Suspended to overlook the medium

In 2008, during United States presidential elections, Hillary Clinton characterized the recent reports on Iraq with “suspension of disbelief” to imply that these documents could be considered unbelievable or factual. Suspension of disbelief was used in order to advise the audience to overlook the medium; hence that what was presented would not interfere with facts or judgment. In the world of fiction it is common to require believing propositions, which would not be acceptable in the real world if presented in a newspaper as facts. Even though one is often asked to “go beyond the boundaries of what might be real”, it is always a semi-conscious decision to accept the premise as being real for the duration of the story. To put it in Foucauldian terms, to deconstruct or suspend systems means to reconstruct the forms of knowledge: “We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in negative terms: it excludes, it represses, it censors, it abstracts, it masks, it conceals. In fact power produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth. The individual and the knowledge that may be gained of him belong to this production.”