genre-

By the time you start reading this you should know the basics about genre. You will be able to recognise key genres and see how they are advertised, but you may have in your mind a question about why genre actually matters- whether just being able to spot the differences between two genres tells you anything actually useful about any of them. You may have also come up against confusion when trying to fit some recent media products into particular genres. It seems to be the case that while in the past a western was a western and a quiz-show was a quiz show was a quiz-show, in recent years the producers of media texts have been switching around between genres crazily. The idea of this booklet is that it will cover many of these issues in more detail and go alongside the things you are doing to do with genre in your lessons.

Why is it important

Whenever we see a media text for the first time it is like entering a new and unfamiliar world- all the characters, locations and events are new to us and everything about it would seem unfamiliar and therefore alarming if it weren’t for the fact that we could recognise the genre and spot the conventions- we feel at home in this strange world.

For this reason, rather than just looking at what genre conventions are present in a media text (the easiest way of studying genre) it is actually much more interesting to think about what goes on in our heads when we encounter a genre piece: the effect these genre conventions have on us as an audience and how much we are allowed to feel comfortable and secure in the conventions of the genre. A text can use the conventions to make us feel at home, or confuse us by deviating from them.

A famous example of this messing around with genre expectations is a film called The Wild Bunch made in 1969. At the start of the movie it seems in some ways to be a typical example of the Western genre. As a member of the audience you feel comfortable within the genre because you see all of the conventional ingredients - the hats, the guns the horses and so on. However, this sense of security and comfort soon goes: as the film opens a group of soldiers enter a village and we see some bandits aiming their guns at them. Because we are used to the genre we know what to expect- it is clear that the soldiers will turn out to be the heroes of the film and the bandits the villains. We might even already be anticipating the end of the film when the bandits are finally killed in a climactic shoot out.

Unfortunately all of this is completely wrong- the soldiers are in fact bandits in disguise and the bandits are working for the police- the genre has been turned on its head.

Now think about how this affects our enjoyment of the film. As it starts, we are enjoying the way it fits our expectations of a western, but as things become unfamiliar, we enjoy even more the unexpectedness of the genre being messed around with. We actually enjoy our Knowledge of genre but at the same time we enjoy seeing the rules broken as long as the film-maker doesn’t go too far.

If you’ve seen Pulp Fiction you can think about in the same way. As members of the audience we feel at home because we have seen many gangster films in the past but we also enjoy the script which makes the characters talk like no gangsters we’ve ever heard before- the situations are stock ones for the genre, but the dialogue is from a very different kind of film.

All of this works because we have become a sophisticated audience that can cope with seeing the conventions of one genre messed around with and even mixed with those of another genre. This is something that puts us ahead of the audiences of the past: we have simply seen many more films and television programmes than anyone in the history of the media and therefore expect genre categories to be messed around with.

In summary- genre offers audiences a structure- However, rebellious we think we are, we still like some level of organisation in the media texts that we enjoy. genre offers us this- we feel secure in our knowledge of the workings of the genre.

In fact there are a number of ways that we can enjoy genre- we like the anticipation of waiting for the predictable features. You may complain, for example, that Neighbours is so obvious, but in fact one of the reasons that the series is so popular is that regular viewers enjoy seeing their genre expectations fulfilled. Many people feel that watching shows such as this turn you into couch potatoes- unthinking morons who just let the images from the television run through you like a drug, but in fact the way that you wait for certain genre moments and predict elements appearing requires quite a degree of involvement and thought on your part . At the same time as we enjoy this predictability, we also like it when the producers of the media text surprise us. This can be gentle as in the case of a sit-com which mixes regular features of the genre with new variations each week. It can also be more extreme as in the case of Pulp Fiction which almost destroys our notions of what a gangster film should be like.

List below three examples that you can think of of media texts where your expectations of the genre are subverted.

 

 

Do audiences actually create genre

There is quite a powerful argument that audiences actually have a major role in the creation of genre in the sense that our bums on seats are the principal reason why any film gets made in the first place. Think about how this idea works- if a film is produced that re-invents a genre that we, the audience, had grown tired of (Scream, Gladiator, Saving Private Ryan), it only has a chance of reviving the genre if we actually end up liking it. Similarly within an existing genre, innovations in individual films only affect the genre as a whole if they are accepted by the audience.

In fact, the audience are the force that makes a genre change- it would be much easier for film companies to keep churning out identical genre products, but we resist it and falling ticket returns force change on the studios. On the other hand, audience’s unwillingness to buy outside recognised genres could stifle creativity on the part of film-makers.

Think about how all of this has affected the recent history of the horror genre. During the seventies a number of new and original films such as The Exorcist the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and in particular, Halloween, became hugely popular with audiences. The film companies responded by making loads of cheap cash-in imitations of these films such as the Friday the 13^th series.

As time went by, audiences gradually became bored by the unoriginality of these films and the filmmakers were forced to innovate at first by including ever increasing levels of violence. audiences again reacted by losing a taste for the genre particularly as some of them began to worry about links between film violence and crime. As a result, for much of the late eighties and early nineties the genre disappeared from mainstream high profile studio production. Where horror did appear it was in films of other genres which interested the audience more- Science Fiction (the Alien series) and the thriller (The Silence of the Lambs.)

Finally in the mid nineties as many of the existing genres which were popular with the public were becoming increasingly expensive, the studios decided it was time to give the cheap genre of horror another push. To do this however, they had to reinvent the genre taking into account the reasons why audiences had not liked it in the first place- lack of originality and too much violence. Their answer was Scream, which gave horror a new start by toning down the violence and involving the audience’s criticisms of the unoriginality in the jokes of the film.

Reading through this highly simplified account, you will have seen the way the studios and the audience work together as being a symbiotic relationship. We respond with pleasure to certain innovations in the genre and indifference to others and the industry timidly adapts itself to our interests.

Why do film makers like genre?

