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Question: What is Melodrama and why is Melodrama important for Film and Media
Studies? Explore this question by analyzing in detail a tradition or form in film or
television melodrama in a specific national or transition context.
In order to understand melodrama’s significance to film, it is important to
understand that melodrama’s influence began with the theater. Specifically speaking,
melodrama originated around the time of the 19th century according to critics and
historians, yet the same critics and historians argue that theatrical melodrama is the
complete opposite of cinematic realism. More importantly, melodrama is essentially the
core of American moviemaking itself. That is to say it is the basic mode of American
cinema; the backbone of the classical Hollywood movie.
“It is not a specific genre like the Western or horror film; it is not a ‘deviation’ of
the classical realist narrative; it cannot be located primarily in women’s films, ‘weepies’
or family melodramas-though it includes them. Rather, melodrama is a peculiarly
democratic and American form that seeks dramatic revelation of moral and emotional
truths through a dialectic of pathos and action” (Melodrama Revised). From this excerpt
by Linda Williams, in her essay “Melodrama Revised,” it can be deduced that melodrama
is not a genre or style of filmmaking but rather a device implemented by the filmmaker in
order to heighten the emotional temperature of the film for the pleasure of the audience at
large viewing the spectacle. The purpose of Williams’ essay is not to define what
melodrama is and how it is implemented but rather redefine the definition and
implementation of melodrama. “In the present essay I set out the terms of a revised
theory of a melodramatic mode-rather than the more familiar notion of the melodramatic
genre-that seems crucial to any further consideration of popular American moving

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pictures. An initial survey of the status and place of melodrama in film studies serves as
an explanation for the neglect of this basic mode” (Melodrama Revised).
Williams takes from Christine Gledhill’s volumes on melodrama in her essay to
convey that the perception of melodrama from the turn of the century to the 1960s was
viewed as a negative in part to the rise of genre criticism and the fact that the culture at
the time wanted realism and tragedy for their entertainment pleasures. “In the few places
where melodrama was seen to have a visible generic existence-in the family melodrama
and the woman’s film-melodrama could offer neither the thematic and evolutionary
coherence exhibited by, say, the western, nor significant cultural prestige to appeal to the
cognoscenti-condemned as it was by association with a mass and, above all, ‘female
audience’” (Melodrama Revised). Williams continued to note that Gledhill associated
melodrama as a genre in film studies due to the relational “excesses” of manipulating
emotions and feminist association.
No one stopped to realize that melodrama had an effect that was overlooked
though. “Film studies established a rigid polarity: on the one hand, a bourgeois, classical
realist, acritical ‘norm’ and on the other hand, an anti-realist, melodramatic, critical
‘excess.’ In this way melodrama could never be investigated as a basic element of
popular cinema, but only as an oppositional excess. More importantly, this so-excessive-
as-to-be ironic model rendered taboo the most crucial element of the study of melodrama:
its capacity to generate emotion in audiences” (Melodrama Revised). Williams uses King
Vidor’s Stella Dallas as an example of how the emotional appeal of the characters could
spill out from the screen onto the audience to manipulate the feelings of the specators.
“At the pathos-filled end of the film, the viewer sees Stella looking through a picture

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window at her daughter, who is marrying into an upper-class milieu to which Stella will
never belong. Outside the window in the rain, self-exiled from the ideal world within,
Stella, the mother who gives up the one thing in the world dear to her, is nevertheless
triumphant in her tears…Because the end of the film so insistently frames the issue of
female spectatorship-placing Stella like a movie spectator outside the window gazing at
the daughter who is now lost to her-Stella Dallas seemed a crucial film” (Melodrama
Revised).
Stella Dallas proves to be a prime example for a film that uses the effect of
melodrama to emotionally manipulate its audience, specifically speaking it’s female
audience and Williams uses that in her argument and the ensuing discourse between
Willaims and her colleagues. “I argued, in other words, that there was room for some
negotiation in a female viewing position that was animated by the contradiction of
identifying both as a woman and as a mother. The crux of my argument, however, rested
upon a fairly complex reinterpretation of psychoanalytic concepts of fetishistic disavowal.
I claimed that the female spectator is capable of experiencing the contradiction between
knowledge and belief in an image as any healthy neurotic male viewer” (Melodrama
Revised). Williams ran into challenges with this stance, particularly with the notion that
women viewers can be voyeurs and fetishists. Debate and discourse ensued in an attempt
to find the right answers regarding what melodrama could be interpreted as.
“The understanding of melodrama has been impeded by the failure to
acknowledge the complex tensions between different emotions as well as the relation of
thought to emotion. The overly simplistic notion of the ‘monopathy’ of melodramatic
characters-the idea that each character in melodrama sounds a single emotional note that

