What is genre?

Lucy Fitzsimmons.

What is genre?

Genre is a ‘type’ or ‘category’. For example there is different genres of music, films and fashion.

There are many genres of music, for example: Rock, Metal, Pop, Indie, Country, Hip Hop, Rnb and many more.

There are also many different genre of films, for example: Romance, horror, romcom, comedy, sci fi, and many more.

Lastly, there are also many different genres of fashion, also known as stereotypes, for example: goth, chav, hipster, etc.

Why is genre important?

• Genre is very important because it makes it easier for institutions to advertise whatever they are advertising. They know what audience they are targeting, for example if a new action film was being released, they wouldn’t make the advert for it with in pink frilly, girly font with a pop song backing it. They wouldn’t use that because it would attract the wrong audience and they would end up with negative feedback and overall would probably lose money. For an action film they would use upbeat, exciting music, with bold text, usually more masculine and aimed at males, as this is their main target audience and they want it to appeal to them the most. They would apply this theory to advertise different genres.

Genre theorists and theories.

Daniel Chandler – conventional definitions of genre tend to be based on the notion that they constitute particular conventions of content (themes, settings) also including structure and style.

Tom Ryall – Genre provides a framework of structuring rules, in forms of patterns/styles/structure, which act as a form of supervision over the work of production for film makers and the work of reading by audiences.

John Fiske – defines genre as ‘attempts to structure some order into the wide range of texts and meanings that circulate our culture for the convenience for the audience’.

What genre theories link to the horror genre?

• All of the theories that I mentioned in the previous slide link to the horror genre. Daniel Chandler mentioned genre being about theme, setting and structure, and for a typical horror story, the most reoccurring theme is that there would a killer, a target and a hero involved. The setting is usually in a deserted place, for example a haunted house or a forest, and the structure is often that the killer is after a particular person and there are many different obstacles get in the way, and terrible things happen, however in the end the hero saves the day.