[performing arts]] credited to German [[playwright]] [[Bertolt Brecht]].

Brecht first used the term in his essay "Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting" published in 1936, in which he described it as performing "in such a way that the audience was hindered from simply identifying itself with the characters in the play. Acceptance or rejection of their actions and utterances was meant to take place on a conscious plane, instead of, as hitherto, in the audience's subconscious".<ref>John Willett, ed. and trans., ''Brecht on Theatre'' (New York: Hill and Wang, 1964), p. 91.</ref> 

These remarks find their precedent in an essay largely devoted to the theory of Brecht’s epic theater, “[[The Author as Producer]],” written by [[Walter Benjamin]] in 1934.<ref>[[Walter Benjamin]]. “The Author as Producer,”(27 April 1934) collected in ''Understanding Brecht''. Verso: 1998. pp. 85-103. 

See especially the final 8 pages, devoted almost exclusively to an outline and definition of what—following Brecht’s gloss—becomes known as the alienation effect. This essay is also collected, in English, in the Benjamin anthology known as ''Reflections'' and in ''Selected Works, vol. 2 part 2: 1931-1934.'' A note attached to all reproductions reads: Address delivered at the Institute for the Study of Fascism, Paris, on 27 April 1934.</ref> This way of formulating the technique  would have been familiar to Brecht from his conversations with Benjamin before he met the Russian playwrights [[Viktor Shklovsky|Shlovsky]] or [[Sergei Tretyakov (writer)|Tretyakov]] (to whom he later attributed the coinage), insofar as Benjamin wrote the essay with the intention of showing it to Brecht when they roomed together at Brecht’s cabin in Denmark during their mutual exile in the summer of 1934.<ref>''Correspondence of Walter Benjamin with Gershom Scholem''. Re: xxvii-xxix. </ref> In all likelihood Brecht conceals Benjamin’s participation in this process due to concerns about the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] at first, and then later on account of his own concerns about the [[Stasi]].<ref>Strauss, Leo. “[https://democracy.missouri.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/SOF-Reading-Hernandez.pdf Persecution and the Art of Writing.]” Social Research vol 8, no. 4: November 1941. p. 488-504.  </ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brecht |first=Bertolt |last2=Bentley |first2=Eric |date=1961 |title=On Chinese Acting |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1125011 |journal=The Tulane Drama Review |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=130–136 |doi=10.2307/1125011 |issn=0886-800X}}</ref> 

In this article Benjamin speaks of the central formulas: ''Epic theater must not develop actions but represent conditions.''<ref name=":0">[[Walter Benjamin]]. “The Author as Producer,”(27 April 1934) collected in ''Understanding Brecht''. Verso: 1998. pp. 99</ref> The use of montage and musical intermissions between action pierces the illusion of the audiences identity with the action, rather than heightening it. Benjamin compares the montage technique to the way that radio programs are broken up by advertisements.<ref name=":0" /> ''[Epic theater] sets out not to fill the audience with feelings as to alienate the audience in a lasting manner, through thought, from the conditions in which it lives. [This is accomplished by making the audience laugh].<ref name=":0" />''

Epic theater was conceived of as a politically revolutionary form, but when the technique of distancing, estrangement or alienation is adapted to post-revolutionary television shows and other forms we can see it at work in theatrical forms such as the [[sitcom]]<ref>https://www.brown.edu/Departments/German_Studies/media/Symposium/Texts/Theatricality%20as%20Medium%20Intro%20and%201.pdf</ref> (where characters are flattened to heighten the relatability of the situation), satirical news<ref>https://dash.harvard.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/e30bc0f3-93d6-4f64-9c93-51f602765098/content</ref> or anti-comedy which adopts degraded formats (bad vhs film stock etc.) to heighten comedic effect as in [[Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!|Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show]] and other works in the same genre that are themselves precursor forms of the non-linear and drama-independent internet meme humor of [[Generation Z|Gen-Z.]]<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lloyd |first=Andrew |title=Inside 'Gen Z humor,' the layered and absurdist internet jokes millennials are struggling to keep up with |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-struggling-absurdist-gen-z-humor-memes-2023-8 |access-date=2025-05-26 |website=Business Insider |language=en-US}}</ref> 

Even the appropriation of the (initially) revolutionary intentions of the distancing effect for the purposes of profitable enterprises, early remarked by [[Hannah Arendt]],<ref>Hannah Arendt. ''Origins of Totalitarianism''. 1962 edition. 328-335.

Properly speaking: Arendt notes the appropriation of Brecht’s cabaret by the nihilistic ethos of emergent Nazism and fascism, not its profitability or usefulness to capitalism in these pages. </ref>  has now been assigned its own technical term: [[Repressive desublimation|''Repressive'' ''desublimation'']].