Genre

By Eden Taylor

what does genre mean?

• Genre- is a term that refers to a type of media product or work of art governed by implicit rules that are shared by the makers of the product and the audience

So where does the term come from?

• Genre- is simply a French word for ‘type’ or ‘kind’

All media output is classified by:

• its makers • Its marketers, reviewers and

official classifiers or censors • Its consumers

• Genre studies is a structuralist approach to literary criticism, film criticism and other cultural criticism. It looks at the structural elements that combine in the telling of a story and find patterns in collections of stories. When these elements (or codes) begin to carry inherent information, a genre is emerging

Example:

• A simple example of this is a Western movie where two men face each other on a dusty and empty road; one dons a black hat, the other white. Independent of any external meaning, there is no way to tell what the situation might mean, but due to the long development of the Western genre, it is clear to the audience that it is a gunfight showdown between a good guy and a bad guy.

So how do the work?

• Every genre has its own particular rules and conventions which distinguish it from others.

• To some extent these rules are about content within the film.

• Particular types of characters and events for example, will routinely occur in particular genres and others will not.

For example:

• Domestic settings with everyday events will be staple of soap opera, but are very unlikely to figure substantially within action films.

• Narrative conventions also play a part in distinguishing one genre from another.

• Enigmas play an important part in thrillers and sometimes police series but are not usually so significant in situation comedy.

The role of genre

• Genre is a concept that is usually associated with classifying media texts into different categories. One aspect that we need to recognise is how it works on audience expectations. As Taylor and Williams (1999) argue:

“ the pleasure and enjoyment audiences derive from the media often depend upon text broadly fitting into certain generic groupings. Their judgements as to how successful a text is are formed by generic expectations based on their experiences as media consumers”

Genre lifecycles

• The lifecycle of a genre: a certain number of cultural products (films, music, books), share common characteristics

• critics notice similarities and come up with a name (see neologism)

• the name is accepted by the audience and a genre is born

• producers start to make products to fit the new genre classification

• parodies may arise • Exception to these rules in case of a manifesto.

Why do genres exist?

The audience view

•    creates an age restriction for its audience, this can either be seen as a good point for the industry as they deliberately place an age restriction on certain films to protect such a young audience from seeing scenes that are either aggressive, violent or simply to explicit for young eyes. Or in the case of young viewers the age restriction simply frustrates then to wait for a certain film they are simply dying to see.

• -         Genres are there to create some kind of expectation for the audience, where by they already have certain conventions and expectations that are present in previous films of that particular genre that they enjoy the most so are exited to see a new film in that particular genre of interest.

• -         Genres give that range of choice to an audience and this interest is direction are a particular target audience, such as a person who enjoys a good comedy maybe put off by the sound of a horror when they have already experienced that thrill. By giving a genre you are kind of subtitling films into categories so that their audience has no confusion about what they are about to see.

• From creating certain genres there are also some negative impacts that they seem to have on an audience, the tendency to cut out whole genres seems to be an increasing pattern through the population. If an audience of a comedy simply didn’t like one horror film, they may cut out the whole genre completely from there idea of going to see another one even though there are thousands of different films available to see out there; audiences trends seem to stick to a particular genre that they appear to be attracted to and don’t tend to experiment and take that risk of seeing a completely different film and become more narrow minded.

• -         Young audiences though seem to be more flexible in there viewings and just enjoy the overall experience of going to the cinema or watching a film at home on DVD/Blue Ray  as an experience and the hot gossip of their generation. Most young teenagers or young adults are willing to see a wide range of genres to keep their minds open to experience and new footage for entertainment purposes

Relationship between audience and the industry

• Genres are a kind of complicity between producer and audience.

• The audience knows what they are getting and will come to book a film with a set expectation set by genre Part of the audience pleasure is in knowing what the genre rules are, knowing that the producer has to solve problems within the genre framework and wondering how it will be done.

The film industry view

• Use of genres has an impact on advertisement and marketing to certain audiences of the genre. If marketing and advertisement seem to hit off later on in the year say for instance Halloween time, this would be a good place to maybe release a horror where as a comedy or family movie would be see to be released earlier in the year during school holidays when the young children are out of school.

• -         The industry tend to stick to the typical conventions of what works for each genre and therefore most comedies look and feel the same and convey the same story line and become predictable just like stereotypical horrors include the victim and the villain as well as the hero and everything becomes ‘safe’ for the producers as they  know what has previously works so they use the conventions as a kind of ‘template’ for film makers.

• -        

• Some producers are a bit more adventurous and subvert conventions. By doing so they keep the genre ‘alive’ and fresh for their audience. Hybrids are a good way of subverting conventions of a typical genre of film where by the use of hybridization is a mixture of different genres where they reach out and attract a wider range of audience that maybe interested in either genre or even just the one genre may tempt them into watching a different style. Hybrids appeal to such a wider audience of people.

•  A trailer aims to give the audience information about the film itself, such as what the story line is about in a rough over view, which the main stars are and what genre and expectations the film is going to give.

