Genre:
Codes and conventions are essential
It's something we can categories (horror, romance, etc ...)
It is a critical tool that helps us study texts and audience responses to texts by dividing them into categories based in common elements
Daniel chandler(2001)
He says that the word genre comes from the French (originally Latin) word for 'kind' or 'class'. The term is widely used in rhetoric literary theory, media theory to refer to a distinctive type or 'text'
All genres have a sub genres (genre within a genre)
This means that they are divided into more specific categories that allow the audience to identify the specific categories by their families and what become recognisable characters (Barry Keith Grant, 1995)
However Steve Neale (1995) stresses that "genres are not 'systems' they are processes off systematization" - i.e. They are dynamic and evolve over time
Systematization means: this image is the system but genre isn't a fixed system but you have a model of a genre which changes other times to reflect the values of society
* Genre- codes + conventions (iconography-paradigm)
* Themes
* Costumes
* Locations
* Narrative event
* Characters
* Props/ weapons
* Mode of transport
Paradigm means: model
You won't make the same film over and over again so genre changes
Archetype: the original stereotype
Anti heroes: when the bad guy is they good guy ( the audience like the bad guy)
Generic characteristic across all texts share similar elements of the belle depending on the medium...
* Typical mise-en-scène/ visual style (iconography, props, set design, lighting, temporal and geographic location, costume, shot types, camera angles, special effects).
* Typical types of narrative (plots, historical setting, set pieces)
* Generic types, i.e. Typical characters (do typical male/ female roles exist, archetypes?)
* COMEDY AND ANIMATIONS ARE NOT GENRES THEY ARE STYLES OR TREATMENTS
Jason mittell(2001)
* Argues that genres are cultural categories that surpass the boundaries of media text and operate within industry, audience, and cultural practices as well.
* In short, industries use genre to sell products to audience. Media producers use familiar codes and conventions that often make cultural references to their audience know leg of society, other texts
* Genre also allows audiences to make choices about what products they want to consume though acceptance in order to fulfil a particular pleasure.
Genre explores common things about the artists it has codes and conventions.
* Emotional pleasures : the emotional pleasures offered to audiences of genre films are particularly significant when they generate a strong audience response
* Visceral pleasure: visceral pleasures ('visceral' refers to internal organs are 'gut' response and are defined by how the film's stylistic construction elicits a physical effect upon its audience. This can be a feeling of revulsion, kinetic speed, or a 'roller costed ride'
Pleasure of genre for audiences theorist Rick altman(1999) argues that genre offers audience 'a set of pleasure'
* Emotional pleasure: The emotional pleasure offered to audiences of genre films are particularly significant when they generate a strong audience response.
* Visceral Pleasures: Visceral pleasures ('visceral' refers to internal organs) are 'gut' responses and are defined by how the film's stylistic construction elicits a physical effect upson its audience. this can be a feeling of revulsion, kinetic speed, or a 'roller coaster ride'.
*Intellectual Puzzles: Certain filom genres such as the thriller or the 'whodunit' offer the pleasure in trying to unravel a mystery or a puzzle pleasure is derived from deciphering the plot and forecasting the end or the being surprised by the unexpected.
*The potential for the same concept t be understood by producers, audiences and scholars makes genre a useful critical tool. Its accessibility as a concept also means that it can be applied across a wide range of texts.
Lyrics
* Visceral Pleasures: Visceral pleasures ('visceral' refers to internal organs) are 'gut' responses and are defined by how the film's stylistic construction elicits a physical effect upson its audience. this can be a feeling of revulsion, kinetic speed, or a 'roller coaster ride'.
*Intellectual Puzzles: Certain filom genres such as the thriller or the 'whodunit' offer the pleasure in trying to unravel a mystery or a puzzle pleasure is derived from deciphering the plot and forecasting the end or the being surprised by the unexpected.
