GENRE THEORY

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GENRE MEANING

The word genre means 'kind' or 'class'. And is used as a way of grouping texts together.

Genre is not fixed and there are fuzzy distinctions between different genres and several texts will be hybrids that contain elements from one that one genre.

IMPORTANCE

Follow market trends – cash-in

Easier when talking to others- fund raising because they know what youre taking about

Easier to write and construct film because you already have the formula

Easier to choose actors

Easier to make because you aleady have experience in that genre

Easier to manage budget and plan, and minimise risk.

Easier to market because the audience have a good idea of what they are getting.

Easier for audience because they have a good idea of what they are getting.

Easier to market because genre signifiers can be used on posters

GENRE THEORY

Conventional definitions of genres tend to be based on the notion that they constitute particular conventions of content (such as themes or settings) and/or form (including structure and style) which are shared by the texts which are regarded as belonging to them.

GENRE THEORY

Genre may be considered as a practical device for helping any mass medium to produce consistently and efficiently and to relate its production to the expectations of its customers. Since it is also a practical device for enabling individual media users to plan their choices, it can be considered as a mechanism for ordering the relations between the two main parties to mass communication. (McQuail 1987, 200)

DEFINITION - ALMOST

…Genre can be defined as patterns/styles/structures which transcend individual art products, and which supervise both their production by the artist and their reading by audiences … ( Ryali 1975)

GENRE THEORY

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). (Stam 2000, 14).

GENRE THEORY

It is easy to underplay the differences within a genre. Steve Neale declares that 'genres are instances of repetition and difference' (Neale 1980, 48)

Difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre (Neale 1980)

Tzvetan Todorov argued that 'any instance of a genre will be necessarily different' (cited in Gledhill 1985, 60)

LACEYS -REPETOIRE OF ELEMENTS

Lacey considers that there are a ‘repertoire is elements’ that work together to suggest genre and that these are a useful framework to use for analysis

Setting

Character

Narrative

Iconography

Style

But did not see genres as fixed but as dynamic and changing over time.

GENRE – FLUID NOT FIXED

There are no ‘rigid rules of inclusion and exclusion’ (Gledhill 1985)

‘Genre… are not discrete systems, consisting of a fixed number of listable items’ (Gledhill 1985)

It is difficult to make clear cut distinctions between one genre and another: genres overlap, and there are ‘mixed genres’ such as comedy thrillers (Chandler 2000)

GENRE – KEY CONCEPT

 The Key Concept of Genre relates to the codes and conventions shared by texts and the generic features they share. A text is classified in a genre through the identification of key elements which occur in that text and in others of the same genre. These elements may be referred to as paradigms, (basically, ways of doing something) and range from costume to music to plot points to font (depending on the medium).

GENRE – KEY CONCEPT (CONT)

Audiences recognise these paradigms, and bring a set of expectations to their reading of the text accordingly: for example, the criminal will be brought to justice at the end of the police thriller. These paradigms may be grouped into those relating to iconography (ie the main signs and symbols that you see/hear), structure (the way a text is put together and the shape it takes) and theme (the issues and ideas it deals with).

FILM GENRE

Horror

Thriller

Comedy

Sci-fi

ADVERT GENRES

Harder to group but the following might be useful

Realistic Series

Non-realistic Surreal

Animation Humorous

Talking Heads Dramatic

Documentary Parody

MUSIC VIDEO GENRE

Performance

Narrative Based

Concept based

BURTONS SIX ELEMENTS

Burton suggests that each text in a given genre shares particular key elements to make up the generic formula, these include:ProtagonistsStock CharactersPlots and Stock SituationsIconsBackground and DécorThemes

GENRE COMPONENTS

You can also attempt to identify genre by referring to the following

Setting, character narrative, iconography, style,

CHARACTER

Each genre will have a set of stock characters

Sci Fi – aliens,

SETTING

- western: wide open vistas of the Western plains/dessert; the small-town

- gangster: dark, urban, back-street settings

- soap opera: indoor, upper-middle class setting

- spy-thriller: exotic, often urban international setting

- science-fiction: futuristic worlds

- game shows: large studios with lavish prizes displayed

NARRATIVE

ICONOGRAPHY

STYLE

STARS