1. THE THEORY OF TRAILERS
By Tanya McDonald

2. WHAT IS A GENRE?

3.  “A Category of Artistic composition, as in
music or literature, characterized by
similarities in form, style or subject matter.”
 “A Style of Expressing yourself in.”
…but this doesn’t really help us to understand
what genre really is.

4. GENRE
 One of the main problems with genre is how to go about
defining a genre; genre itself comes from the French
(and originally Latin) word for ‘kind’ or ‘class’.
 Genre is widely used in rhetoric, literary theory, media
theory, and more recently linguistics, to refer to a
distinctive type of ‘text’.
 Robert Allen notes that 'for most of its 2,000 years,
genre study has been primarily nominological and
typological in function. That is to say, it has taken as its
principal task the division of the world of literature into
types and the naming of those types - much as the
botanist divides the realm of flora into varieties of plants'
(Allen 1989, 44).

5. GENRE (CONTINUED)
 Contemporary media genres tend to relate more to
specific forms than to the universals of tragedy and
comedy.
 Nowadays, films are routinely classified (e.g. in television
listings magazines) as 'thrillers', 'westerns' and so on -
genres with which every adult in modern society is
familiar. So too with television genres such as 'game
shows' and 'sitcoms'. Whilst we have names for countless
genres in many media, some theorists have argued that
there are also many genres (and sub-genres) for which we
have no names (Fowler 1989, 216; Wales 1989, 206).
 Carolyn Miller suggests that 'the number of genres in any
society... depends on the complexity and diversity of
society' (Miller 1984, in Freedman & Medway 1994a, 36).

6. GENRE (CONTINUED)
 'A genre is ultimately an abstract conception rather than
something that exists empirically in the world,' notes
Jane Feuer (1992, 144). One theorist's genre may be
another's sub-genre or even super-genre (and indeed
what is technique, style, mode, formula or thematic
grouping to one may be treated as a genre by another).
 Themes, at least, seem inadequate as a basis for
defining genres since, as David Bordwell notes, 'any
theme may appear in any genre' (Bordwell 1989, 147).
He asks: 'Are animation and documentary films genres
or modes? Is the filmed play or comedy performance a
genre? If tragedy and comedy are genres, perhaps then
domestic tragedy or slapstick is a formula'.

7. GENRE (CONTINUED)
 In passing, Bordwell offers a useful inventory of categories used
in film criticism, many of which have been accorded the status of
genres by various commentators: “Grouping by period or
country (American films of the 1930s), by director or star or
producer or writer or studio, by technical process
(CinemaScope films), by cycle (the 'fallen women' films), by
series (the 007 movies), by style (German Expressionism), by
structure (narrative), by ideology (Reaganite cinema), by venue
('drive-in movies'), by purpose (home movies), by audience
('teenpix'), by subject or theme (family film, paranoid-politics
movies).” (Bordwell 1989, 148)
 Another film theorist, Robert Stam, also refers to common ways
of categorising films: “While some genres are based on story
content (the war film), other are borrowed from literature
(comedy, melodrama) or from other media (the musical). Some
are performer-based (the Astaire-Rogers films) or budget-based
(blockbusters), while others are based on artistic status (the art
film), racial identity (Black cinema), locat[ion] (the Western) or
sexual orientation (Queer cinema).” (Stam 2000, 14).

8. GENRE (CONTINUED)
 Defining genres may not initially seem particularly
hard but it should already be apparent that it is a
theoretical minefield.
 Robert Stam identifies four key problems with
generic labels (in relation to film): extension (the
breadth or narrowness of labels); normativism
(having preconceived ideas of criteria for genre
membership); monolithic definitions (as if an item
belonged to only one genre); biologism (a kind of
essentialism in which genres are seen as evolving
through a standardized life cycle) (Stam 2000, 128-
129).

9. GENRE (CONTINUED)
 Conventional definitions of genres tend to be based on the notion that
they constitute particular conventions of content (such as themes or
settings) and/or form (including structure and style) which are shared
by the texts which are regarded as belonging to them.
 The attempt to define particular genres in terms of necessary and
sufficient textual properties is sometimes seen as theoretically
attractive but it poses many difficulties. For instance, in the case of
films, some seem to be aligned with one genre in content and
another genre in form. The film theorist Robert Stam argues that
'subject matter is the weakest criterion for generic grouping because it
fails to take into account how the subject is treated' (Stam 2000, 14).
 Outlining a fundamental problem of genre identification in relation to
films, Andrew Tudor notes the 'empiricist dilemma': “To take a genre
such as the 'western', analyse it, and list its principal characteristics, is
to beg the question that we must first isolate the body of films which
are 'westerns'. But they can only be isolated on the basis of the
'principal characteristics' which can only be discovered from the films
themselves after they have been isolated.” (Cited in Gledhill 1985, 59)

10. GENRE – TYPICAL GENRES IN FILM
 Fictional films are usually categorized according to their setting,
theme topic, mood, or format.
 Staiger classifies Andrew Tutor's ideas that the genre of film
can be defined in four ways:
 The "idealist method" judges films by predetermined standards.
 The "empirical method" identifies the genre of a film by
comparing it to a list of films already deemed to fall within a
certain genre.
 The “Apriori” method uses common generic elements which are
identified in advance.
 The "social conventions" method of identifying the genre of a film
is based on the accepted cultural consensus within society.
 Jim Colins claims that since the 1980s, Hollywood films have
been influenced by the trend towards "ironic hybridization", in
which directors combine elements from different genres as with
the Western/Science fiction mix in Back to the Future Part III.