If audiences are so sophisticated now that they can appreciate much more than simple genre pieces and force the studios to work outside the apparent restrictions of genres, why should the film makers bother with it at all. The main reason is because it is easy:

1. It’s easy to market- When you are actually watching a film you have the time and concentration to see a genre’s conventions being destroyed but a film poster or a trailer needs to be clear and so it is easiest for them to work simply around the genre.

2. It’s easier to make- if you have someone who has done the special effects on Terminator then the easiest thing in the world for him/her is to go on the make lots of other films which use exactly the same kind of special effects. If you are a director who makes action films it is easy to make more action films- if you try something new it is much more likely that it will fail- Stephen Spielberg for a long time made only action films and has only once made a comedy (1941) which flopped. He has also only once made a romance (Always) which also flopped!

3. It’s easier to get a guaranteed audience. If you have seen a film and enjoyed it, you are likely to want to see other films that are similar and this makes genre films very attractive to film-makers. There are plenty of very violent gangster films that have only succeeded to any extent at all because people going to see them thought they would be a bit like Resevoir Dogs. When the magazine Viz came out and invented a genre all of its own there immediately appeared lots of other copycat magazines which had a guaranteed audience until people realised how dreadful they were.

4. It’s easier to choose and market your star. As much as films are sold through their genre, they also are sold by the stars who appear in them- but this often works with the genre because stars often have generic associations which help us to enjoy the film. In other words when we see a star in a film we are constantly reminded of all the similar films we have seen that star in.This relationship between the stars and the genre is something that will be dealt with in more detail later.

How the film-makers use genre to target an audience

Look at these two adverts for the film Independence Day. At first sight it is clear that the film is going to be a science fiction film. Various ingredients of the genre are present in the adverts: the distant earth and the giant spaceships are obvious ones. These work in a very simple genre way. We see the ingredients, we recognise the genre and if we like science fiction we may decide to see the film.

However, the advertising campaign is obviously more complex than that. Part of its success lies in its use of echoes from previous examples of the genre.

For example, the shots of distant earth are a familiar feature of science fact as well as science fiction. Ever since the Apollo missions they have been a familiar signifier of space travel- an image that we know from real life shots as well as from the drama- documentary film Apollo 13. The picture is therefore plugging into the associations that we may have from this film of realism and drama.

Similarly, the poster also brings associations to me of the marketing for the film Alien. The poster for this similarly involved a black space background, a mysterious looking alien object and an enigmatic threatening caption. It doesn’t actually matter if you don’t remember Alien or its marketing, since the poster works perfectly well on its own, but if you do, it brings another level of associations to mind.

Finally there is one other echo that I can see in the posters. Science Fiction as a genre has become massively popular again mainly as a result of one ground-breaking television series- The X-Files. In fact the producers of Independence Day were only able to get the enormous financial backing needed to make their film because of the popularity of the series. The X-Files has very successfully tapped into two apparently contradictory parts of human nature- our fascination with the unknown and at the same time our fear of it. The caption for the second poster: "The question of whether or not we are alone in the universe has been answered," very obviously goes for those same feelings and attempts to bring to our minds the associations from the programme. Similarly, the image of an enormous spaceship, beaming down light, while a commonplace of much science fiction is particularly familiar to lovers of the programme.

Remember there is no need for any of the targeted audience to recognise all of these references. It is just another part of the armoury of techniques used by the advertisers.

When you watch the film itself, a similar process takes place. There are constant echoes of earlier films and television programmes from the science fiction genre. The X-Files is actually mentioned and a large part of the story even takes place on the military base where according to the television series, alien bodies are held. Fans of Star Trek are kept happy by the presence of one of the actors from the Next Generation playing a genre-typical role of the mad professor.

However, at the same time as there are plenty of ingredients typical of the science fiction genre, there are also many elements from another type of film which has been out of fashion for a long time- the masses of people killed, the idea of a few people ganging together to survive against incredible odds are key ingredients of the disaster film genre which was massively popular in the 1970’s including examples such as The Towering Inferno and the Airport movies. Taken all together, the film comes out as being a kind of hybrid movie where genres are mixed in an original way. this once again is part of the enjoyment of the film- we may not spot where exactly the different genre elements are coming from but we are aware that what we are seeing is different from a traditional science fiction film. We are able to enjoy the moments when our expectations are fulfilled (e.g. when there is a massive echo of the Death Star run from the end of Star Wars), but at the same time we find it very enjoyable when the genre traditions are broken (e.g. when one of the leading characters deals with an alien by simply kicking it). In a simple sense, our knowledge of the genre allows us to predict what the end of the film will be- the aliens will be somehow defeated- but not the journey that will take us there.

genres changing over time

As we watch Independence Day this mixing of genres is particularly enjoyable because it is novel, we have never seen a science fiction/disaster movie hybrid before. It is possible, however, that we will see more of them. The massive success of the film will have been very exciting for the money men of Hollywood and so they will want to imitate it with new films of a similar nature. If this does happen, then Independence Day will have gone beyond just being this summer’s blockbuster movie and will have become a "genre defining moment" This means that the original mixture that was in the film will become a commonplace of science fiction and the genre will change to include it.

"genre defining moments" are fairly rare in the media and they only normally become apparent a long time after the text is created when we can properly see its influence. They don’t always have to be the most popular media products either. It could easily be argued, for example, that the film Bladerunner with its dark settings in hostile but recognisable cities in Earth’s future has had much more effect on the science fiction genre than E.T despite the fact that Bladerunner was virtually ignored on release and E.T is one of the biggest films ever.

While genre defining moments do not happen that often, it is certain that genres do change over time. You can see this if you consider the gangster genre. If you watched a gangster film in the 1930’s you would see features typical of the genre then: men in hats wearing spats carrying machine guns in violin cases. If you watch a modern gangster film such as Goodfellas you see that most of these have disappeared- some had become boring and cliched, some such as the violin cases had been repeated so often they had become comic. Looking at how genres change over time, can tell us a lot, not just about changing fashions in Hollywood but also about how dominant ideology has shifted over the years. If you take the example of science fiction, you can see how this has moved through fear of outsiders in the fifties to excitement about the future in films of the 1960’s such as 2001, through fear of the power of technology in the Terminator or Robocop to the recent suspicion of authority and the government in the X-Files.

