An essay discussing genre and how the study of genre is far more complex than at first glance

1. “GENRE STUDY IS NOTHING MORE THAN
PUTTING A FILM AGAINST A CHECKLIST”
By Luke Boulton

2. INTRODUCTION
• Genre is a multifaceted way of categorising media texts, from multiple media
platforms, into groups. It is used mainly to categorise music and film, into small
groups that use its style and features to decipher what type of music/film it is. More
specifically a film may be considered a comedy if it uses recurring jokes and focuses
more on comedy than a complex storyline. However genre lacks the focus on more
specific details within a film, like originality. For a film to be categorised into a
certain genre it must be put against stereotypical features of other films of its genre,
as if putting the films up against a checklist to see how many feature it matches.

3. GENRE DEVELOPMENT
• However genre classification is much more complicated than putting a film against
a checklist. For example film noir emerged in the 1950s, however at the time there
would’ve been no checklist to categorised noir films therefore needing a new
checklist to decipher whether films were film noir. Although without a vast history of
films and to go off, the classification would be much more complex. Additionally the
development of the Neo Noir genre showed that genre was far more complex than
it seemed. Genre changes and adapts to the contextual features of the society that it
is built in. Films are made to entertain, therefore film producers will change there
films based on what is popular at the time, therefore after a few years a genre will
change its features an mean that just putting a film against a checklist may not
work. An example would be comedy, comedy films in the 1990s was far different to
the comedy if today.

4. GENRE CLASSIFICATION
• Genre classification uses the Repertoire of Elements, a checklist of predetermined conditions
that decipher whether a film is a horror or a romance. However an issues arises that if a
comedy comes along satirising horror films – Scary Movie 1-5 – it could be classed as a
slasher horror film as it contains the correct details. This shows how films are much more
complex than expected, a film genre doesn’t just have one headlining name and list of
features, the horror genre can be divided into: slasher, psychological, zombie and even
more. However film noir is more specific than horror, it uses specific character types (femme
fatale) in most or all of the films, meaning it may be easier to decide whether a film is a film
noir because it contains those characters, but just because film uses those stock characters
doesn’t mean it is a film noir. However specification of film noir can become more specific as
most film noirs have similar characters a styles such as Venetian blinds, cigarette smoke and
a narrative which ends not so happily, for example at the end of The Postman Always Rings
Twice, Frank gets caught and convicted for two murders, one of which he did not commit.

5. GENRE AS A SOCIETAL CONSTRUCT
• As previously mentioned genre changes as societies expectations do and through this
change sub genres are created, some of these could be hybrids like rom-com (romance
comedy) which relies on a romantic narrative and comedic whips. However films nowadays
rely heavily on originality and so sub genres and hybrids develop quicker satirising the list of
genres that is available. Within Neo Noir it uses film noir as a basis but creates it within a
newer, more modern setting. For example Brick uses a typical noir narrative with murder,
mystery and corruption, but bases it within a high school with kids, this juxtaposes film noir
and shows originality within film. After the production codes were abolished, films were able
to create more shocking and ‘out there’ narratives, in original film noir sexual attraction,
murder on screen etc. were not allowed, however through the abolition Neo noir was
created. However this led to films being more complex to analyse as each one attempted to
be as original as the next within its own genre, to shock an audience into compliance, the
aim being to entertain the audience the most, changing there features to what the audience
want, however this complicates just using the repertoire of elements to categorise films into
genres, because genres do not stay still within in one genre, it is fluid and has become more
of a spectrum from which a film can be one film or another.

6. CONCLUSION
• Overall genre is obviously something far more complex than just a labelling
technique, it is used as a way to separate and please certain audiences, target them
easily by seeing what they want and applying that to a film. Genre enables an
audience to decide what they want and create an identity for the self i.e. if
somebody enjoys superhero films they create an image for themselves and can
decide what they want in the films they watch. The concept of the repertoire of
elements falsely show it to be simple to establish genre, but it is far more complex
as you must include context and all features. Richard Dyer said “genres are
pleasurable because the offer escapist fantasies into fictional worlds that remove the
boredom of reality”