Genre Theorists

John Fiske

Fiske says that people naturally categorise events that take place in their reality in reference to their experiences in the past.. People tend to believe that genre is based on real life, however, the human mind tends to give real life events context. For example - when something seemingly super natural takes place in real life such as, if an object might randomly fall off a shelf in a supposedly haunted location on a ghost walk, people will witness this in reference to things they have seen in The Exorcist or other such films. This is convenient for producers and helps them target a market and audiences whose expectations are satisfied.

Henry Jenkins 

Jenkins says genre constantly breaks rules through hybridization – mixing genres: "Hybridization is now commonplace to maximize audience appeal but also to offer a unique selling point by appearing to break the rules e.g. Submarine is both social realist in format but using comedy conventions typical for a rites of passage film".

John Hartley 

Hartley says genre is interpreted culturally. He gives the example of Bollywood films, which are predominantly watched and interpreted culturally by a Hindi target audience who “understand the encoded metaphor and meaning through the elaborate dance routines”. 

Daniel Chandler 

Chandler feels that genre is too restricting for filmmakers and audiences. He gives the example of Gravity which limited its appeal due to predictability (notions of self sacrifice) even through Cuaron the director attempted much more than other 'space films' like Apollo 13. So there’s a type of ‘genre straightjacket’ evident.

Steve Neale 

Neale says that audiences are familiarized with genres through repetition, but also led to believe that genres are evolving and changing by for example having strong female lead characters for instance in Tomb Raider, which challenges the physically strong, dynamic, violent, male hero in the action adventure genre. This creates and maintains the interest of audiences. 

David Buckingham

Buckingham argues that genres are in a ‘constant process of negotiation and change’ and that they have to change and adapt to respond to cultural and social changes e.g. Brokeback Mountain has elements of the Western but the central story is about the love between two men, which breaks the mold of the conventional Western tough man womaniser.

Jason Mittel

Mittel shows that the industry uses genre to produce profitable material, exploiting audiences who enjoy certain types of representations e.g. tabloid newspapers and the obsession with celebrity gossip which is also used as a form of synergy with programmes like "I'm a Celebrity - Get me out of Here!"

Barry Keith Grant

Grant explains that defining film genres is surprisingly complex and that idea of genres only developed relatively recently after the 1940’s when genre pioneer Andre Bazin wrote about Gangster and Western films. Since then it has been used as a convenient label to catagorise a film and manipulate audience preferences. However the difficulty of classifying genres is because of ‘impurity’ – where genres merge.

Rick Altman

Altman notes that film classification by genre is the logical continuation of genre classification in literature. It divides an art form into various categories and  simplifies a possibly comples subject matter by fixing points and giving some useful co-ordinates to the audience.