Case Study - The X- Philes- What is cult T.V?

Mention of the X-Files brings us on to the question of generic cults. While most of us have little more than an enjoyment of certain genres, there are some people who have been accused of having obsessive devotion to certain genre texts, recent examples being Science Fiction shows such as the X-Files, Buffy and the king of the cults, the Star Trek series.

When Star Trek was first made in the sixties, the producers noticed a strange phenomenon- the ratings for the show were never high. In fact they were so low that the show only lasted for three years and was constantly under threat during that time, yet at the same time the cast and the creators of the show were receiving enormous amounts of fan mail. The phenomenon of cult television had been born.

Some theorists have said that television audiences can be split into three kinds:

·       Casual viewers will pay attention to a show if they happen to be watching TV, but do not experience the show as a special event. In the past when there was a limited choice of what to watch on the few existing television stations this was the most common kind of viewer.

·       Devoted viewers will make arrangements to watch every episode of the series. The programme will be one that they identify with and enjoy more than other shows, but they are not fanatics.

·       Avid fans will not just watch the programmemes, but tape them so that they can see them again and again. The show will be a major part of their lives.

Avid viewers are often called cult viewers and a number of modern programmemes have many cult viewers. The audience for the X-Files for example, clearly contains an enormous proportion of this last category, and it is worth thinking about the relationship between television shows and their cult audiences.

Broadly there are two very different views about what it means to be in a television cult. The first centres on the way that these audiences decode the media texts. If you look on the Internet at the many discussion groups that are made up of conversation about the X-Files, you will see that their discussions range much wider than "just" talking about the series- here are a man and a woman talking about what goes on in their discussion groups:

First the man: a member of GATB-the Gillian Anderson Testosterone brigade!

“This is more like a community of buddies than anything else….discussions are not limited strictly to Gillian Anderson, but have included in the past….cars, the right to bear arms, taxes, baseball, football. Kinda like a guy club.”

Now the woman: a member of DDEB- the David Duchovny Oestrogen Brigade!

“In all honesty we talk about more than David Duchovny! We talk about our lives/work/kids/life in general….the Internet is really big but X-Files is really friendly and familiar”

In both these cases the show has quickly become a springboard for general discussions among a group with a shared interest. But clearly there is something about the programme that has spurred these people on- something that they can associate with enough to want to spend their time sharing their personal lives with like-minded people a few clues may come in this posting from a woman in the X-Files discussion group:

“Scully is nobody’s “girl.” She stands on her own. She’s Mulder’s partner but she isn’t defined by him or by her relationships with any other man….nobody acts like she has to justify her being there. She’s just another agent. Mulder, Skinner, all take her presence for granted. You don’t get lines like “what’s a nice girl like you doing in a nasty business like this.” She’s just there.”

The discussion groups are fairly full of comments like this and I hope it is not too patronising to suggest that more than Scully is being talked about here- the woman is using her understanding of Scully to create a model of how she feels all women should be treated. The programme has become something that she can use as a tool to measure her own life and make value judgements about the world around her. A long way from just talking geekily about aliens.

It should be clear from this that the members of a television cult are taking their fascination way beyond any level that the original producers of the show could ever have guessed. Their act of decoding the messages of the show is highly creative- they are coming up with their own interpretations and meanings for events and relating what they see in the show to the concerns of their own lives and the interests of their gender. From their point of view, a cult show is one which allows them this degree of freedom of interpretation. The X-Files is ideal for this because it has such a large amount of mystery about it and because it has two role models and sex symbols at its centre- characters who the fans can admire and fancy. Amongst these X-Philes as they call themselves there are groups who write stories based around the lives of characters, often involving the kiss that it seems that we will never see in the true series. In all of this the existence of the cult, it could be argued, places them on a higher level than the normal television viewer- their involvement in the show is so great that they become on the same level as the producers of the programme who simply provide them with initial inspiration for their ideas.

There are other media critics who see all of this as very naive. From their point of view cults have just become parts of the financial considerations of television networks. When the original Star Trek cult arrived it was a bit of a lucky surprise for the television networks but it was one that they gradually learned from. The members of the Star Trek cult bought enormous amounts of merchandise and tended to be quite high income earners who were therefore attractive to advertisers. Their obsession with the show meant that they were happy to watch endless repeats and revisions of the show (Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager) and because of their income, the networks could sell advertising space during  these programmemes at a higher rate than would be normal if they were just considering the numbers of people in the audience.

The next stage in all of this was that the networks realised that they could attempt to create new shows that would attract a cult- rather than waiting for this kind of lucrative market to appear, they could create it. This is very much what is happening at the moment in American television- programmemes such as American Gothic, Babylon five, and Millennium have deliberately been produced in ways which the producers hope will attract a cult. Once again, the X-Files is a good example of how this works.

The X-Files followed fairly quickly after another major cult series- Twin Peaks, so the producers were keen to take some of the culty features of that show. For their main character they chose a visionary and slightly eccentric and attractive FBI agent who was to be an honest centre to the series in the midst of all the chaos of the action around him- all of this is familiar from the character of Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks. As if to ram the point home, the actor, David Duchovny who they chose to play the part had appeared in a middle size role in the earlier series. They were therefore virtually guaranteed that the Twin Peaks cult would all watch the series and in fact the first episode was even set in the same part of the states so that they would really feel at home. In subsequent episodes, the Twin Peaks cult have been kept on board through frequent appearances by other actors from the series.

Other cults were attracted in the same way- elements of science fiction and horror were added to the mix and the character of Scully was created in order to tap into the cult that existed at the time for Agent Starling, the Jody Foster character in the Silence of the Lambs. You may have seen one of the episodes set in a prison which particularly plays with this link.

