Genre is a style or category of music, art or literature that represents what the viewer is about to watch / listen to.
Genre is based around similarities and differences and should be predictable and expected.
Genre is important for the institutions who produce the work and the audience who consume it.
Quote : saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres. This was the very foundation of the studio system and audiences love genre pictures . . . – Scorcese, A personal Journey through American Cinema (1995)
Industries such as Warner Brothers or MGM make repetitive films or similar films due to a high investment in a singular genre. For example, a company would pay billions in props, costumes and co workers to be able to film a singular genre of film.
The type of film, song, tv show, book etc… shown through the textual nature or features of the production – “genre is a system of codes, conventions and visual styles which enables an audience to determine rapidly and with some complexity the kind of narrative they are viewing” (Turner p.97 Film as Social Practice)
Genre must be both predictable and unpredictable – Genre helps audience to recognise the type of film and predict whether it is something they would watch, but it also needs unpredictable aspects, almost sub-genres, to make the film unique and interesting
a practical device for helping any mass medium to produce consistently and efficiently and to relate its production to the expectations of its customers. – Dennis McQuail 1987, p. 200
Expectations are based on both textual elements
Steve Neale: Genre as Audience Recognition
He argues genre is is a mechanism which attracts audience based on their predictable expectations
These generic characteristics are developed and amplified by media organisations, and are then reinforced by press, marketing, advertising etc.
He suggests that each genre is structured around a repertoire of elements, which fulfil an audiences expectation of a film and creating enjoyment
Their enjoyment is then maintained by the certain elements which are unconventional of the genre, making it interesting and unique
genres change as society and culture changes – genres are historically specific and reflect/represent changing ideas, attitudes, values and beliefs of society at any particular moment in history that over time, mix-up, shape, adapt and adopt familiar ideas and expectations, but which essentially create something new which is recognisable
Genre is a type of music, film and anything which can be performed in different ways throughout media. There are differences and similarities, predictable or expected. It should also be unpredictable. Different people see genre in different ways- people who consume it.
‘saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres.‘
The work of Steve Neale is often referred to when discussing genre. One area he looks at, is the relationship between genre and audiences. For example, the idea of genre as an enabling mechanism to attract audiences based around predictable expectations. He argues that definitions and formations of genres are developed by media organisations (he specifically discusses the film industry), which are then reinforced through various agencies and platforms, such as the press, marketing, advertising companies, which amplify generic characteristics and thereby set-up generic expectations.
In general, the function of genre is to make films comprehensible and more or less familiar.
meanings
repertoire of elements, corpus, realism
key elements-consistently repeated, collection of written texts, a way of portraying or thinking about reality.
Films often include conventions that can be seen in many products of the same genre. As the audience becomes familiar with them, they become predictable and typical of the genre.
Reinforced
Amplify
Repertoire of elements
Key elements of a film that are consistently repeated throughout a genre.
Corpus
The main body of a narrative or genre.
Verisimilitude
The appearance of being real and true.
Realism
Representation that is true to real life.
Construction of reality
Genre is a way in which reality can be constructed under a particular theme/category.
Historically specific
Sub-genres
A sub division of a certain genre. For example, a thriller film is a sub section of the horror genre.
Hybrid-genres
A combination of themes and elements from two or more different types of genres
A practical device for helping any mass medium to produce consistently and efficiently and to relate its production to the expectations of its customers. It can also be considered as a mechanism, for ordering the relations between the two main parties to mass communication.
It helps identify how media texts are classified, organised and understood, essentially around SIMILARITIES and DIFFERENCE. Media texts hold similar patterns, codes and conventions that are both PREDICTABLE and EXPECTED, but are also INNOVATIVE (different) and UNEXPECTED.
. . . saddled with conventions and stereotypes, formulas and clichés and all of these limitations were codified in specific genres. This was the very foundation of the studio system and audiences love genre pictures . . . – this means that vertically integrations are massive factories that produce movies.
predictable expectations – When you know something is going happen or you are predicting it before it happens because it is very obvious
The genre may be considered as a practical device for helping any mass medium to produce consistently and efficiently and to relate its production to the expectations of its customers. Since it is also a practical device for enabling individual media users to plan their choices, it can be considered as a mechanism for ordering the relations between the two main parties to mass communication.
