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