Investigation: An Argument Against Genre
When a person is asked to explain a movie they will often open with something on the lines of "Well, its a Science Fiction movie about..." No film category has come to define the way people thing about film quite like genre. I think this is because teachers all to often teach towards binary classifications in middle and high school which makes people more likely to learn about genre than any other artistic classification. No mater the reasons, there is no aspect in popular film analysis that annoys me as much as genre. In this blog I will explain my hatred for genre and offer alternative ways to categorize films.
How Genre Limits the Way We Think about Film
When Parasite was released in the United States the most common criticism was that it was difficult to read because it did not conform to a single genre. Any times you introduce binary classifications, everything will be judged by the way it conforms to or breaks away from the box; so when a movie ignores the existence of the boxes all together it is looked upon unfavorably. Many of the reviews of Parasite felt along the lines of: this is a good movie despite ignoring genre. However, I would argue ignoring genre is what makes it a good movie. Parasite is a drama, comedy, thriller, romance, horror, social commentary. When watching the film it feels like anything is possible because no genre is followed. I've seen an unsettling amount of movies, because of this anything that is even mildly formulaic I will know the entire plot--the only movies that can still genuinely surprise me are either insane comedies or films that ignore genre and just let creativity flow. When an artist is forced to pick their genre, they give up their creativity.
Furthermore, by placing films into genres it makes analysis far more difficult. Similar to Crist Figures, genres often end in list based analysis with little interesting work. Most genre analysis also ends up being superficial, with people making opaque connections between films that are doing similar things.
Genre is Deceivingly Hard to Define
While it's easy to sit down and write a list of the things that make a comedy movie, it is hard to give a single cohesive definition. Perhaps you could say a movie that makes you laugh. But most genres have moments where comedy is used. Entire books have been written on defining comedy. A similar analysis can be placed onto any genre. It's also hard to categorize movies, for example how would you define the genre of Pulp Fiction?
Additionally, many of the things people say are genres are not genres but forms or aesthetics. Documentary, musical, and animation are forms of cinema. Crime and war are settings. Often these have similar tropes, but so do most modern black and white movies. Unless black and white starts showing up on genre lists I'm not accepting animation.
Because genre is perceived as the simplest thing to understand its the analytic path most choose, but this will either be formulaic analysis or ultra-complex.
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