On the Internet, you can also find cults which are not television based. There are groups that spend all of their time discussing aliens or theories about conspiracies in government- once again even if you are only a casual viewer of the programme, you will see how these obsessions have been blended into the mix. All of this does not mean that the X-Files is not a hugely entertaining programme-it is quite possible to make a show which presses all of the same cult buttons, like Dark Skies for example, and make it much less interesting.

It was this cult attracting nature of the show which persuaded the owner of the Fox network, Rupert Murdoch, that the show could be profitable and the programme’s creator, Chris Carter has continued to do all he can to keep the cult flourishing. Being aware that the cult flourishes on the Internet, he has got his scriptwriters to regularly look into the discussion groups on the net and to react to the fans’ suggestions. The most famous example of this is the fact that the producers reacted to the X- Philes’ belief that Scully was too sceptical of Mulder’s ideas by changing her behaviour in the second series.

A big part of the enjoyment of being a member of a cult is the feeling that you have special secret knowledge which outsiders do not share and Carter has also helped foster this belief amongst the Philes. He and his scriptwriters will release chosen secrets about the series and future developments on the net which are then passed around as hot gossip amongst fans. Some of the most avid fans have even been honoured further by seeing their names appear on screen as minor characters in the programme. Most importantly, the long unfinished nature of the X- Files’ narrative allows Carter and his writers to sprinkle each episode with references to others in the series and even to other texts that will be familiar to the cult audience. The day after one of these episodes is broadcast for the first time, the Internet will buzz with the clicking of keyboards as proud X- Philes point out the various things they have spotted. One effect of this is that members of the cult who see the show after its first broadcast are left out- a good reason in Britain to sign up to Sky which is (surprise, surprise) owned by Rupert Murdoch- the same man who first gave the show the go- ahead when he recognised its cult- creating potential.

Of course all of this is a long way away from the optimism of the cultists own view of themselves- as privileged viewers who have a special relationship of equality with the text which the rest of us do not share. Before we get too superior, it is worth thinking of the enormous success that the series has had with millions of people around the world who would never consider themselves to be X- Philes. Maybe this is because we all have a bit of the cultist in us -it could be argued that the way that they enjoy their shows is only an extension of the way that we all enjoy post-modern genre shifting texts- like them we are constantly on the look-out for references to other texts or links to other moments in the series, like them the television watchers of today are more likely than ever before to buy merchandise for favourite shows and now with the popularity of Rupert Murdoch’s satellite stations we are, like them, more likely than ever to watch repeats of our favourite shows rather than catch anything new.

.

 

Does studying genre actually help us to make sense of the media?

Themes and Ideology

If you were to try to make a list of the mise en scene ingredients for the two different genres contemporary comedy (e.g. Parenthood) and modern thriller (Fatal Attraction) you would find that they are massively similar. They take place in the same kind of environments with people in similar family roles and even with similar personalities yet clearly these are very different kinds of film. The differences may lie in the narrative and in the themes of the films.

A narrative is simply a story and in the same way as you can recognise visual ingredients typical of a Western say, you will also be able to recognise typical storylines and themes- the "goodies" and "baddies" building up to a gun-fight at the end of the film, for example or the theme of what it means to be honourable in an unjust world. Of course if you tried you would find that these storylines and themes apply just as much to a science fiction film like Star Wars and then the whole issue of genre becomes confusing.

Beyond traditional genre.

What genre is Star Wars? Does the fact that it is set in space make it science fiction or is it a western in space age clothes, or a fairy story for that matter. Media Studies theorists get into big rows about all of this and from your point of view studying the subject it can all be rather confusing, if you can’t say that any genre has predictable props, narrative or themes is there any meaning to the term at all? Science fiction is a very strange genre containing texts with totally different themes and ingredients. What is the point of bundling together films as completely different in every way as E.T and Alien and calling them both science fiction. Some theorists have suggested that what is wrong is not the idea of genre itself but the particular types of categories we have created. In the next two sections I have dealt briefly with a couple of these ideas.

Just five genres- McConnell

The way that we normally recognise a genre is to spot the obvious surface features- science fiction is science fiction, because it is set in space or the future, westerns are set in the west etc. This is easy, but, as was pointed out in the last section, not always helpful.

Frank McConnell’s theory is based around the idea that instead of basing genres around the obvious visual clues- the look of the text, it is more meaningful to split texts according to their themes and plots and in particular their leading characters. He came up with five genres which specifically refer to typical events in the history of any society and the characters who play a part in them. He believes that since films reflect society, they will always involve these kinds of typical events

The king- establishing the state- the epic.

The knight- consolidating the state- the adventurous romance.

The pawn- trapped in the institutionalised state- the melodrama.

the fool- responding to the madness of the state- the satire.

Apocalypse- the collapse of the state which leads to a new beginning- no single hero.

Do not be too concerned about his use of terms that seem to come from fairy stories or history- these genres can be applied to any situation in a film where the lead character will fit one of these roles and the state will be their family, their business or their empire.

Some of these are quite easy to spot. It’s quite simple to spot the fool for example in the films of Robin Williams or Eddie Murphy or to see how neatly Independence Day fits into the last category.

Here are a couple of others that are more difficult to fit.

The Godfather part 2. in this film we are shown the life of a young Italian immigrant in new York who over the years sets up a powerful Mafia Clan. This seems to be the epic: he is the king and his Mafia empire is a state. As the film continues and it switches to the life of his son we see the process continue

and turn more and more sour as the son begins to leave behind his youthful ideals of turning away from crime and starts killing more and more people. In some ways this could still fit in with McConnell’s five genres, but it also has many features of the pawn genre- the son feels himself to be trapped in the situation he is in and believes he doesn’t have the freedom to leave his life of crime behind.

On one level you could say that because the film could fit into two genres it means that the theory doesn’t work but in fact this confusion can be helpful. If you know the film, applying McConnell’s categories actually highlights what make the character of the son as played by Al Pacino so interesting- these two different sides to his personality. It also reveals some quite interesting things about the film itself- that it is a kind of an anti- epic which shows that maybe any leader is not as heroic as he might like to appear. Using the genre theory to understand the film has actually helped me to think ideologically about it- often one of the most difficult things to do when analysing a text.

