Introduction to genre

Throughout the first week of media lessons I was introduced to the subject and what we would be studying. I learnt multiple ways media is used and what is used to achieve, mostly in film but also in other areas such as in TV & education in schools. One of the main areas of media we focused on during the week, and will continue to study over the course.

The first big ambiguous question our class was faced with was “What is genre?” Which at first I believed to be quite simple. Previous to this lesson I had always assumed ‘genre’ was simply the main groups pieces of media ,such as films, are categorised into e.g. Horror and action. However I have now learned that the term ‘genre’ is much broader and how many pieces of media can be grouped in to multiple genres.

To further my understanding of genres we looked at the similarities within different genres. Part of this was looking back on how films have used genre over the years. Back when Hollywood films were first being made in the early-mid 1900’s each film fell into a very specific genre such as romance, and most romances would have many similarities including cast, narrative and Mise en scène to allow the audience to familiarise with the film. In affect when someone wanted to watch a romance they often saw exactly what they expected to see, this resulted in having satisfied customers; making the movie more successful.

However as more and more films were produced audiences would eventually get bored of seeing such similar films, therefore when a genre was becoming less popular more successful genre’s would be produced. This system still continues in todays film-making, however genres are not as definite now and most audiences are more satisfied after seeing a unique and entertaining film, often with a twist on what they were expecting.

In addition to this we studied not only how movie genres determine how they are successful commercially, but how they affect the audience through re-presenting real life lessons and laws. For example if the villain in a film commits a crime they are often punished before the end and the hero is rewarded; this re-presents how in real life if a person is to commit a crime there will be consequences. One pout that was brought up through this discussion was that there may be a correlation between peoples actions and what is shown in films; some crimes have been though to be influenced through violence in films/video-games. Personally, I believe there is some relation because some of my opinions and thoughts have been influenced through what I’ve seen in the media e.g. the clothes I wear, the music I listen to etc…

So far what I have learned in media is far more interesting than I was previously expecting after only the first week. I am mostly keen to look deeper into the whole concept of media plays a part on the publics daily lives and views, including my own, and I hope there is much more to learn throughout the course.