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is in turn simply mimicked by the viewer-has impeded the serious study of how
complexly we can be ‘moved’” (Melodrama Revised). Williams eventually proceeds to
the core principle in her findings on melodrama and how pathos, or the understanding of
pathos, is central to determine its proper place in cinema studies. “If pathos is crucial to
melodrama, it is always in tension with other emotions and, as I hope to show in the
following, is in a constant dynamic relation with that other primary staple of American
popular movies: action-the spectacular rescues, chases, and fights that augment, prolong
and conclude pathos” (Melodrama Revised).
“Melodrama should be viewed, then, not as an excess or an aberration but in
many ways as the typical form of American popular narrative in literature, stage, film and
television. It is the best example of American culture’s notion of itself as the locus of
innocence and virtue” (Melodrama Revised). It stands to reason why melodrama is a
popular entertainment form. Thanks to the ability of manipulating pathos, the affect on
the audience leaves an impression and that impression is dependent on what emotion is
being played on or upon on the screen. Williams has interpreted melodrama as a basic
mode of storytelling that can translate across any situation or style in filmmaking. “It is
this basic sense of melodrama as a modality of narrative with a high quotient of pathos
and action to which we need to attend if we are to confront the most fundamental appeal
of movies” (Melodrama Revised).
In order to melodrama to take full effect in any genre or environment it is
established that narrative must be present, as much as pathos. The narrative of a film
must include a setting and characters must occupy the setting and the interactions of any
character must build towards a moment for the emotional resonance of the melodrama to

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take full effect. It is important to note that melodrama is not a style, it’s a form of a
medium and in the case of cinema, it is a form to enhance audience reaction by placating
to their emotional state-of-being. In order to argue that melodrama is more of a form than
a style, it is important to observe how both terms are defined and what sets melodrama
apart from being a style and why it is categorized as a form, in this case a narrative form.
“Style is produced and sustained by the culture in which it functions. But often
the stylistic features of artwork have no evident connection with culture” (Culture, Vision
and the Perpetually New). This was an excerpt from David Bordwell’s book “On the
History of Film Style,” which is a study of how cinema was historically and theoretically
interpreted over the decades. Bordwell utilized the writings and studies of Walter
Benjamin to touch on a thesis related to the effect of the implementation of melodrama in
classical American filmmaking even though Benjamin doesn’t use the term directly.
“Nonetheless, film scholars have found Benjamin’s claims attractive, perhaps because he
declares that cinema was the medium most in tune with the new mode of perception. Film
reflects modernity, Benjamin believes, by being inherently an art of abruptness. A film
produces ‘changes of place and focus which periodically assail the spectator…No sooner
has his eye grasped a scene than it is already changed. It cannot be arrested.’ In
manifesting the culture of distraction, cinema maintains the city’s sensuous barrage;
presumably the sensorium’s training is reinforced every time the spectator visits a movie
theater” (Culture, Vision and the Perpetually New). What Bordwell and Benjamin are
claiming is that the reason cinema is such a popular art form, the reason why emotions
are always shifting, moving, heightened is because what is being seen is playing on the
emotions of the audience; the work of melodramatic effect.