You may not have seen The Godfather part 2 so I’ll try the same kind of thing with one you have all seen- Fatal Attraction.

This seems to me to fit in most with the melodrama genre- in the way he is presented, Dan is a pawn who has no power to resist the attraction of Alex and then when she starts stalking him is not helped by an indifferent state which fails to stop her, forcing him to make pathetic attempts to fight back at her. His powerlessness is constantly emphasised in the film as he fails to protect his children, his wife or even his bunny rabbit. All of the symbols of security in his life- job, car and house are attacked and no-one helps him. The symbols of the state- the police, the law and the teachers who fail to protect his daughter appear uninterested and unhelpful.

I was talking about this to a friend and she was equally convinced that the film fitted into the adventurous romance genre with Dan as the knight fighting to protect his family, the state from a hostile outsider- Alex who as a single woman is just as dangerous to a family as a dragon would be to a town in a fairy story. With Alex successfully destroyed, the Knight has consolidated his state, the family are once again united and harmonious as is emphasised by the close up of the family snap which we see at the end of the film. This is why the ending had to be changed- Alex had to die at the hands of the knight for the adventure to be completed.

....but then Alex is actually killed by Beth, how does that fit in? I argued smugly.

An argument like this could go on for ages and it would probably never be obvious which genre the film fitted into but that doesn’t actually matter too much. What is important is that once again the process of genre criticism has forced us to think ideologically about the film and brought us closer to an understanding of why it has been made in the way it has. The pawn version of the film highlights the representation there is in the movie of a world where men are under attack, defenceless against a society which fails to protect them when they are in danger, the knight version highlights the idea of the single woman as a threat who must be eliminated if society is to survive. Both of these ideas are in the film and looking at the genre has helped to find them.

Try it yourself -list the last five films that you saw and attempt to fit them into one of the five genres. In your analysis consider how it relates to the ideology of the film.

Maybe only two genres- Schatz

McConnell’s way of looking at genre forces us to look at ideology and another genre theorist, Thomas Schatz, has done this even more obviously by reducing all genres even further to just two which he calls the genre of order and the genre of integration. I have summarised the features of these in the char below:

 

genres of Order (Western, Gangster, sci-fi etc.)	genres of Integration (Musicals, comedies, domestic melodramas etc.)
Hero Individual- male dominant	Hero Couple or collective (e.g. family) (female dominant)
Setting Contested space- somewhere which is argued over (ideologically unstable)	Setting Civilised space (ideologically stable)
Conflict Externalised- against others (expressed through violent action)	Conflict Internalised- between themselves. (expressed through emotion)
Resolution / ending Elimination (death)	Resolution / ending Embrace (love)
Thematics The hero takes upon himself the problems, contradictions of his society and saves us from them. macho code of behaviour isolated self reliance (either through his departure or death, the hero does not fit in with the values/lifestyles of the community but maintains individuality)	Thematics The romantic couple or family are integrated into the wider community their personal antagonisms resolved maternal- familial code community co-operation.

This is obviously more complicated Than other genre theories, it will become clearer once again if I try to fit it to a couple of examples-

The X-Files

This would seem to fit into the genres of order. Mulder is the individual, male hero- while he has a female companion, he is very much the leader and without his very individual belief, there would be no adventure. The settings are frequently contested spaces, places where enemies are present, where good or evil could triumph. This is equally true in their own F.B.I Headquarters which are particularly ideologically unstable in the sense that it is uncertain who is in charge and who Mulder is really serving. Violent conflict is regular in each episode, but being a series there has as yet been no resolution. However, the second series did end with what appeared to be Mulder’s solitary uncompromising death.

The last section- thematics is where this theory shows us the most about the programme when we start to consider how Mulder "takes upon himself the problems, contradictions of his society and saves us from them." If the dominant ideology is that we live in a time of uncertainty, and of collapsing morals when people do not care about each other or about truth and believe in nothing, then Mulder can be seen as a very obvious symbol of what we would like to be like in his honour, truthfulness, certainty and belief. The X-Files has been seen as being a very cynical series with its repeated stories about cover ups and conspiracies, but using this theory to analyse it suddenly reveals how optimistic it actually is in the way that Mulder is used as an example of what mankind could be like.

Fatal Attraction

Once again it is confusing what category the film should go into depending on whether you see the film as being about Dan as hero (genre of order) or about the family as a unit (genre of integration)- both could fit with a little adaptation and this itself fits with the history of the film which started off as a script for a melodrama and ended up as violent thriller.

Once again you can try the same thing yourself with some films that you have seen and you will find all kinds of confusions which may throw up ideological issues. If you have seen Thelma and Louise, for example, try it with that and particularly consider where it would fit if they were two men.

Hollywood destroys genre

Part of the reason why genre is so confusing for us when we try to recognise it is that more and more often Hollywood film producers are playing games with genre. The people who are making films today in Hollywood have the same kind of massive knowledge of genre as you have and they are less likely than the film-makers of the past to be so tied down by the expectations of a certain genre. If you watch a film like Pulp Fiction you are seeing a director in action who switches around from genre to genre with ease and for the audience, this becomes part of the enjoyment of the film- we look for the times when genre expectations are crushed and something else replaces them. So, for example we are used to seeing gangsters in suits with enormous guns stepping out of cars and going on their way to kill people, but we don’t expect them to be talking as they do so about foot massages and cheeseburgers.

This doesn’t mean that these films are not using genre, however, in fact it is probably even more important for us to have an understanding of genre if we want to enjoy these films, than it is if we see a more traditional genre product. Another example would help to explain this. A film which on first sight might seem to fit in perfectly with a genre is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In many ways it is a recreation of the old adventure epics of the 1930’s, but Steven Spielberg still allows himself to play with the genre conventions. There is a scene where, at the end of a long escape from the baddies, Indy finds himself at the end of a street with his exit blocked off by a swordsman. The swordsman elaborately flourishes his sword and begins to move in for the kill. Indy takes out his gun and shoots him. If the audience didn’t know the genre and had no expectations of what was meant to happen, this would just be disappointing- we want to see a fight and instead it is all solved too quickly. However, because we all know the genre and what is meant to happen, we enjoy the fact that this time he doesn’t do what is predictable- the scene becomes funny rather than annoying.

