Thursday, 6 November 2014

Genre Theory

Genre is a critical tool that helps us to study texts and audience responses to texts by dividing them into categories based on common elements. 

Daniel Chandler (2001) argues that the word genre comes from the French (originally Latin) word for 'kind' or 'class'. The term is widely used in rhetoric, literary theory and media theory to refer to distinctive type of text.


All genres have sub genres and Barry Keith Grant (1995) said that they are divided up into more specific categories that allow audiences to identify them specifically by their familiar and what become recognisable characteristics. 

Steve Neale (1995) stresses that "genres are not 'systems' they are processes of systematization". This means they are dynamic and evolve over time. 

F.W. Murnau - Nosferatu (1922) is a film with the first use of Dracula. It is in black and white and the protagonists are the victims. It is based on a castle and there is use of dramatic music.



Then, the film 'Interview with the Vampire' (1984) is in colour and is based in a big house rather than a castle. The trailer also explains the narrative more and the vampire is more realistic. The protagonist is also more focal (vampire).


The genre has to change because the ideology of the content reflects the era. A more modern day film that would show how vampire films have evolved would be the Twilight Saga as everything is completely different, although some aspects are the same. One aspect that is different is that when the vampire sees the sun, he sparkles.




Generic Characteristics across all texts share similar elements of the below depending on the medium...


  • Typical Mise-en-scene/Visual Style 
  • Typical Types of Narrative
  • Generic Types, i.e. typical characters
  • Typical Studios/Production Companies
  • Typical Personnel
  • Typical Sound Design
  • Typical Editing Style 
  • Important Elements, Less Important Elements, Elements of Minimal Importance e
Comedy and Animation are not genres, they are styles or treatments. For example: Wall-E (2008) and Spaceballs (1987). 

Jason Mittell (2001) argues that genres are cultural categories that surpass the boundaries of media texts and operate within industry, audience and cultural practices.
Industries use genre to sell products to audiences. Media producers use familiar codes and conventions that very often male cultural references to their audience knowledge of society. 
Genre also allows audiences to make choices about what products they want to consume through acceptance in order to fulfil a particular pleasure, for example: if someone wanted to be scared or feel some kind of adrenaline rush, they may choose to watch horror movies for their own particular pleasure and to fulfil this need. 




Rick Altman (1999) argues that genre offers audiences 'a set of pleasures' which are: 

  • Emotional Pleasures - the emotional pleasures offered to audiences of genre films are particularly significant when they generate a strong audience response.
  • Visceral Pleasures - the visceral pleasures (visceral means internal organs) are 'gut' responses and are defined by how the film's stylistic construction elicits a physical effect upon its audience. This can be a feeling of revulsion, kinetic speed or a 'roller coaster ride'. 
  • Intellectual Puzzles - certain film genres, like thrillers or the 'whodunit' offer the pleasure in trying to unravel a mystery or a puzzle. This is derived from working out the plot and predicting the end or being surprised by the unexpected.
An example of 'visceral pleasure' would be this video of a guy filming himself climbing a crane and standing right at the top and then he starts to hang from the crane like on some monkey bars. When I watched this video my heart was racing and I was worried in case he was going to fall. This is exactly what visceral pleasures are.



The main strength of genre theory is that everybody uses it and understands it - media experts use it to study media texts, the media industry uses it to develop and market texts and audiences use it to decide what texts to consume.
The potential for the same concept to be understood by producers, audiences and scholars makes genre a useful critical tool. Its accessibility as a concept also means that it can be applied across a wide range of texts.

Chrstian Metz (1974) argues in his book 'Language and Cinema' that genres go through a typical cycle of changes during their lifetime. These stages are:

  • Experimental Stage
  • Classic Stage
  • Parody Stage
  • Deconstruction Stage
Music video is a medium intended to appeal directly to youth subcultures by reinforcing generic elements of music genres. 
  • They are called pop-promos as they are used to promote a band or artist. 
  • Music videos are post-modern texts who main purpose is to promote a star persona (Richard Dyer Theory, 1975).
  • They don't have to be literal representations of the song or lyrics (abstract video).
In terms of genre, there are both narrative and performance and some that combine both. Both performance and narrative based videos are very often purely intertextual. This means the shaping of a text's meaning by another text. So another text has influenced it. 

The video 'Buddy Holly' by Weezer is an example of this because they have created a video which is based on the 70's sitcom 'Happy Days'. In this video they use live performance clips of themselves but then they feature actual footage from when the sitcom aired, showing the intertextuality. One of the original actors from the sitcom actually made a cameo appearance.



They often pastiche/parody films or offer commentary on social events. Green Day's Basket Case (1996) pastiches One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).

 






Genre Themes

David Bordwell (1989) says that 'any theme may appear in any genre'. 

  • Horror Films are basically just modern fairy tales and often act as morality plays in which people who break society's rules are punished. 
  • Fear of the Unknown - the monster is the 'monstrous other' i.e. anything that is scary because it is foreign or different. 
  • Sex = Death - in horror movies, especially Slasher movies, sex is immoral and must be punished, werewolf movies can be seen as a metaphor for puberty, vampires can be seen as metaphors for sexually transmitted diseases or rape, etc. 
  • The Breakdown of Society - post-apocalyptic movies are about our fear (or secret desire for) of the breakdown of society. The collapse of civilisation results in human kind reverting to their animal instincts. 
Some short films can also be social realist texts, and so through their discourse they share some conventional themes of horror/scare texts in general such as: 

  • The Duality of Man/Personal Journey - the conflict between man's civilised side and his savage, primal instincts, e.g. Jekyll and Hyde, Werewolf movies, The Hulk, etc. 
  • Segregation and Alienation - two opposing cultures or beings going through a struggle to survive. As there are no standard themes of short movies, depending on their audience they offer their own themes. 
Some music videos have themes fior a more youthful audience such as...

  • Teen Angst
  • Rebellion- Conformity verses non conformity
  • Romance
  • Sex/Losing your Virginity
  • Nostalgia- for the innocence of youth 
  • Nihilism - the belief that there is no future
  • Coming of Age Rituals- prom, falling in love, losing your virginity, etc.
  • Tribalism 
  • Bullying 
  • Juvenile Delinquency - Moral panics and the teenager as a folk devil 
  • The Currency of 'Cool'
  • Hedonism- living purely for pleasure
  • Friendship
Other themes in music videos are: 
  • War
  • Crime 
  • Poverty
  • Capitalism
  • Racism 
Genres are not fixed- they constantly change and evolve over time. 

David Buckingham (1993) argues that 'genre is not simply "given" by the culture, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change'. 

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