Genre Shmenre

Reading Summary

In this chapter from What Media Classes Really Want to Discuss, Greg M. Smith addresses the concept of genres, what exactly they are, and the purpose they serve. Smith identifies genres as a way to help sort media works, as well as a critical tool that provides insight into the structures of broad commonsense categories. Genres are made up of components such as themes, styles, settings, narrative situations, characters, and so on. However, in the reading, Smith acknowledges that the different arrangements and relationships between these components are what account for different genres.

Outside Connection

When reading this chapter, my mind jumped to the movie No Country for Old Men, and the different genres that are explored in the movie. The movie easily can be categorized as a number of different genres including western, drama, and thriller, but its uniqueness is shown by how it breaks the mold of these classical genres in order to form something new.

Reading Connection

I thought of No Country for Old Men specifically when Smith said “A classical genre gives both media makers and audiences a set of internally consistent expectations to share.” The film has been labeled as a neo-western, but first came to mind because it so clearly seems to follow the rules and components of a more contemporary country-western film, but suddenly and without any warning at all, the events of the movie take a dramatic turn, and the result is a disregard for the so called “rules” of the genre. This shift leaves the audience unsure what to expect next, when otherwise, a movie in the genre would have a predictable, classically scripted ending.