This kind of messing around with genre in the media has been called "post-modernism" and you can talk about texts that do this as being "post-modern"

Post modern texts often mix different genres together- hybridisation- some people would see this as a cynical attempt by filmmakers to maximise their potential earnings by getting audiences who are interested in different genres in to see films. On the other hand it could be argued that the post-modern audience has grown to expect this hybridisation. Another criticism of hybridisation has been that rather than producing new and radical re-inventions of genre, it can also lead to stagnation as certain genres crop up more frequently than others, so for example, recent American television programmes of all genres seem to be hybridised with the soap genre.

Post-modern media texts do not just show awareness of the genres of the past, they also make fun of (pastiche) their concventions. A large part of modern media output could be seen as being post-modern, from the Big-breakfast which (when it works) is funny because of our knowledge of the breakfast show genre, to Independence Day. When a media text makes references to other texts which the audience are expected to recognise it is called intertextuality.

Give three examples of media texts which you think could be described as post-modern -explain why.

Post-modernism and ideology

Some people have said that this wish of modern media to constantly make fun of previous genres makes modern media texts often meaningless- while ideology is very easy to spot in a film like Fatal Attraction, a more post-modern film such as Pulp Fiction doesn’t really seem to mean anything. At the same time because of this apparent lack of meaning in recent Hollywood product, some film-makers who feel they have something to say (such as Kevin Costner, in Dancing with Wolves) will do the opposite and stick to their genre rigidly to make this ideology all the clearer.

Who actually makes a film -the Auteur

Throughout a lot of what I have written here I have talked about directors and producers as if they are the same thing but in fact there is a very complicated process that goes on when a Hollywood film is being produced with various different people involved- It’s a good idea to think a bit about these different roles if we are to consider the ideology of the film and its treatment of genre:

The producer is the person who gets together the financial backing for the film, they are often businessmen who stand to make a lot of money out of the film and think of it as a product to be sold. They are after a film therefore, that is going to be successful and fit in often with what they consider to be a successful formula from the past (genre.) They can often be frightened of new ideas because they are risky.

The screenwriter is the person who writes the script. This will often go through many versions as in the case of Fatal Attraction and often screenwriters feel that they have little control over what the actual film will end up as. This makes them very different to someone who writes a play for the theatre, for example.

The cast can have a big effect on the meaning of the film- particularly if they are big stars, with big pulling power, they can ask for script changes as Michael Douglas did in Fatal Attraction. Also, their charisma can make a difference to the meaning of the film. if you think of the first Terminator film, it would be very different if Arnie was not playing the villain- someone else in the role, would not be able to make the violence and the evil of the Terminator seem so attractive and the meaning of the film would be quite different. This does not mean that Arnie is a good actor by the way- acting skill and a star’s charisma are quite separate things.

The director is the person who often seems most obviously to be the maker of the film- he gives the orders on the film set which control the behaviour of the actors and actresses, the camera crew, lighting and sound technicians etc.

Because this seems to be the central role in the making of the film, one type of media criticism has come up with the idea that many films are very much the creation of the director in the same way as a book is made by one author. This is called auteur theory- auteur theory is the French word for author and if it were true- it would make media studies much easier. If one person was responsible for the ideas behind a film, then it would be much easier for us to talk about the intentions of the filmmaker, to look for ideology and for the mix of genre influences.

In fact, there are many different ways of making a film, depending on the power the director has- Quentin Tarantino, the maker of Pulp Fiction and Resevoir Dogs, was director, screenwriter, producer and even actor in those films. He was able to do that because the films were quite low budget and also because after the first film he had an amazing reputation- people were willing to give him money to make a film and then let him get on with it. He therefore could be seen as an auteur. If you think about Fatal Attraction, on the other hand, the screenwriter, producers, director, stars, director and even the test- screening audience all had a massive effect on the meaning of that film which may be partly the reason why in some ways it is quiet muddled.

Modern films tend to be more often like Fatal Attraction made by a committee without any one auteur. Many critics have said that this can result in the original ideas of the various different film-makers being confused and diluted in the final film that we see in the cinema. Francis Ford Coppola who made such films as the Godfather, Apocalypse Now and Bram Stoker’s Dracula has described this as follows:

"The problem is I have a double life and I work for the commercial film industry, which basically wants to make old formulas and make them with new actors. It’s like Boeing- they have to make planes that will fly. They can’t make one that flies on its side, even though that might be a good idea....People are particular about films, they don’t want to be put into an incredibly unusual situation. It’s like the little kid who says ‘Tell me the story of the three bears again.’ "

At the same time, paradoxically, the idea of an auteur is a good thing to sell a film. In the same way as the presence of a certain star or certain genre is good for marketing, you will often see on film posters or trailers the phrase- "a film by...." as a guarantee of quality. This can be the case even if the director of the film has had very little auteur power over the film at all. In some cases the only influence a director may have had over the film is in terms of the look of the film- the mise en scene.

Stars

Stars have been mentioned throughout this booklet. They are obviously just as important to ways that films are made and sold as genre is. In fact the two things often go hand in hand and often work in the same way. It is just as likely that you will decide to go and see a film because of who is in it as because of the genre it is in. Also our reactions to the film are very often affected by the presence of a star and our knowledge of them. In the same way as we recognise genre echoes in films, we also spot echoes of other films in the way that the stars behave.

To take the example of one of the most obvious stars in Hollywood today, Arnie, this can work in different ways. If you go to see a film such as Eraser, his latest action thriller, you are going so in the expectation that he will behave in ways that are familiar to you from his other films such as Terminator. When he says something in his monotone German accent, you enjoy it partly because you have seen him do so before. He is acting in ways that fit in with his star persona. On the other hand, if you go to see a film such as Twins or Kindergarten Cop, where you see a very different kind of Arnie, a large part of the enjoyment comes again from your knowledge of the star’s persona- you enjoy the way that he is playing against the typical roles he is known for.

