Post 4:Genre as a Media Concept

Genre As a Media Concept

The word genre has different meanings to different people. To me, genre is a style,a particular way of filming that reaches out to certain audiences.

It is impossible to make a film that reaches out to everyone and that can please everyone, so instead the word 'genre' comes into play as producers aim to make thier different film reach to different kinds of people. For example, The new film, 'Scott Pilgrim vs. The World', from director, Edgar Wright (based on Bryan Lee O'malley's comic book series) is not your average american comedy for any "young teen" to go and see, it was produced for those who love comic books and love to read, therefore its challenging story line would be appreciated by those who have already read the books.

As a class we discussed genre and media concept and alaylsed some of the major points that it arouses.

Robert Altman 1999 was our first port of call as we looked at what he believes about genre.
His view suggests that genre is easily depicted and even stresses the predicatability of it.
A perfect example of this would be all 'The Fast and the Furious' films, as they feature actors such as 'Vin Diesal' and Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster as well as later films starring Eva Mendes. As a viewer, you associate all of these characters with fast pace action, as well as a complex story line, envolving major climaxes and intense action. Altamn also states that genre's are ideological which means that orientation if the producers and the audiences together characterizes the thinking, and the overall outcome of the genre of a film.
in camparison, my opening sequence coincides with some of Altmans views as our film showed typical thriller genre.

We then looked at the word genre as if it would be classed as a verb or a adjective. We descussed it as a class and each member had thier imput. The conclusion was; that the word 'genre' is classed as an adjective.

We were then asked a philosophical question; Tomato pur'e, where would you find tomato pur'e in a supermarket?

We discussed this question as a class and members of the group shared thier thoughts as to where they thought tomato pur'e would be stored. The obvious places that the class came up with were at the vegetable section, near pizzas and topings and near the freezers. theses were all good answers as steriotypically, these places would seem the most logical place to have pur'e. The actual place that tomato pur'e is kept is at the freezers section. This can be linked to genre as if the pur'e was stored in another location, then the question would be, would pur'e be interpreted as pur'e?

The last task was to look at Neale and Hartley's views on genre. Neale says that genre is the circulation of expectation within industries, media texts and audiences and strongley believes all three factors are what influence genre today. Hartley believes that a "contract between the audience and producers is what discipline the choices and reduces desires". i aggre with this statement as i believe that as an audience, we have the ultimate say and influence over what genre a film is.