The Strengths of Genre Theory
*the main strength of genre theory is that everybody uses it and understands it - media experts use it to study media texts, the media industry uses it to develop and market texts and audiences use it to decide what texts to consume.*The potential for the same concept t be understood by producers, audiences and scholars makes genre a useful critical tool. Its accessibility as a concept also means that it can be applied across a wide range of texts.
Music video- medium with many sub-genres/ postmodern styles?
Music video is a medium intended to appeal directly to youth subcultures by reinforcing generic elements of musical genres.
*They are called pop-promos as they are used to promote a band or artist.
*Music videos are postmodern texts whose main purpose is to promote a star persona (Dyer, 1975).
*They don't have to be literal representations of the song.
Lyrics
Most videos fit genre into narrative
David bordwell (1989)
'Any theme may appear in any genre'
Horror films: for example, are basically just modern fairy tales and often act as morality plays in which people who break society's rules are punished.
Fear of the unknown: the monster is the 'monstrous other' i.e. anything that is scary because it is foreign or different.
Sex = Death: in horror movies, especially slasher movies, sex is immoral and must be punished, werewolf movies ca be seen as a metaphor for puberty, vampires can be as metaphors for sexually transmitted diseases or rape etc.
The breakdown of society: post-apocalyptic movies are about our fear (or secret desire for) of the breakdown of society. The collapse if civilization results in human kind reverting to their animal instin
Some short films can also be social realist texts, and so through their discourse they share some conventional themes of horror/ scare texts in general such as:
The suailty of man/ peronal journey: the conflict between man's civilised side and his savages, primal instincts, e.g. Jeykll and Hyde, Werewolf movies, The Hulk, Etc.
Segregation and alienation: two opposing cultures or being going through a struggle to survive. As there are no standard themes of short movies, depending on their audience they offer their own themes.
Horror films: for example, are basically just modern fairy tales and often act as morality plays in which people who break society's rules are punished.
Fear of the unknown: the monster is the 'monstrous other' i.e. anything that is scary because it is foreign or different.
Sex = Death: in horror movies, especially slasher movies, sex is immoral and must be punished, werewolf movies ca be seen as a metaphor for puberty, vampires can be as metaphors for sexually transmitted diseases or rape etc.
The breakdown of society: post-apocalyptic movies are about our fear (or secret desire for) of the breakdown of society. The collapse if civilization results in human kind reverting to their animal instin
Some short films can also be social realist texts, and so through their discourse they share some conventional themes of horror/ scare texts in general such as:
The suailty of man/ peronal journey: the conflict between man's civilised side and his savages, primal instincts, e.g. Jeykll and Hyde, Werewolf movies, The Hulk, Etc.
Segregation and alienation: two opposing cultures or being going through a struggle to survive. As there are no standard themes of short movies, depending on their audience they offer their own themes.
Some music videos have themes for a more youthful audience
* Teen angst
* Rebellion
* Romance
* Sex/ losing your virginity
* Nostalgia - for the innocence of youth
* Nihilism- the belief that there is no future
* Coming of age rituals (the prom, falling in love, losing your virginity)
* Tribalism- popularity verses unpopularity, e.g. Cliques
* Bullying
Juvenile delinquency: moral panics and the teenager as a folk devil
The currency of 'cool'
Hedonism- living purely for pleasure
Friendship
Other themes in music videos
War
Crime
Poverty
Capitalism
racism
There's are not fixed- they constantly cage and evolve over time- my coursework articles, are post modern pieces
David Buckingham(1993) argues that 'genre is not... Simply "given" by the culture: rather, it is in a constant process of negotiations and change'
As post modern theorist Jacqueline Derrida reminds us "the law of the law of genre... Is precisely s principle of contamination, a law of impurity"
For example, short films and music videos are in the process of genre cross-over
Some narrative music videos borrow from the conventions of short films and in fact are short films
Arctic monkey's music videos 'scummy man' portishead 'to kill a dead man' is essentially a short film noir (1940s detective movie...)
No comments:
Post a Comment