There are several different perspectives on studying film/television genres, perspectives that draw on the different critical approaches described in Module 4. Each of these critical approaches provides a different way of studying genres.

Formalist/structuralist approach.

A formalist/structuralist perspective focuses primarily on identifying both the prototypical “semantic building blocks” of a text and “syntax” of how a particular text interacts with a particular cultural context (Altman, 1995).

Semantic Components

The “semantic” components of a particular genre (roles, settings, imagery, plot, themes/values assumptions) are what filmmakers draw on to construct a genre text:

• roles: roles of hero, heroine, sidekick, alien, monster, criminal, cowboy, mentor, detective, femme fatale, villain, talk-show host, etc. As part of these roles, gender roles are often portrayed in stereotypical ways, as parodied in the short film, Battle of the Sexes

• settings: the prototypical setting or world associated with a genre, for example:

  • western: wide open vistas of the Western plains/dessert; the small-town

  • gangster: dark, urban, back-street settings

  • soap opera: indoor, upper-middle class setting

  • spy-thriller: exotic, often urban international setting

  • science-fiction: futuristic worlds

  • game shows: large studios with lavish prizes displayed

• imagery: certain prototypical, archetypal images (black = evil, vs. white = good) or symbols (the sheriff's badge, water as initiation) associated with a setting or world.

• plot/storyline: predictable narrative sequences of events, for example, in a crime drama, the problem/solution structure:

  • What is the typical problem? — crime

  • Who solves the problem? — the tough cop

  • With what means? — violence

  • Towards what end? — show that crime doesn’t pay

• themes/value assumptions reflected in the text:

  • What’s the problem? — We live in a crime-ridden-world

  • Who solves the problem? — Cops, who need to be tough.

  • By what means/tools do they solve the problem? — “Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth”)

  • For what larger thematic reason? — Criminals need to be locked up.

Syntatic Components

The syntactic perspective examines the particular arrangements between these building blocks — the ways in which a filmmaker has structured a text (Altman, 1995). Altman cites the example of semantic components of the western as consisting of the open, natural setting; the cowboy/sheriff and the values of the “wild west.” A syntactic perspective focuses more on the relationships between the elements of culture versus nature, frontier versus civilization, community versus individual, and future versus past. The semantic perspective is more applicable to generalizations about large number of films that share similar components. The syntactic perspective is more applicable to explaining how these components work to create meaning.

Focusing on both perspectives helps Altman deal with the range of different examples that could be loosely associated with a particular genre and the challenge of generalizing about a particular genre text. Drawing on both perspective also helps recognize that the semantic components of different genres often overlap as they evolve. He illustrates this with the science fiction genre:

At first defined only by a relatively stable science fiction semantics, the genre first beganborrowing the syntactic relationships previously established by the horror film, only to move in recent years increasingly toward the syntax of the western. By maintaining simultaneous descriptions according to both parameters, we are not likely to fall into the trap of equating Star Wars (George Lucus, 1977) with the western (as numerous recent critics have done), even though it shares certain syntactic patterns with that genre (p. 35).

There is also a major tension in genre analysis between the conventional, familiar, formulaic texts, and new forms of genre that challenge the old. As Henry Jenkins notes, genre texts contain both invention — novel experimentation with the form — and convention — the familiar aspects of the form:

A genre is a “kind” of work, suggesting an exercise in classification, but genres are also formulas that artists draw upon for the production of artworks and conventions that enable consumers to make sense of new works based on their knowledge of previous works in the same category. Genres should not be understood as rules or restrictions so much as enabling mechanisms that allow popular culture to be easily consumed and broadly appreciated. All works are born from a mixture of invention and convention. A work that is pure invention is unlikely to be fully understood or appreciated; a work that is pure convention is likely to be boring and uninteresting. Popular aesthetics centers around this effort then to reach the right balance between invention and convention.

Module 7: Word document

Different Perspectives on Genre Study

Audience-based Approaches to Film/Television Genre Study

Critical/Ideological Analysis of Genres

The History and Evolution of Genres

Devising Genre-analysis Activities

Different Genre Types

Action/Adventure

The Western

Gangster/Crime

Detective/Film Noir

Comedy

Fantasy/Sci-Fi

Horror/Monster

Suspense Thriller/Spy/Heist

Soap Opera

The Talk Show

Sports

Game Shows/
Reality TV

Animation

Comics

Graphic Novels

Teaching Activity

References

Teaching activities on genre developed by students in CI5472, Spring, 2004