Dennis McQuail 1987, p. 200
Introduction
A key theoretical area that underpins Media Language is the study of GENRE. Genre is a way of thinking about media production (INSTITUTIONS) and media reception (AUDIENCES). Overall, genre study helps students to think about how media texts are classified, organised and understood, essentially around SIMILARITIES and DIFFERENCE. In that media texts hold similar patterns, codes and conventions that are both PREDICTABLE and EXPECTED, but are also INNOVATIVE and UNEXPECTED. The ideas of codes and conventions are the starting point to think about MEDIA LANGUAGE and has been discussed in earlier posts, remember each MEDIA FORM has its’ own language.
Please note that although genre is often considered in terms of the Film Industry (as it is here) it is a concept that could be applied to all other media forms – music, radio, TV, newspapers & magazines, on-line/social media etc
Task 1: make some general notes on genre
Genre as ‘Textual Analysis’
Ed Buscombe notes that the ‘kind’ or ‘type’ of film is usually recognised “and largely determined by the nature of its conventions” (1986 p. 15). In other words, the textual nature of the media production. To understand the way in which textual analysis is used to define the genre of a media product, look at any extract from any film.
In the extract provided on this blog post, from the Ballad of Buster Scruggs, you could ask students what they expect just from the title of the film and then by looking at just the first frame of this clip, discuss expectations. Get students to predict particular elements around: characters, setting, lighting, dialogue, music, sounds, mise-en-scene etc. From this excercise you should be able to elicit key characteristics (codes and conventions) that identify this as a Western.
Watch the extract and then talk about how students respond – identity any surprises – differences in expectations. It should show that although this clip follows generic expectations, it also shows how expectations can be altered, adapted, challenged, changed.
In this way it might be possible to understand the notion of CREATIVITY. The way in which new ideas (creativity) emerge from the predictable and expected. It is also possible to identify this clip as something more nuanced than simply a Western.
In some ways it hold conventions of other genres, as such it could be considered as a SUB-GENRE film (a genre within a genre) or a HYBRID GENRE (a combination of two genres). However, overall, it could be said that “genre is a system of codes, conventions and visual styles which enables an audience to determine rapidly and with some complexity the kind of narrative they are viewing” (Turner p.97 Film as Social Practice)
Task 2: go back to your statement of intent and indicate the genre and generic conventions of your film idea
-‘Released on 20 June 1981 against a backdrop of rising unemployment’ -‘a depiction of social breakdown that provided the soundtrack to an explosion of civil unrest’ -‘its blend of melancholy, unease and menace took on an entirely new meaning when Britain’s streets erupted into rioting almost three weeks later – the day before Ghost Town reached number one in the charts.’ -‘ it expressed the mood of the early days of Thatcher’s Britain’
-‘The main irony of the Specials’ songs, and in fact of the entire ska movement, was that lurking just beneath the “happy,” infectious dance beat were often chilling stories of the racial divisiveness and economic deprivation that characterized the dawning of the Thatcher era.’
John Bradbury, drummer of the Specials
-‘”I saw it [Coventry] develop from a boom town, my family doing very well, through to the collapse of the industry and the bottom falling out of family life. Your economy is destroyed and, to me, that’s what Ghost Town is about.”
Thatcher’s Britain
Prime Minister 1979-90
Militant campaigner for middle class interests
Extreme attitude towards immigration
British Nationality Act 1981: introduced a series of increasingly strict immigration procedure and prevented Asian people from entering Britain
‘British national identity could be swamped by people with different culture’ – 1978 Interview
‘firm immigration control for the future is essential if we are to achieve good community relations’ – Conservative Manifesto
Resistance and Political Protest:
When you first think of political protest, you think of: petitions, political marches and movements, attempts to change legislation, protests etc…
However, when this occurs, it often results in backlash, mostly from the government in question
Even if protest does change legislation, it doesn’t always change opinions
It is culture that has the biggest influence on the way people think – this is the site of popular change
politics, people and culture are always intertwined
Cultural Hegemony:
Theorised by Antonio Gramsci, an Italian philosopher in the 1930s
Hegemonic – dominant, ruling, most powerful
Hegemonic Culture – the dominant culture
Cultural Hegemony – power, rule or domination maintained by ideological or cultural means
Cultural hegemony functions by encouraging the ideologies of the dominant social group as the only legitimate ideology. Their ideologies are expresses and maintained through economic, political, moral and social institutions. These institutions surround the people in their every day life, and eventually influence their subconscious into accepting the norms, values and beliefs of the dominant social group. As a result, oppressed groups are lead to believe that the social and economic conditions of society are natural and inevitable, rather than created by the dominant group.
