Genre

The lecture we had about genre was informative and made me think outside the box. I have never heard of the term 'genre' before this lesson, it was a bit difficult to understand at the start but I could slowly get the idea as the lecture went on. Genre is used to categorise the types of films and is suppose to differ them from each other. However, it is believe that it sets a stereotype that could limit the types of audience or mislead them and genre is gradually becoming contradiction and deficient.

Here are some genetic plots:

• Maturation (coming to age)
• Redemption (Character transforms from  bad to good)
• Punitive (character behaves badly and get punished)
• Testing (willpower versus temptation)
• Education (move from negative to positive perception of the world)
• Disillusionment (reverse to educate)

These plots always appear in films and audience could easily guess the flow of the story and normally allows a film to be more understandable. 

I am not good at judging and critical thinking so I will just type what appeared in my head during that lesson. Basically, I think genre is a good classification for people like me who is not a 'film watcher' and giving a film a genre could help preventing discomfort and time wasting. It aids audience to choose a type of experience they want to go through at that time for example I would not want to watch a horror movie when I was happy (very personal). It is definitely helpful but at some point, it limits me from exploring different kinds of movies that might also interests me. At the end, is it that vital to have a genre? I would say yes because it makes our life easier and reduce confusion.

I really have no idea how to catagorise a film as it could share various genres, would people decide on what it mainly contains? or they classify whatever they want? I think genre has been facing a change since the technology has become popular. At the past, only the rich could enjoy films, but now, everyone could watch films online, on DVD or go to cinema therefore the accessibility is no longer limited so that the filming market expands and equally as the genres. 

Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids Season 2 Episode 4

For example, this cartoon is classified for children but it is sort of horror at the same time. Might this have a bad influence on children or scared them when they are watching 'kid's' cartoon? This is something we have to think about when making an animation. I enjoyed this lecture as I was able to learn some minor problems we face in every day life and could really have a good reflection on the society and cultural factors that may cause the confusion of genre. The discussion the class had was useful and full of power views which is mind provoking.