Genre theory provides a framework for categorizing texts like films and music into types based on common elements. While genres were traditionally seen as fixed forms, scholars now recognize genres as dynamic and evolving over time in response to changes in society and audience tastes. Genre conventions help audiences understand and choose texts to consume, but can also constrain creativity by pressuring texts to conform to genre expectations. Key scholars discussed propose that genres are defined by repeated codes and conventions involving iconography, narrative structures, character representations, and ideological beliefs, though pure genres are a thing of the past as genres increasingly borrow from one another.