Repertoires of elements

• An important development in thinking about entertainment genres has been to put them into the context of audiences’ understanding and activities.

• Genres are no longer seen as sets of fixed elements, constantly repeated, but as working with ‘repertoires of elements’ or fluid systems of learnt conventions and expectations.

• These are shared by makers and audiences, who are both active on both sides of meaning-making.

• The maker can rely on certain kinds of audience familiarity to play with, and the audience looks forward to playing within the stabilities.

Repertoires of elements

• These conventions, and expectations they can invoke, include the areas of:

Narrative- how the stories in a genre usually begin and conclude, what kinds of characters are at the centre of the fiction ect Audio-visual codes of signification - ( for which the terms iconography or mise en scène are sometime used), which would include settings, costumes, lighting and even certain stars’ physical presence A relationship to the rest of the real world- including perceptions of how realistic the genre is seen to be, and how it handles the ideological values of the are it covers (war, romance, crime ect)

Classifications

• These classifications (horror or thriller? ‘R18’ or ‘PG’? ‘art’ or ‘schlock’?) have material effects on the ways we encounter, enjoy and understand media.

• These boundaries and materials that are within a specific genre created these age restrictions, ratings and experiences.

These are only just a few genres

• Thriller • Horror • Comedy• Romanic comedy • Action • Adventure• Sci-fi (fantasy)• Family • Documentary

• Chick-flick• Animation • Western • Crime • Musical • Romance • War • Drama • mystery

Conventions of a few genres

Click in the hyperlinks to view the YouTube clips relating to the particular genre.

Comedy

• Energetic • Obvious humour and jokes • Up beat music • Bright/ colourful • Some action/problem • Punch lines/phrases • Voice over• Spoofs• Characters well known for comedies • Often used over again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgqBtquItHM

horror• Victim and hero (stereotypically a female/venerable character)• Special effects • Costumes/make up • Psychological tension • Murders• Weapons • Darkness• Slow shots … speeds up • Action • Sound effects (screaming ) • Remote places such as island, woods, no telephone• Enigmas• False sense of security

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFQebvkii90 saw trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG3-GlvKPcg psycho trailer 1960

Sci-fi• Special effects • Costume/make up • Fairy tale fantasies • Unrealistic • Magic • Fairy tale characters, animals (dragon, wizard,

robot, space) • Problem to be solved • Mythical creatures

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czFqCdNRHqQ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - Official Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6hOlI9cg4o Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPcZHjKJBnE Blade Runner (1982)

Sci-fi children's fantasy

• Special effects • Costume/make up • Fairy tale fantasies • Unrealistic • Magic • Fairy tale characters, animals (dragon, wizard, robot, space) • Problem to be solved • Mythical creatures • Some animation maybe included

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqqznGmAQAI&feature=related the never ending story http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-gJr7iU6kI the page master (1994)

Action

• Fast • Furious • Action • Hero/Villain • Loud drum beats/music • Weapons • Problem • Perhaps a murder • Stereotypically involves some plot or crime

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbg99ykA2bk Mission: Impossible Trailer HQ (1996)

Subverting conventions

Just another genre?

• Genre is often taken to imply cut-and-dried simple boundaries: ‘just another’ horror or western.

• It is often mistaken that once you’ve seen one you’ve seen then all where in fact there is always repetition AND different at play in genre products.

• Some films deliberately parody, stretch or break the conventions.

• It is also important to realise that genres do change or even merge over time

• This gives the audience a new and exiting experience and can also widen the industries target audience by including a sense of a mix of genres.

• This is known as Hybridization

Hybridization and sub-genres

• The process by which different genres come together to create a new and exiting mixture to form hybrids.

• There are hundreds of hybrids throughout genre and therefor sub-genres are created, here are a few examples for both:

• Romantic comedy • Animated comedy • Action adventure • Thriller • Action comedy • Chick flicks • there are thousands upon thousands of sub-genres click

here to see just how many within a specific genre http://www.filmsite.org/subgenres2.html

Romantic comedy • Loss of lover • Romantic moments/scenes • Cheesy meeting and chat up lines • Happy ending • Classic tale played on Romeo and Juliet • Very obvious in most films • Sad music • False sense of dread • Broken hearts • Forbidden love • Can show story line as its predictable • Couple is involved• Humorous scenes Embarrassing situations • Punch lines/jokes • Romantic gestures (roses, letters, tapes, presents, music ) • Voice over can be strict or comedy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNmT_dLeSao 'P.S. I Love You' Trailer (2007 )http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYCkFTyADJ0 Love Actually Trailer

Chick flick

• There is a problem to be solved/situation• Typical girl ‘power’ moments • Upbeat music • Stereotypical female forms such as blonde hair, make up,

fashion, shoes all subverted by two male FBI agents playing these glamour girls

• Relates to typical teenage girl situations and can relate back to their problems

• Comedy and humour in obvious forms and scene • Costume and make up • Typical made up young female adventure• Comedy voice overs can appear

