Rick Altman on Film Genre Genre, it would appear, is not your average descriptive term, but a complex concept with multiple meanings, which we might identify as follows:

Blueprint genre as blueprint, as a formula that precedes, programmes and patterns industry production

Structure genre as structure, as the formal framework on which individual films are founded

Label genre as label, as the name of a category central to the decisions and communications of distributors and exhibitors

Contract genre as contract, as the viewing position required by each genre film of its audience

Simple Or put more simply even: Production (blueprint) Text (structure) Exhibition (label) consumption (contract)

Summary Each major genre has been defined in terms of a nucleus of films obviously satisfying the theory's fourfold assumptions: (a) Each film was produced according to a recognizably generic blueprint. (b) Each film displays the basic structures commonly identified with the genre. (c) During its exhibition each film is regularly identified by a generic label. (d) Audiences systematically recognize each film as belonging to the genre in question and interpret it accordingly. (contract)