Subcultures
Working class youth culture
unified by shared tastes in style, music and ideology
a form of resistance of cultural hegemony
Teddy Boys 1950s/60s: responded to post-war social changes
Skinheads 1960s: responded to social alienation as a result of 1950s conservatism and expressed working class pride
Punks 1970s: a reaction to capitalist middle class culture, alienation from adult working class, social, political and economic crisis of 1970s which resulted in mass youth unemployment. Believed in anti-establishment and individual freedom
Rude Boys 1960s/80s: reacted against oppression from state, police, racists. Emphasised self-confidence through listening to Jamaican ska lyrics about oppression and poverty
Post War British Race Relations
After WWII, Britain faced a mass labour shortage which lead to the migration of half a million people from the Caribbean (the Windrush generation 1950s-70s) searching for jobs
However, they faced severe discrimination which made it difficult for them to find employment and housing
During the 1970s and 80s, the children of the Wind Rush Generation were reaching adulthood, but found it difficult to find employment due to having faced the same prejudice their parents did – the difference was that they were willing to resist this racism
Racism from the state/police:
A clash between the police and black youth
police generated the idea that black people were criminals – more likely to steal, use drugs, start fights etc
Black community targeted by SUS Laws – a stop and search law that permitted a police officer to stop, search and potentially arrest people on suspicion
New Cross Fire 1981 – fire started by racist arsonist, killing 13 black people, whose charges were completely dismissed
Racism from far-right groups – The National Front:
NF was a far-right group
promoted the end of immigration and the reparation of non-white brits
Blamed immigration for decline in employment, housing and welfare
1970s – NF gained support of disillusioned of white youth leading to radical attacks and violence
Black Music as Resistance
Paul Gilroy – brought race into the societal divide and changes in the 1980s; he highlighted how black youth cultures represented cultural solutions to collectively experienced problems of racism and poverty
Black music offers a means of articulating oppression and challenging what Gilroy has termed ‘the capitalist system of racial exploitation and domination
The lyrics of many reggae songs revolve around the black experience, history, culture and consciousness of economic and social deprivation as well as criticising the the continuing enslavement of racist ideology
Rock Against Racism 1976-82
RAR campaign fought for the eradication of racism in the music industry against the rise of fascism among white working class youths
People believed they could prevent their audiences from being prejudice by the messages they put across in their music
RAR took advantage of the emerging subcultures who had similar anti-establishment ideologies as well as provided many different musical forms to which the campaign could project their anti-racist politics
RAR organised hundreds of musical events which united white bands with black bands – it was highly successful in shining a light on multiculturalism and unity
RAR’s fusion of youth culture and politics has been widely celebrated for making politics fun
Two Tone Britain
2 Tone Records was founded by Jerry Dammers 1979 from The Specials which advocates the eradication of racism in British society
This created a new genre of British music that fused punk with Jamaican reggae and SKA
The bands signed by 2 Tone Records were largely multi-cultural, eg The Specials and The Selector, and represented the exact aim of RAR
2 Tone bands were most vocal after the election of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1979 – writing lyrics about the politics of racism, sexism, violence, unemployment, youth culture and a corrupt system of government
2 Tone gigs often attracted members of the right-wing which caused huge disruption
Feminine = a set of culturally defined characteristics
First wave of feminism :
Women’s Suffrage Committee (1867) / The international Council of women (1888) / the International Alliance of Women (1904) was the formation of the first wave of feminism.
Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) – she was an English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. She wrote the book, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, which argues that the educational system deliberately trained women to be frivolous and incapable and that if girls were allowed the same advantages as boys, women would be not only exceptional wives and mothers but also capable workers.
Second wave of feminism :
Galvanised by organisations such as, the British Women’s Suffrage Committee (1867), the International Council of Women (1888), the The International Alliance of Women (1904).
The Suffragettes were a organisation who fought / wanted governmental
Third Wave Feminism :
Third wave feminism came / begun by Naomi Wolf in the early 1990s through her book, as he had ideas and thoughts that there will be a third wave.
