What if I told that a robot came back in time from 20 years in the future to kill a boy in the United States because that boy would lead a resistance against them in the future? And what if I added that another robot came back to protect the boy? A fight ensues between the two….
Would you believe that kind of crap? Of course not! That’s the plot of the hit movie, The Terminator. But when we go into the cinema, or even at home in our living rooms, remote in hand and glued to the television, it’s another story! We sit on the edge of our seats, we hold our breaths, gasp, laugh, cheer, clap our hands and even cry!
We seem to believe everything we are seeing on the screen in front of us, even though we know that “it is just a movie.” That act of “suspending” our disbelief is called “voluntary suspension of disbelief.”
People engage in the act of voluntary suspension of disbelief during movies, dramas, stage plays, when reading fiction, etc. But it also happens in other aspects of life. Sometimes, even though something is untrue or fictitious, we choose to believe it because it benefits our life in some way, or the truth is too hard to accept. What other cases of “voluntary suspension of disbelief” can you think of?