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Cinema was established as an escapist medium for the spectator; people
regardless of class, location, taste or interest ventured to cinema for the purpose of
escaping from the usual events of their everyday lives for entertainment. This could be
summed up as a “cinema of attractions,” a reference Bordwell makes to revisionist
historian Tom Gunning. “Gunning suggests that many tactics of the ‘cinema of attraction’
reflect culturally determined modes of experience at the turn of the century. He adduces
examples of an “aesthetic of astonishment”-locomotives hurtling to the viewer, early
audiences’ wonder at magical transformations, and the charm of the very illusion of
motion. The attraction, Gunning claims, at once epitomizes the very fragmentation of
modern experience and responds to alienation under capitalism…In such ways, the
attraction played a role in creating characteristically modern conceptions of time and
space sometimes even pushing human perception to new limits” (Culture, Vision and the
Perpetually New).
Bordwell claims that Gunning’s view is shaky because he is basing his argument
in what is being seen in the moment, for example the example of the locomotive hurtling
toward the viewer. When films began to transition toward narrative structure, and
eventually the integration of sound and then color, the way audiences looked at cinema
began to change yet how they looked at cinema. The emotional manipulation of the
audience remained or rather it evolved as the technological and stylistic innovations came
forward as it were. “In sum, we do not have good reasons to believe that particular
changes in film style can be traced to a new way of seeing produced by modernity”
(Culture, Vision and the Perpetually New).

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In order to fully comprehend that the phrase and practice of melodrama
transcended the notion of genre, it is important to understand how genres approach
melodrama to their own language. Hence the excerpt from Steven Neale’s “Genre and
Hollywood.” “A lineage, provenance, an aesthetic, an institutional and critical status, a
generic-or sub-generic-field of application, and a putatively gender-specific appeal or
address to woman have all, since the mid-1970s, been attributed to melodrama in the
cinema on the basis, thus helping to compromise both the framework and the substance
of what might termed as the ‘standard’ or ‘orthodox’ Film Studies account. If only
because there is such as discrepancy between the ways the term has been used and
defined, it is clear that on the one hand the widespread use of ‘melodrama’ as a synonym
for ‘thriller’ or ‘action-adventure’ needs to be explained and on the other that the tenets
of the standard account need to be scrutinized much more closely. In both cases, the
history of melodrama in the theatre needs to be addressed, as does the history of
‘melodrama’ in Film Studies” (Melodrama and the Woman’s Film).
“A major point of reference for nearly all academic writing on melodrama and the
cinema to have appeared since the mid-1970s has been Thomas Elsaesser’s article ‘Tales
of Sound and Fury, Observations on the Family Melodrama’ which was first published in
Monogram in 1972 and which has been anthologized on a number of occasions since then
(1987)” (Melodrama and the Woman’s Film). Neale elaborates on how Elsaesser’s article
touches on themes such as the novels of Dostoevsky, Gothic thrillers, film noir, how
Freudian theory can define the dynamics of Hollywood films such as Imitation of Life or
Rebel Without a Cause or filmmakers such as Nicholas Ray or Vincente Minelli and how
it argues that certain tendencies in Hollywood, specifically post-studio era Hollywood,

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excercised form, style, camera movement and mise-en-scene to express themes and
issues specific to the films they were making and critique the contemporary culture and
how they drew inspiration from 18th and 19th century literature and theater. “Then, in an
era of massive social change, social conflict and social injustice, forms and structures
marked above all by arbitrariness and improbability served ‘as the literary equivalent of a
particular, historically and socially conditioned mode of experience. ‘Melodrama’ is the
term Elsaesser uses to describe both the plays, novels and films to which he refers, and
the forms and structures with which they are marked” (Melodrama and the Woman’s
Film).
Considering the fact that the term “melodrama” was being used so vaguely, it is
no wonder why a proper definition was so difficult to properly pin down. Theorists and
critics of cinema had no properly settled under one definitive umbrella and in fact, the
studios couldn’t properly define it, but they did utilize it. “As evident from some of the
reviews cited above, far from shunning or avoiding them, all of the industry’s journals
frequently used the terms ‘melodrama’ or ‘melodramatic in their reviews and discussions
of films. In addition, the studios themselves also used them in press releases, publicity
sheets and advertisements…Although there are occasions on which terms such as
melodrama are used in a pejorative sense, it is in fact much more common to find it used
neutrally, as a term of generic description. This melodrama can be good, bad, indifferent
or standard depending on the nature of the films and, of course, the judgment of its
reviewer ” (Melodrama and the Woman’s Film).
“The mere occurrence of this last phrase in particular (virile realist melodrama)
would be unthinkable within the framework of standard account, which has not just