How stars are used

Because stars have such strong selling power, the producers of Hollywood films are very keen to have them in their films. Stars, particularly male stars, are offered enormous amounts of money to appear in films and when they do so, the films are often re-written around their persona. Michael Douglas, for example, in Fatal Attraction, had large parts of the film re-written to give himself a more heroic image.

Sometimes films are described as being a vehicle for their stars. By this we mean that the film is entirely based around making chances for the star to do what they are good at. This can include

Playing a typical kind of character role.

Getting into a typical kind of situation.

Finding a context for doing their "thing"- fighting, singing, joking etc.

The stars can have an effect on the whole feel of the film and on the various elements in it such as:

Iconography

Visual style

The kind of narrative.

So, for example, the presence of Robin Williams in a film will tend to be accompanied by cute kids, comfortable middle class homes and soppy endings, while the typical Arnie film is set in the future, includes big guns, motorbikes and sunglasses and ends with a final shoot out.

Stars also work within the genre and can work to change it- a star such as Clint Eastwood has changes the characteristics of both the western and the action genres by the force of his persona over the years. Similarly Jim Carrey has recently changed the look and feel of the comedy genre.

Some further things for you to think about

Ideology and Representatiuons

 

How to survive a horror film with your ideology intact

 

In a famous scene in Scream, one of the characters makes a list of ways to survive a horror film. These are quite interesting in themselves and it can be quite fun to continue the list yourselves- I saw one version on the internet that had over four hundred pieces of advice. Here are a few examples:

 

·         People arriving to rescue you generally get ambushed by the monster, so don't rely on them as your only means of escape. In fact, expect to be surprised and delayed by encountering their flayed corpse at some point.

 

·         On no account do ANYTHING because someone dares you to.

 

·         If you realise that the people in your town/county are having their minds taken over by some strange force, alien or otherwise:

 

DO NOT call the police as they are A) either already taken over themselves and will turn you in or B) Will not believe you and laugh at you. Either way, you must handle the problem yourself.

 

A list like this can tell you some interesting things about the genre as a whole You could summarise their message with the famous phrase from the X Files-“trust no-one” and of course this is one of the central ideologies of the horror genre- all of the things that we should be able to rely on to protect us- the police, our families and each other will let us down- we are on our own in a dangerous world.

 

All of this is probably common sense to many people and can easily be taken for granted. The media is after all constantly telling us that we are living in a time where society and the family are in danger of collapsing. But the cynical ideological world of the horror movie is only one way that Hollywood has responded to society in recent years. If you look at the action genre, a whole different set of messages are present. You all know how to survive in a horror film, but what about if you find yourself in an action film like Speed?

 

This time, rather than trusting no-one, it is really important that you band together with other people if you are to have any chance of making it through. You should not rely on your own wits to survive- as a member of the ordinary general public you are likely to be incompetent and panic under pressure- but fortunately the representatives of authority are highly efficient and have loads of high tech equipment which will save you in the end. In particular, you should rely on one particular knight in shining armour who represents society at its noblest and best.

 

This fits Speed particularly well but it also works with a large proportion of films in the action genre- think of James Bond for an archetype of the action hero and any of the recent disaster movies for the theme of co-operation.

 

So you have two genres with completely different messages about human nature and society. In action films, people band together to defeat a hostile outside force. In horror it’s often uncertain whether the outside force is actually any worse than the society it is attacking.

 

All of this makes Aliens an interesting film to consider, as it is a mixture of both genres. The earlier film Alien already mixed horror with sci-fi, but its feel was pure horror- a group of people failing to co-operate against the alien and consequently being picked off one by one. If you try to analyse its sequel from an ideological point of view, however, - it seems that this time it is more of an action film in the sense that it is the co-operation of Ripley and the marines that saves the lives of a few of them. Those who die, do so in ways that fit the action genre more than horror- they sacrifice themselves for the others and go out like heroes- most noticeably Vasquez and Gorman clutching a grenade to take an Alien out with them. Their deaths are to be admired rather than laughed at like many in horror movies. At the end of the film, the final defeat of the alien is only possible because of Ripley’s professional use of technology and the co-operation of the remaining survivors. On the other hand the character of Burke- from the company is more traditionally from the horror genre- definitely not to be trusted and dying amusingly.

Realism and genre

If you come out of a genre film unhappy, your criticism of it may often be to do with questions of realism- “the way she dropped the knife was ridiculous”, “dinosaurs don’t look like that.” Etc.

Realism in the media is a massive topic- enough for a booklet of its own in fact. But here are a few things to think about:

·         You could separate realism into ideas of what is realistic within the genre an what we recognise as being like real life.

·         Realsim does not mean factually accurate- a film could have a character leave a building in San Farncisco onto a street in New York without the audience being aware and we might still judge it as being “realistic”

·         We have different expectations of what is realism in different genres. So in a modern detective thriller we would question much more than we will in the next Star Wars film.

·         What does it mean if we say that the Blair Witch project is realistic- that we believe in Witches or that we trust a hand-held camera.

·         Realism is partly to do with the look of a film and different genres as you know, have very different visual conventions- when we feel something is realistic, do we really mean that it is generically conventional in appearance.

·         In the modern world of computer generated special effects (CGI), visual realism is becoming more of an issue for us and our expectations are increasing.

·         Our knowledge of a genre may also lead us to have expectations about character behaviour. We may also make allowances for un-realistic material if we allow our pleasure in the genre to take over- we may be more forgiving of the character in the horror film who ludicrously goes into the cupboard under the stairs, because we enjoy the anticipation of what is about to happen.

·         As with all things there must be a balance- if things are too unrealistic we can’t enjoy them. At the same time, if everything is too true to life it might not offer us the escapist pleasure that we expect from film.

