Bruegel was perhaps the first realist. By which I mean he painted people in the costume of the day and not in classical robes. I explain realism to my students as one of the primary 'atom bombs' of visual art: an idea that permenently disrupted visual language. The realism effect can be seen in the shaker cam effect of movies like clover field and the Blair witch project. I see no problem at all with genealogically relating these movies with Bruegels paintings.