Genre theory research JOE COQUET

Genre Genre has a very flexible definition, but most people know it as a style or category of art, music, or literature. The word genre can be applied to many different art forms, including music, film, literature etc.

Genre theory An example of a theorist who comments on genre is Theodore Adorno, who saw products of the culture industry as cathartic rather than emotional or moving and that we feel comfort in a sad film or song and fell restored after the experience. Horkheimer and Adorno had various views on capitalism and how media product were made to fuel capitalism, making them very repetitive and predictable. Something that Tarantino does is fight against this, by making his films in a post-modern way, that don’t conform to normality and often challenges meta-narratives to fight the norm and the idea that the film is simply a product to be sold.

Dystopian film The main components of a dystopian film is that there is always an ‘out-of-this-world’ situation going on, whether it be war/disaster of extreme communism and divisions between people. They always have an edginess to them, with nothing feeling quite right, whether it be a noticeable thing or not. The characters are always a product of their surroundings and will know more than the audience about what is going on, for example if it’s set in a post-apocalyptic world, they’ll understand how things happened.

Post modern film A film is postmodern because of how the narrative and characters work. The film will challenge the usual metanarratives that are seen in mainstream film, an example could be Natural born killers where the protagonists are mass murderers, yet the audience learns to like them despite the things they do. The film is also shot in a non-linear way, where it keeps jumping back and forward in time, which can be confusing at times. Natural born killers also uses hyperreality, where there are strange scenes in the background of shots, that make no sense in the context of a shot, showing the audience that the film isn’t real and also isn’t meant to be.

Examples of dystopian films with post modern conventions  The Matrix – uses hyperreality when Neo can dodge bullets, and also represents the dystopian genre with earth being controlled by scientists.  The Hunger Games – is set in dystopian country (Panem) and involves a ruler/dictator surprising the people in 12 districts.  Total Recall – set in the future where a man’s whole memory and experiences are implanted into his memory, using hyperreality.