What is a Movie Genre (and why are genres used)
To best understand movie genre, I like to compare it to cooking!
Each genre has specific ingredients (characters, setting, narrative…)
And movies that belong to a certain genre all share the same recipe or genre formula.
Directors play around with these ingredients and recipes to develop the genre or even create a new one.
In the coming posts of this Film Genre series, we will be identifying the ingredients and formulas of the most popular genres.
But for now, let’s try to be general…
What is a Movie Genre?
A movie genre is a type or category.
And movies that belong to the same genre family share similar characteristics.
Meaning, genre movies would have familiar characters and similar settings. The narrative would also be familiar and the ending of the movie is most of the time predictable.
For example, all fairy tail movies share the same genre ingredients:
Familiar characters: Or what we call “stock characters”. In this case, these are the princess, the prince, the evil queen…
Similar setting: Usually is land far away…
Familiar narrative and ending: typically, fairy tails are stories about a protagonist (usually the princess) who has a problem because of the antagonist (evil queen). Along the way the princess falls in love with prince charming who helps and saves her where they live happily ever after in the end.
So, how to identify the genre of a movie?
There are hundreds of genres. We can classify movies according to many variables:
Production value: Indi, Blockbuster…
Artistic value: commercial, art-house…
script: fiction, documentary
Concerning fiction movies, there are mainly 3 ways to identify the genre:
1- Theme: If the theme of the movies revolves around crime, then it’s a crime or gangster genre. If it’s funny hen it’s a comedy…
2- Presentation: music and dance? It’s a musical… Low key light and black&white? It’s a film noir
3- Plot Pattern: the movie starts with a crime and ends with solving the crime? You knew it… Its a detective genre
Okay, we identified the genre. But you may be asking now… What is the purpose of film genres in the first place? And why are they so important?
You are right to ask.
Actually, film theorists debated the importance of the movie genre a long time ago.
What are film genres used for?
To help the audience choose a movie.
Because genre films share many similar characteristics, the audience may prefer movies belonging to a certain genre more than the others. This helps you choose what movie you want to watch.
To have expectations.
We all expect to see epic war fights in a war movie or to laugh in a comedy. So in a way genres are a promise from the filmmakers to deliver certain scenes or emotions to their audience.
To predict.
We said before that genre movies share a predictable resolution. The viewers can predict that the main characters will end up together in a romantic comedy for example. This creates anticipation when watching the movie. You would be thinking: I know they will end up together… But how would they manage to fix this problem that pulled them apart?
To track market tendencies.
Film producers and industry analysts use these genres to track what is popular at the time so they can make more commercially successful movies with the same formula.
To interpret.
Movie critics use genres to analyze and interpret movies. they track the development of the genre and criticize the predictability.
To theorize.
Film scholars and theorists look at genres with a sociological and cultural lens. They consider popular genres to mirror the thoughts and ideologies of the culture. This point of course needs to be elaborated. In the final post of this Film Genre series, we will be discussing this genre theory in detail.
In the coming posts:
This is the first of a series of posts where we’ll be discussing different movie genres, their ingredients, formula, and reviewing movies of TV shows belonging to the genre.
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