Introduction to Genre

A genre is a category which helps the audience to identify a product based on common elements and conventions. This has become popular over the past 30 years with the rise of TV and home entertainment meaning that films became available outside of the cinema with inventions such as the VCR, meaning that people could rent and watch films. The new generation are now the most media literate generation there has ever been. As they have grown up surrounded by media texts, they can identify genres very easily, and link conventions to a genre.

Steve Neil came up with a theory for genre. He argued that "Genres are not 'systems' they are a process of systematization." This means that genres evolve over time, they are dynamic and as people push the conventions of a genre, it changes and becomes more popular, eventually becoming a common and recognizable element of the genre.
Steve says that a genre can be identified through -

• costume
• setting
• props
• weapons
• transport
• narrative     

Following Steve's outline you can easily identify a genre and apply it to most films. However, following this method shows that films which may be regarded as a certain genre by most people, is not recognized by Steve. For example, according to Steve Neil comedy would not be a genre as this outline cannot be applied to it. In addition to these, a genre can also be recognized through

• mise-en-scene
• narrative types
• character types
• production studios
• editing styles

Films have to change in order to keep the audience interested, but they still have to keep recognizable conventions so that the audience can still identify with the text. This means that genres can change slowly over time but are still recognizable, and can be compared to films of the same genre from the past.