Making comparisons between genre texts

 

Many of the essays that you may have to tackle in the media studies exam will involve you comparing one or two different genre texts – even if they don’t explicitly ask you to do that in the title, it is often a very good idea.  It can be very easy to make surface comparisons about the contents of a text, it is much more difficult to explain why they are different.  Unfortunately, what is difficult is often what gets higher marks.  In what follows we have attempted to suggest some of the reasons why there are variations in a genre over time.

 

Changes over time-some reasons

We have referred throughout this to three key texts of the horro genre, but obviously everything you study can be analysed in these ways.

 

Changes in the target audience

 

The target audience of horror has not stayed static over the years- Psycho was aimed at an adult audience; you might try to explain in an essay the effect of that on the text. By the time of Halloween, on the other hand, the primary audience was teenagers – again you should be able to see the differences.  Scream, however, is a more confusing case.  In many ways it is still primarily a teenage film, but there are features that you might find which are clearly aimed at older adults who have experience of the genre in the past.

 

In an essay about this, you need to do more than just mentioning these factors.  Ideally you should be able to find examples of key moments in the text, which you can analyse in detail and relate to the different audiences.

 

Changes in the audience’s knowledge of the genre from its immediate history

 

When you go to see a horror film, your expectations and enjoyment are affected by what you know of the genre.  In practice this means that when you are writing about a film from the past, you should take into account what audiences then would have been expecting of the genre.  At the time that Psycho came out it must have seemed a completely original film- audiences were only used to Gothic horror, fantastical stories set in the past and normally abroad.  The realism of the film was therefore much more surprising than it is now. Halloween came at a time when horror was quite a popular genre and the audience probably had quite a few expectations- not least based on Psycho itself.  However, John Carpenter would probably argue that there are new features in the film- can you find them? When Scream came out, the horror genre was at its lowest ebb.  audiences had grown tired of the lack of plot and what was seen as excessive violence and most horror films went straight to video.  Scream is a deliberate attempt to refine the genre, taking into account these criticisms.

 

Again, a good essay about this would not just point out the recent history of the genre, but also examine key scenes and show how they are reinventions of the genre.

 

The film industry and its effect on the texts

 

The films we see do not come out of nowhere- they are the results of business decisions by industry figures who care mainly about profit. The horror genre has always been seen as a cheap one – horror films are not expected to make much money, but nor do they require much investment. Alfred Hitchcock was the Stephen Spielberg of his day, but even he could not persuade his film company to pay for Psycho to be filmed in colour.  Halloween came at a time when the film industry was relatively keen to experiment with new directors, but nevertheless it was a low-budget film with little expected of it.  In comparison to the other two, Scream may seem expensive with costly stars and a reasonable soundtrack.  However, it was made at a time when financially risky blockbuster movies such as Independence Day and Jurassic Park were becoming more and more common – it is easy to see why the film companies were keen to revive the cheapest genre they knew.

 

Writing about media industries is notoriously difficult.  You are not on a business studies course and the examiners do not expect you to have facts and figures to hand.  However, you should think about issues such as those above.

 

Changes in what society will accept in a film

 

It should be impossible to talk about the horror genre without mentioning sex, violence and censorship.  At the time that Hitchcock made Psycho, censorship rules were beginning to liberalise for the first time since the 1930s, but there was still not much that he could get away with.  The opening scene of the film showing the heroine in just her underwear would have been hugely shocking and exciting to an audience of 1960.  The same could be said of the shower scene, despite the fact that virtually everything is left the imagination.  By the time of Halloween, in 1978, the boundaries had shifted to admit quite explicit violence and sex in some films. However, aware of his audience, Carpenter tones things down again leaving much to the imagination. As mentioned before, Scream followed a period when horror films had become increasingly violent and audiences simultaneously had reduced.  At the same time there had been much debate in society about links between violence in films and violence by viewers.  As a result, Scream deliberately turns down the violence.

 

Writing about this, you should not spend your time describing what the audience can and cannot see in a film.  Instead you could analyse and compare scenes in order to talk about the techniques the directors use to imply violence and how they choose when to show it.

 

Changes in technology

 

filmmakers, whatever their budget, will attempt to make their film look as modern as possible.  To do this they will rely on the latest technology.  Your examiner will not expect you to know an enormous amount of detail about this, but to understand genre properly, you should have some appreciation of the importance of technological change.

 

There is probably fairly little that you can say about Psycho and technology; it is probably easier for you to compare the other films you have studied with the standard technology of Hitchcock’s time.  Halloween was greatly influenced by the invention of the steadicam. The visual style of the film, which was so influential in the following years, was actually the result of this new type of camera, which produced the famous stalking shot through the eye of the killer. Scream may seem less influenced by new technology, but the fast paced editing and exact pacing of music with on-screen action are only possible because of digital video editing techniques.  The recent Blair Witch Project is probably a better example of a film influenced by new technology – its entire look is the result of the use of cheap digital cameras which did not exist a couple of years ago.

 

Once again, this is not necessarily an area that you should spend a lot of time dealing with.  On the other hand, you could include analysis of a particular scene, making reference to the technology used and pointing out its effect on the connotations produced.

 

Changes in the dominant ideology and representations

 

This can be the most difficult area to deal with and as a result many students shy away from it, but if you really want to explain how a genre changes over time, you should be able to show how different texts reflect the values of the society around them.

 

In Psycho you should try to write about the representation of Marion Crane—some people have argued that Hitchcock is punishing her in the film for her behaviour as a single woman in an affair.  Others have argued, that on the contrary, she is a character who we sympathise with and admire.  What do you think? Both Halloween and Scream include representations of teenagers that you should explore, particularly if you can point to the changes in the intervening years.  It might also be worth looking at the films’ attitudes to people in positions of authority.

 

In all of these areas, there is obviously a lot that we have left out.  We have deliberately not included too much detail because we want you to explore these issues in more depth in as individual away as possible – remember, your own opinions about these things are what matter.

Steve Baker

Back to genre

Steve Baker

Back to genre