estrangement-effect (Verfremdungseffekt) Brecht, Bertolt’s term (alsosometimes translated as alienation-effect) for the moment in a work of art when thatwhich used to appear natural suddenly appears historical, when that which wasthought of as timeless and eternal is seen as deliberately caused and altered acrosstime. Its purpose is political because it aims to overturn the paralysing sense thatthings have always been ‘this way’ and therefore that there is nothingthat can be done to change them. Brecht’s principal means of doing this was to stagetheatre in such a way that the viewer is denied the habitual comfort of forgettingthat they are watching a play and becoming (what psychoanalysis filmcritics call) suture into the events on stage. Thus he would discourageactors from ‘becoming’ their characters and using that to elicit theempathy of the audience, preferring that they create a sense of’distance’ between themselves and their character that would put theaudience in two minds about what they were watching (Brecht’s ideal manner ofviewing, he famously said, was that of the sports fan evaluating a boxing match).French cultural critic Barthes, Roland deployed this principal in Mythologies (1957), translated as Mythologies (1972), which is aspirited attack on everything that appears ‘natural’ in modern life inthe era of late capitalism. See also cognitive estrangement; ostranenie. Further Reading: F. Jameson Brecht and Method (1998).