- narrative - similar (sometimes formulaic) plots and structures, predictable situations, sequences, episodes, obstacles, conflicts and resolutions;
- characterization - similar types of characters (sometimes stereotypes), roles, personal qualities, motivations, goals, behaviour;
- basic themes, topics, subject matter (social, cultural, psychological, professional, political, sexual, moral), values and what Stanley Solomon refers to as recurrent 'patterns of meaning' (Solomon 1995: 456);
- setting - geographical and historical;
- iconography (echoing the narrative, characterization, themes and setting) - a familiar stock of images or motifs, the connotations of which have become fixed; primarily but not necessarily visual, including décor, costume and objects, certain 'typecast' performers (some of whom may have become 'icons'), familiar patterns of dialogue, characteristic music and sounds, and appropriate physical topography; and
- filmic techniques - stylistic or formal conventions of camerawork, lighting, sound-recording, use of colour, editing etc. (viewers are often less conscious of such conventions than of those relating to content).
- Contents page
- The problem of definition
- Working within genres
- Constructing the audience
- Advantages of generic analysis
- D.I.Y. Generic analysis
- Appendix 1: Taxonomies of genres
- Appendix 2: Generic textual features of film and television
- References and suggested reading
- Genre Theory Links
An Introduction to Genre Theory
Daniel Chandler
Appendix 2: Generic textual features of film and television
Whilst, as already noted, some recent redefinitions of genre have downplayed or displaced a concern with the textual features of genres, there is a danger of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Hence, this section briefly notes some of the key textual features of genres in the context of film and television narrative.
The distinctive textual properties of a genre typically listed by film and television theorists include:
Less easy to place in one of the traditional categories are mood and tone (which are key features of the film noir). In addition, there is a particularly important feature which tends not to figure in traditional accounts and which is often assigned to text-reader relationships rather than to textual features in contemporary accounts. This is mode of address, which involves inbuilt assumptions about the audience, such as that the 'ideal' viewer is male (the usual categories here are class, age, gender and ethnicity); as Sonia Livingstone puts it, 'texts attempt to position readers as particular kinds of subjects through particular modes of address' (Livingstone 1994, 249).
Some film genres tend to defined primarily by their subject matter (e.g. detective films), some by their setting (e.g. the Western) and others by their narrative form (e.g. the musical). An excellent discussion of the textual features of 'genre films' can be found in Chapter 4 of Thomas and Vivian Sobchack's Introduction to Film (1980).
As already noted, in addition to textual features, different genres also involve different purposes, pleasures, audiences, modes of involvement, styles of interpretation and text-reader relationships.
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