GENRE THEORY

• Conventional definitions of genres tend to be based on the notion that they constitute particular conventions of content (such as themes or settings) and/or form (including structure and style) which are shared and belong to them. 

• The attempt to define particular genres in terms of sufficient textual properties is sometimes seen as attractive but it poses many difficulties. 

For instance, in the case of films, some seem to be aligned with one genre in content and another genre in form. 

The film theorist Robert Stam argues that 'subject matter is the weakest criterion for generic grouping because it fails to take into account how the subject is treated (Stam 2000, 14).

• Film theorist, Robert Stam, refers to common ways of categorizing films:

• While some genres are based on story content (the war film), other are borrowed from literature (comedy, melodrama) or from other media (the musical). 

• Some are budget-based (blockbusters), while others are based on artistic status (the art film), racial identity (Black cinema), location (the Western) or sexual orientation (Queer cinema). (Stam 2000,14).

• Films can help to remind us of the social nature of the production and interpretation of texts. In relation to film, many modern commentators refer to the commercial and industrial significance of genres. 

• McQuail argues that: The genre may be considered as a practical device for helping any mass medium to produce consistently and efficiently relating its production to the expectations of its customers. 

• Since it is also a practical device for enabling individual media users to plan their choices, it can be considered to order the relations between the parties to mass communication. (McQuail 1987, 200)

• Steve Neale observes that 'genres... exist within the context of a set of economic relations and practices', though he adds that 'genres are not the product of economic factors as such. 

• The conditions provided by the capitalist economy account neither for the existence of the particular genres that have hitherto been produced, nor for the existence of the conventions that constitute them' (Neale 1980, 51-2). Economic factors may therefore account for the perpetuation of a profitable genre.