11. GENRES – TYPICAL GENRE’S IN FILM (AND
PUTTING MY TRAILER INTO CONTEXT)
 These are just some of the examples of the variety of genres of films which have
been recognised (These are listed on Wikipedia), I’ve increased the size of some
of the genres which I feel my trailer/film plot applies to (The bigger the size the
more it applies to my trailer):
Absolute film, Action film, Actuality film, Adventure film, Amateur film, Anarchic comedy film, Animated documentary, Anime,
Anthology film, Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, Art film, Arthouse Action Genre, Backstage musical, Bad girl movies, Beach
party film, Bildungsroman, Biographical film, Blaxploitation, Blue film, Bourekas film, Buddy cop film, Buddy film, Camcorder film,
Cannibal film, Cartoon, Chanchada, Chick flick, Children's film, Chopsocky, Christian film industry, Colonial cinema, Comedy film,
Comedy horror, Comedy of remarriage, Comedy-drama, Coming-of-age film, Compilation movie, Composite film, Conspiracy
fiction, Crime film, Crush film, Cult film, Dance film, Disaster film, Docudrama, Docufiction, Documentary film, Drama film,
Educational film, Epic film, Epic Western, Ethnographic film, European art cinema, Eurospy film, Experimental film, Exploitation film,
Family film, Fantasy film, Female buddy film, Fictional film, Film à clef, Film de Femme, Film gris, Film noir, Florida Western, Found
footage (genre), Gendai-geki, German underground horror, Giallo, Girls with guns, Gokudō, Goona-goona epic, Gore film, Gross
out, Guerrilla filmmaking, Guy-cry film, Heimatfilm, Heist film, Heritage film, Highlight film, Hip hop film, Historical fiction, Home movies,
Hood film, Horror film, Hyperlink cinema, Independent film, Industrial video, Interstitial art, Japanese horror, Jidaigeki, Jukebox
musical, Karl May films, Korean horror, Korean melodrama, Legal drama, List of cult films, Lucha film, Macaroni Combat, Mafia comedy,
Martial arts film, Masala (film genre), Meat pie Western, Melodrama, Message picture, Metafilm, Mexploitation, Microcinema, Mo lei tau,
Mob film, Mockbuster, Mockumentary, Mondo film, Monster movie, Mountain film, Mouth of Garbage film, Musical film, Musical short,
Muslim social, Mystery film, Mythopoeia (genre), Naturalism (literature), Nazi exploitation, New Queer Cinema, Northern (genre), Ostern,
Outlaw biker film, Ozploitation, Paracinema, Parody film, PBArcaro/sandbox, Period piece, Pink film, Poetry film, Pornographic film,
Postmodernist film, Prison film, Propaganda film, Psycho-biddy, Psychological horror, Psychotronic, Race movie, Rape and
revenge film, Reality film, Remodernist film, Retrospective, Road movie, Romance film, Romantic comedy film, Romantic thriller, Rubble
film, Rumberas film, Samurai cinema, Satire, Sceneggiata, Science fiction film, Screwball comedy film, Semidocumentary, Sexploitation
film, Shinpa, Slapstick film, Slasher film, Snuff film, Social guidance film, Social problem film, Social Realism,
South Seas (genre), Space Western, Spaghetti western, Splatter film, Sponsored film, Spy film, Stoner film, Submarine films, Superhero
film, Supernatural drama, Surf film, Swashbuckler, Swashbuckler film, Sword-and-sandal, Teen film, Telefoni Bianchi, Tendency
film, Thriller(genre), Training film, Travel documentary, Trial film, Underground film, Vampire film, War film, Weird West,
Werewolf fiction, Western (genre), Wiener Film, Woman's film, Women in prison film, World cinema, Wuxia, Yakuza film, Z Movie,
Zombie

12. GENRE – WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE TARGET
MARKET
 How we define a genre is also dependent on what we want to do
with the film – and in particular who we want it to be aimed at.
 If we are studying the way in which genre frames the reader's
interpretation of a text then we would do well to focus on how
readers identify genres rather than on what theorists believe
genres to be. Defining genres may be problematic, but even if
theorists were to abandon the concept, in everyday life people
would continue to categorize texts.
 For Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress, 'genres only exist in so
far as a social group declares and enforces the rules that
constitute them' (Hodge & Kress 1988, 7).
 In relation to film, Andrew Tudor argued that genre is 'what we
collectively believe it to be' (though this begs the question about
who 'we' are).
 Robert Allen comments wryly that 'Tudor even hints that in order
to establish what audiences expect a western to be like we might
have to ask them' (Allen 1989, 47).

13. GENRE – WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE TARGET
MARKET
 John Hartley argues that 'genres are agents of
ideological closure - they limit the meaning-potential
of a given text' (O'Sullivan et al. 1994, 128).
 Robert Hodge and Gunther Kress define genres
as 'typical forms of texts which link kinds of
producer, consumer, topic, medium, manner and
occasion', adding that they 'control the behaviour of
producers of such texts, and the expectations of
potential consumers' (Hodge & Kress 1988, 7).
 Genres can be seen as constituting a kind of
tacit contract between authors and readers.

14. BIBLIOGRAPHY
 http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/intgenr
e/intgenre1.html
 http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/intgenr
e/intgenre2.html
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_genre
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Film_genr
es