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associated melodrama with women and femininity, it has also seen melodrama as one of
the few generic areas in Hollywood in which masculinity in general, and ‘virile’
masculinity in particular, has been consistently qualified, questioned, impaired or
castrated-unable to realize or express itself in action” (Melodrama and the Woman’s
Film). Neale has established the “realism” is a term to be used to contrast “melodrama”
but the two terms can be associated with one another in the appropriate context. “In most
instances, they imply either that the film in question is marked by a particularly powerful,
intense or convincing set of appropriate generic effects, or else-and this is especially
interesting from a historical point of view-that it involves sordid, sensational or low-life
events, characters and settings, and thus perhaps draws on elements of naturalism”
(Melodrama and the Woman’s Film).
It is important to remember that melodrama was a European theatrical invention
established in the late 18th century. It eventually made its way across the Atlantic and was
initially defined as formally and specifically a dramatic passage/scene/play in which
dialogue is spoken, then silent action accompanied by, typically, music, which was a key
ingredient to the effect of melodrama in theater. Neale identifies several basic features
and contracts that melodrama adhered itself to at this time; a conflict between good and
evil where good always wins, there has to be a hero, heroine and villain to name a couple,
but he also identifies something vital to understand regarding melodrama. “it is worth
emphasizing the extent to which these features are much more obviously characteristic of
the genres labeled as melodrama by the industry’s relay than they are of the woman’s
film” (Melodrama and the Woman’s Film). The use of melodrama transcends the genres,
it isn’t just fitting to one designed for just one audience.

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“The kinship between 19th century melodrama and Hollywood’s genres of action
and suspense is also apparent in their actions and situations, and in the passions and
emotions they help generate and bring to the fore” (Melodrama and the Woman’s Film).
It is also important to realize that melodrama is the culmination of the narrative to build
itself up to a certain moment and stop in order for the audience to emote and/or
sympathize for a moment. Neale uses Lea Jacobs’ research on melodrama to enhance his
viewpoint and brings up a surprising fact. “melodramatic situations always involve
suspense and suspense is as much a property of thrillers and action films as it is of
romantic or domestic drama” (Melodrama and the Woman’s Film). That is why
melodrama can be found all across genres such as Westerns, Suspense-Thriller, Horror,
Gangster Films, not just women’s films.
“It is clear by the turn of the century that melodrama had become a ‘cluster
concept.’ It is also clear that it had become what might be called a cluster form, a form
marked by a number of distinct aesthetic features and tradition, all of which found their
way into the cinema and may of which continue to be drawn on today…Instances of
‘melodrama’ run the gamut from horror films to thrillers to westerns, from woman’s
films to war films to action-adventure in general” (Melodrama and the Woman’s Film).
It can be noted that what melodrama is, at its core, is the backbone of Hollywood
cinematic storytelling that transcends the genres in order to elicit an emotional resonance
within the characters of the film and the audience viewing the spectacle.

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Works Cited
 Bordwell, David. "Culture, Vision, and the Perpetually New." On the History of
Film Style. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1997. N. pag. Print.
 Neale, Stephen. "Melodrama and the Woman's Film." Genre and Hollywood.
London: Routledge, 2000. N. pag. Print.
 Stella Dallas. Dir. King Vidor. Perf. Barbara Stanwyck. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
1937. DVD.
 Williams, Linda. "Melodrama Revised." Refiguring American Film Genres:
History and Theory. By Nick Browne. Berkeley: U of California, 1998. N. pag.
Print.