Tom Ryall's genre theory proposes that genres provide a framework of rules that guide filmmakers' production and audiences' interpretation. These conventions fall within four categories: iconography, narrative structure, character representations, and underlying ideas/themes. Ryall also developed a triangle model to analyze how genres exist at the intersection of industry, text, and subject. Additionally, he argues some genres should be defined by their effects on audiences, such as how horror or comedy films make people feel.

1. Tom Ryall’s Genre theory

2. What does Genre mean?
 Genre can be defined as a way of categorising a particular media
text according to its content and style
 Tom Ryall (1978)- Genre provides a framework of structuring rules,
in the shape of patterns, forms, styles and structures, which acts as
a form of ‘supervision’ over the work of production of filmmakers
and the work of reading by the audience

3. Tom Ryall’s Genre theory
 Tom Ryall’s theory suggests that the types of conventions found in
genres can be grouped within four different categories such as:
 Iconography ( symbolic forms associated with the genre )
 Narrative ( structure, open/closed)
 Representations ( characters and stereotypes)
 Ideology (beliefs, overall ideas and themes).

4. Tom Ryall’s Triangle
 Steve Neale said that, Genres are not seen as forms of textual codifications but
between industry, text and subject. Tom Ryall agreed with the idea of genre being
“between industry, text and subject” and developed this model as a way of
analysing genre, claiming that you cannot watch a film without considering these
elements

5. Tom Ryall contends that some genres such as horror, comedy
or thrillers may be better conceptualised considering their
effects on the audience for example how they make the
audience feel.
Tom Ryall also provides a list of the categories that he considers
to be proper genres ( westerns, gangster films, musicals, horror
films, thrillers, comedies, melodramas and women's films )