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr_SY-1Z5vg White chicks movie trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0bRZkXQAhE Wild Child Trailer

Thriller spoof • Hero/villain• Problem to be solved • Scenes and moments of horror mixed with comedy humour • Phrases/jokes/actions/phrases • Weapons• Death • Tension • Music switches between horror psycho to typical comedy upbeat music • Takes stereotypical characters to extreme make up lengths • over does and emphasises situations• Obvious humour mixed in with dark humour • Takes scenes from other films and comedy moments and subverts the horror

genre into a form of comedy playing with dark humour • Titles or black outs can be used for tension and narrative purposes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yurKTKQr6E scary movie 1 trailer

Animated comedy (family)• Juxtaposing dialogue to create conversations• Obvious humour/jokes • Action• Fantasy • Animation and cartoon • Punch lines/phrases• Introduces characters • Plays on a spoof (Jackie Chan) • Energetic • Colourful/childish • Made for children and families • Upbeat music (in this case fight music Jackie Chan) • Villain/hero • comedyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1uJ7OExp60 Kung Fu Panda Trailerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkqzFUhGPJg Up

Genres and Realism • Texts do not have a straightforward relationship to the rest of

the real world. They may belong to certain genres which is not experienced by audiences in the same way as, say the news or current affairs.

• Audiences and especially fans degree of familiarity with genres conventions will influence its ‘reality effect’ and what they take for granted in order to get at its pleasures.

• The idea of images as reflecting reality is far too straightforward and mirror-like, especially for fantasy forms (horrors, comedies, sci-fi or animation). It suggests there is a fairly simple thing called reality to be reflected in a one-to-one undistorted glass.

• Yet comedy for example: seems to depend on the exaggeration of stereotyping which are understood playfully by audiences, not always as a reflection on the real.

Status, ‘art’ and genres

• In terms of the status ascribed to media works, ‘art’ is often a seal of approval, signifying a certain level of ‘quality’ and ‘seriousness’ and, commercially, the very important power of copyright.

• This is often a considered process, from the initial ‘pitching’ stages, which determine budgets, through decisions as to cast members, ect.

Evaluation

Reflections by Robert Stam

• While some genres are based on story content (the war film), other are borrowed from literature (comedy, melodrama) or from other media (the musical). Some are performer-based (the Astaire-Rogers films) or budget-based (blockbusters), while others are based on artistic status (the art film), racial identity (Black cinema), location (the Western) or sexual orientation (Queer cinema). (Robert Stam 2000, 14).

Roland Barthes (1975)

• argued that it is in relation to other texts within a genre rather than in relation to lived experience that we make sense of certain events within a text. There are analogies here with schema theory in psychology, which proposes that we have mental 'scripts' which help us to interpret familiar events in everyday life.

Tzvetan Todorov The Origin of Genres

• Aside from dealing with the question of 'what is fantastic literature,' Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (1970) also has a very thorough exposé on the nature of genre and genre theory in general. Todorov starts with a critique of Northrop Frye's concept of genre as expounded in Anatomy of Criticism.

• According to Todorov, the first question in genre theory is: • “Are we entitled to discuss a genre without having studied (or at least read) all

the works witch constitute it ?”• He answers the question with yes:• “Scientific method allows does not require us to observe every instance of a

phenomenon in order to describe it; scientific method proceeds rather by deduction.”

• But he also warns that:• “Whatever the number of phenomena (of literary works, in this case) studied, we

are never justified in extrapolating universal laws from them.”• After which he goes on to quote Karl Popper and the famous black swan example

of inductive vs. deductive reasoning:• “no matter how many instances of white swans we have observed, this does not

justify the conclusion that swans are white.”

Jacques Derrida The Law of Genre

Excerpt from "The Law of Genre" by Jacques DerridaTranslated by Avital Ronell

• The genre has always in all genres been able to play the role of order's principle: resemblance, analogy, identity and difference, taxonomic classification, organization and genealogical tree, order of reason, order of reasons, sense of sense, truth of truth, natural light and sense of history. Now, the test of An Account? brought to light the madness of genre. Madness has given birth to and thrown light on the genre in the most dazzling, most blinding sense of the word. And in the writing of An Account?, in literature, satirically practicing all genres, imbedding them but never allowing herself to be saturated with a catalogue of genres, she, madness, has started spinning Peterson's genre-disc like a demented sun. And she does not only do so in literature, for in concealing the boundaries that sunder mode and genre, she has also inundated and divided the borders between literature and its others

References • http://www.filmsite.org/comedyfilms.html• NICHOLAS ABERCROMBIE & BRIAN LONGHURST- Dictionary

of MEDIA STUDIES• GILL BRANSTON and ROY STAFFORD the Media Student’s

Book (Fourth Edition)• http://www.filmsite.org/subgenres2.html• http://www.youtube.com/• http://www.jahsonic.com/GenreTheory.html• http://

criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/issues/v7/v7n1.derrida.html• MEDIA STUDIES: The Essential resource- Philip

Rayner, Peter Wall and Stephen Kruger