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Genre Action-Adventure Comedy Contemporary Crime Costume Drama (no coverage) Exploitation Cinema (no coverage) Film Noir Melodrama The Musical Science Fiction and Horror Teenpics The Western Tim Dirks Filmsite.org: Genres Film Studies Dictionary genre |ˈ zh änrə| Noun a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter. ORIGIN early 19th cent.: French, literally ‘a kind’ (see gender ). Thesaurus Noun historical fiction is my favorite genre of literature category, class, classification, group, set, list; type, sort, kind, breed, variety, style, model, school, stamp, cast, ilk. Genre Film Studies Megagenre: A large, all encompassing, umbrella genre, having no distinct subject matter or style or iconography or formulae. The megagenres of the movies might be thought of as non-fiction (documentary) film, fiction film, animated film, and experimental / underground film. Genre Film Studies Major Movie Genres (according to Tim Dirks [filmsite.org]) Genre •Action •Epics/Historical •Adventure •Musicals •Comedy •Science Fiction •Crime/Gangster •War •Drama •Westerns Film Studies Major Movie Sub-Genres (according to Tim Dirks [filmsite.org]) •Biopics •Chick Flicks •Detective/Mystery •Disaster •Fantasy •Film Noir •Guy Films Genre •Melodrama •Road Films •Romance •Sports •Supernatural •Thrillers/Suspense Film Studies Minor Movie Sub-Genres (according to Tim Dirks [filmsite.org]) •Aviation •Jungle •Political •Buddy •Legal •Prison •Caper •Martial Arts •Chase •Medical •Espionage •Parody •Fallen Woman •Police Genre •Religious •Slasher •Swashbucklers Film Studies Movie Genres/Subgenres Film Studies Action Adventure—Jungle | Martial Arts | Mountain | Spy | Swashbuckler Art—Any genre or subgenre may be an "art" film Comedy—Buddy | Black Comedy | Mocumentary | Parody | Road | Romantic Comedy | Satire | Screwball Comedy | Slacker Crime—Blaxploitation | Caper | Film Noir | Gangster | Hardboiled Detective | Police Procedural | Prison | Private-Eye | Trial Films Cult—Any genre or subgenre may be a "cult" film Drama—Domestic | Education | Historical | Political Epic--Biblical | Greek Myth | Historicak Gender—Gay and Lesbian | Rape-Revenge | Women’s Pictures Horror—Demonic Possession | Haunted House | Monster | Serial Killer | Slasher | Vampire Life Story—Autobiography | Biopic | Diary Film Melodrama—Disease/Disability | Ethnic Family Saga | Weepie | Yuppie Redemption Music—Concert Films | Musicals | Rocumentary Science Fiction and Fantasy—Cyber Punk | Disaster | Dystopia | Fantasy | Post-Apocalypse | Prehistorical | Space Opera | Supermen and Other Mutants | Time Travel Sports—Auto Racing | Baseball | Basketball | Boxing | Football | Horse Racing | Track | Wrestling Teen Films—Pre-Teen Comedy | Teen Sex Comedy | Coming of Age War—Aerial Combat | Civil War | Korean | Prisoner of War | Submarine | Viet Nam | World War I | World War II Western—Cattle Drive | Indian War | Gunfighter Genre “The classification of texts is not just the province of academic specialists, it is a fundamental aspect of the way texts of all kinds are understood.” (Neale in Creeber p. 1) Genre Film Studies “In many cases, of course, it is likely that audiences will have some idea in advance of the kind of film (or play or programme) they are going to watch. They will have made an active choice either to watch or, if their preferences dictate, to avoid it. They will have done so on the basis of information supplied by advertising, by reviews, and previews, perhaps by a title (such as Singin’ in the Rain) or by the presence of particular performers. They are therefore likely to bring with them a set of expectations, and to anticipate that these expectations will be met in one way or another.” (Neale in Creeber 1) Genre Film Studies Relevant Terms for Genre from Hans Robert Jauss, German Reception Theorist/Reader-Response Critic “generic audience” “generic frustration” “generic tension” Genre Film Studies “In English-speaking countries, the term ‘genre’ came to be applied to literary works during the nineteenth century, at a point in history at which art of all kinds began to be industrialized, mass-produced for a popular public (Cohen, 1986, 120).”--Neale in Creeber 2) Genre Film Studies The “repertoire of elements” that identify genres (Lacey [2000], cited by Neale in Creeber 3): •Character Types •Setting •Iconography •Narrative •Style Genre Film Studies Institutional Aspects of Genre: •Scheduling •Modes of Production •Demands of Advertisers •Demands of Audiences •Developments in Adjacent Entertainment Institutions/Media (Neale in Creeber 4) Genre Film Studies Complaints Against Genre Criticism: 1) Circularity--critics dismiss texts for failing to meet criteria they have themselves established. 2) Prescriptiveness--critics dismiss genre shows/series for departing from Platonic “ideal” versions. (Turner in Creeber 6) Genre Film Studies Hybridity: The now common tendency to “splice” together different genres. Genre Film Studies “Genres came to be identified with impersonal, formulaic, commercial forms and distinguished from individualized art. Ironically, this represented a reversal of previous characterizations, which saw ‘high art’ as rulebound and ordered (as evident in genres lke the sonnet and tragedy) and ‘low art’ as unconstrained by the rules of decorum (Cohen, 1986, 120).”--Neale in Creeber 2 Genre Film Studies “Some important new critical theories have challenged the primacy of genre as a basic critical concept. The next important task of genre theory is to examine these objections in order to discover to what extent they require revision of the theory of popular genres and to what extent they may require us to go ‘beyond genre’” (John Cawelti, “The Question of Popular Genres Revisited” [1997]). Genre Film Studies Film Studies Genre films essentially ask the audience, "Do you still want to believe this?" Popularity is the audience answering, "Yes." Change in genre occurs when the audience says, "That's too infantile a form of what we believe. Show us something more complicated." And genres turn to self-parody to say, "Well, at least if we make fun of it for being infantile, it will show how far we've come." Films and television have in this way speeded up cultural history. Leo Braudy, American film scholar Genre Film Studies Thomas Schatz's life history of a genre (from Hollywood Genres) : an experimental stage, during which its conventions are isolated and established, a classic stage, in which the conventions reach their “equilibrium” and are mutually understood by artist and audience, an age of refinement, during which certain formal and stylistic details embellish the form, and finally a baroque (or “mannerist,” or “self-reflexive”) stage, when the form and its establishments are accented to the point where they “themselves become the “substance” or “content” of the work. (37-38) Thomas Schatz, American film scholar Genre