Third wave feminism is more alert and expression more, as well as having more thoughts and opinions on feminism.
third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism.
Began in the mid 90s
The characteristics of third wave feminism can be seen as an emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion. Individual and do-it-yourself (DIY) tactics. Fluid and multiple subject positions and identities. Cyberactivism. The reappropriation of derogatory terms such as ‘slut’ and ‘bitch’ for liberatory purposes and sex positivity.
The point of art/ aesthetics is about the way in which tragedy occurs to ensure that the characters match with the genre which is done successfully through matter, subjects and method. Make profound truths about life stick in our minds.
Key words
Peripeteia- a change in fortune
Anagnoresis- the point in a play, novel, etc., in which a principal character recognizes or discovers another character’s true identity or the true nature of their own circumstances.
Catharsis- a type of cleaning eg. getting rid of our emotions specifically feelings around pity and fear
In Blinded by the Light, Javed experiences peripeteia when he gets the opportunity to go to writing awards ceremony and gives a speech which changes his family’s perception. For Javed, the catharsis of Bruce’s lyrics represents an escape from his domestic doldrums. Anagnoresis happens at the end of the play when Javed realises that it isn’t all about one person (Springsteen) but about how family and forgiveness will lead to a better life.
The 3 unities
Action- very focused, dramatic action
Place- in a single location
Time- in one day
plot vs character- although having complex, interesting characters is important, he suggests “character determines people’s qualities but it is by their actions that they are happy or reverse. Dramatic action, therefore, is not with a view to the representation of character: character comes in subsidiary to the actions… plot is the soul of a tragedy”
arrangement of incidences (how do you arrange events in a story?)- most films are composed around 3 act narrative structure, falls into 2 parts: complication and unravelling
Aiming towards a goal- protagonist is set towards a goal but becomes more difficult as time goes on
complication and unravelling (peripeteia)- a moment where there is a change of circumstance which shifts characters journey in a different direction
Recognition (anagnoresis)- peripeteia and anagnoresis are conjoined when character finally discovers the true nature of his situation “the scene of destructive or painful action”
Pathos (agony of recognition)- character wrestles with the consequences of the reversal
Catharsis (knowledge through purge)- the moment is lead by the peripeteia, anagnoresis and pathos
Key terms
Linear- we see the events of the story unfolding in the order in which they occurred
Chronological- listing, describing, or discussing when events happened as they relate to time
Sequential- a series of scenes that form a distinct narrative unit, which is usually connected either by a unity of location or a unity of time
Circular structure- the story ends where it began
Time based- art is to watch it unfold over time according to the temporal logic of the medium as it is played back
Narrative arc- the path a story follows
Freytag’s Pyramid- a paradigm of dramatic structure outlining the seven key steps in successful storytelling: exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, and denouement
exposition- a comprehensive description or explanation to get across an idea
inciting incident- the event that sets the main character or characters on the journey that will occupy them throughout the narrative
rising action- the part of the plot where obstacles stand in the way of the protagonist achieving his goal.
climax- when the conflict and tension peak for the audience
falling action- occurs right after the climax. It is what happens after the main problem of the story has been solved.
resolution- Also known as the denouement, the resolution is when conflicts are resolved and the story concludes
denouement- the final resolution of the intricacies of a plot
Beginning / middle / end
Equilibrium- at the beginning of the film, where everything is as it should be and the characters lives are normal.
Disruption- a monumental change, resulting in a paradigm shift
New equilibrium- things turn back to normal
Peripeteia- a change in fortune
Anagnoresis- the point in a play, novel, etc., in which a principal character recognizes or discovers another character’s true identity or the true nature of their own circumstances.
Catharsis- getting rid of our emotions specifically feelings around pity and fear
The 3 Unities: Action, Time, Place
flashback / flash forward- memory of different time
Foreshadowing- predicts what will happen
Ellipsis- the narrative device of omitting a portion of the sequence of events, allowing the reader to fill in the narrative gaps
Pathos- audience manipulation
Empathy- feeling sorry for someone and understanding it
diegetic / non-diegetic- (of sound in a film, television programme, etc.) occurring within the context of the story and able to be heard by the characters/ of sound in a film, television programme, etc.) having a source external to the context of the story, and not heard by the characters
slow motion- playing back video more slowly than it was made or recorded, so that the action appears much slower than in real life.
