Tuesday, 27 January 2015

Genre Theory

Genre Theory
The main strength of genre theory is that everybody uses/understands it. The potential for the same concept to be understood by producers, audiences and scholars makes genre a useful, critical tool. It can be applied across a wide range of texts because it's accessible.

Genre Development & Transformation
Over years genre develops and changes as the wider society that produces them also change - Generic Transformation

Christian Metz - 1974
Genres go through a typical cycle.
  1. Experimental stage
  2. Classic stage
  3. Parody stage
  4. Deconstruction stage.
Music video
Medium intended to appeal directly to youth subcultures by reinforcing generic elements of musical genres. They're called pop-proms as they're used to promote a band or artist.

Music videos are post-modern texts whose main purpose is to promote a star persona - Dyer - 1975

They don't have to be literal representations of the song lyrics.

The label/name given to a historical era in society and culture, post-modern is the label that we're living in now.

David Bordwell - 1989
Horror films - modern fairy tales often act as morality plays in which people who break society's rules are punished.
Fear of the unknown - Monster - Anything is scary because it's alien.
Sex = Death - sex is immoral and must be punished. Ware wolf = Puberty & Vampire = STD or rape.

Breakdown of society - Post-modern movies are about our fear of this. Human kind reverts to their animal instincts.

Youthful Themes

  • Teen angst
  • Rebellion
  • Romance
  • Sex
  • Nostalgia
  • Nihilism
  • Coming of Age
  • Tribalism
  • Bullying
  • Juvenile delinquency: moral panics and the teenager as a folk devil
  • The currency of coal
  • Thedonism - living for pleasure
  • Friendship
Other Themes
  • War
  • Crime
  • Poverty
  • Capitalism
  • Racism
David Buckingham - 1993
Argues that genre isn't given by the culture it's a negotiation.
Post-modernist - Jaques Derrida states that the 'vow of the vow of genre is a principle of contamination'.

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