Media Theory 3: Genre

Media Theory 3: Genre

In the third instalment of our series of theories, we will cover Genre Theory. This was Steve Neale's theory that we will cover with 3 trailers, Everything Everywhere All At Once, PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, and Electric Dreams.

Neale states that any media's genre is identifiable by just observing it and it's characteristics. Let's find out what genre the trailers we selected is, then I will also show why it's this genre.

Everything Everywhere All At Once: Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller

    - The Iconography of the trailer shows the genre the best. with the many dynamic, intense shots with action and some with blood.

    - They subvert the genre by changing the audience needs. The trailer shows many different timelines and worlds that are all happing simultaneously that are all interacting with our main character Evelyn.

    - The film also shows hybridity with quick tonal shifts. Quickly switching from comedic to serious to unnerving with the use of different universes to create intrigue and keep the viewers' attention.

PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE: Comedy, Musical

    - The character driven motifs of each character, as they move and sound very dramatic and animated, with the music as the main thing you hear throughout the trailer.

    - They subvert the genre by using different contextual influences, the context here is that they use music as the drive, so they can use many different diegetic sounds and songs that drive the narrative froward aside from just the drama of it all.

    - They hybridize the movie with aspects of genre piggybacking. It uses the aspects of a mystery film as there is a mysterious man attempting to brutally stop anyone who sing's his music. This makes the movie attention grabbing and attracts people's eyes to the narrative.

Electric Dreams: Romance, Drama

    - They use Audience targeting to show the genre, with many scenes of romance shown with the drama of the new computer getting in the way.

    - They subvert the genre by the contextual influences of the era. As home computers were new and novel, using the new technology as the antagonist for the film created an intrigue with audiences as they asked themselves what the computer could do.

    - The hybridize the romance and the drama genres because they want to expand audience appeal. Adding in the drama of the computer with the romance adds a bigger audience who on one hand wants to see the computer and on the other wants to see a love story. This broad appeal brings more movie goers to the film.