Genre

GENRE THEORY


Steve Neale

It is easy to underplay the differences within a genre. Steve Neale declares that:

• "Genres are instances of repetition and difference" (Neale 1980, 48)
• "Difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre" (Neale 1980)

Toderov

"Any instances of genre will be necessarily different" (Toderov - cited in Gledhell, 1985, 60)

Lacey

There are a repertoire of elements that work together to suggest genre, which are a useful framework to use for analysis

Setting
Character
Narrative
Iconography
Style

Gledhill

"There are no rules of inclusion and exclusion" (Gledhill, 1985)
"Genres are not discrete systems consisting of a fixed number of listable items (Gledhill, 1985)

Chandler

It is difficult to make clear cut distinctions between one genre and another: genres overlap, and there are 'mixed genres' such as comedy thrillers (Chandler 2000)

Burton

Each text in a given genre shares particular key elements to make up the generic formula:
Protagonists
Stock characters
Plots/Stock Situations
Icons
Background and Décor
Themes

Katie Wales - Genre is an intertextual concept

David Buckingham - "Genre is not simply given by the culture, rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change"

Nicholas Abercrombie - "Producers set out to exploit genre conventions. It makes sound economic sense. Sets, properties and costumes can be used over and over again. Teams of starts, writers, directors and technicians can be built up, giving economies of scale.

Gunther Kress - Genre is "a kind of text that derives its form from the structure of a (frequently repeated) social occasion, with its characteristic participants and their purposes"

Christian Metz - Stages of genres: Experimental - conventions being established etc. /Classic - genre established but experiments with different scenes and scenarios/Parody - comedic effect watering down the expectations of the film/Deconstruction - hybrids


Apply the concept of genre to your media product

The product that i will be applying the concept of genre to will be a short film opening that i created in my first year of media studies. This piece was titled 'Captive' and was based around a disorientated and confused young male protagonist, who wakes up tied down to a chair in an abandoned setting, before realising that he is being watched by a higher entity. The genre of this was horror.

In many ways, this product conformed to Steve Neale's genre theory, where he suggested that "genres are instances of repetition and difference". In my product, I ensured to adhere to many conventions that would regularly be associated with the horror genre, in order to for it to be recognised by the target audience. For example, we used the a variety of atmospheric diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, using a suspenseful and minor soundtrack throughout. In addition, we conformed to many other elements such as the use of props, where a chair, rope and blood was used in the scene. However, we also conformed to the latter part of Neale'es theory by challenging certain conventions, also adhering to another of his theories "difference is absolutely essential to the economy of a genre". Doing this allowed us to use our creativity, and therefore ensure that our product was set apart from existing products, in order to engage the audience. Ways that we done this was by opposing Toderov's theory of equilibrium, by starting with a scene of extreme disequilibrium rather than equilibrium. In addition to this, we also used a young female antagonist character. Although this is becoming more popular in the modern day, traditionally doing this would be uncommon.

DNF