TV Genre PDF

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Summary

Description of TV genre. Aniko Imre...

Description

TV Genre Genre: ● Works together with format ● A way to examine textual elements of television ● Categories of classification What genres are good for: ● Industrial and marketing classification ● Organizing awards ○ Like oscars ● Managing audience expectations ○ Browsing netflix, knowing what to look for ● Organizing curricula ○ In schoolwork ● Structuring categories of criticism ○ Professional criticism ● Setting directions for scholarship Approaches to genre: ● Definitional: ○ Aristotle ○ Descriptive, textual, structural ○ Defining what constitutes genre with formal structures ○ Often implies evaluative function – higher cultural value for some over others ○ Limitations: ■ Assumes natural, internal, textual qualities that define ideal form of genre ■ Disregards historical and cultural context, change over time ● Interpretational approach ○ Limitations: accounts for context, but limits genre to singular meaning ○ “Empiricist dilemma”: isolate set of criteria from texts, but in the end just reproduce same assumptions that made them identify texts to begin with ○ Circular logic ○ Even if criteria is the same, it could be a different genre ○ Interpretations are different from people to people ○ Ex: race can visually appear one way, but it’s classified as another ● Evaluative approach ○ Creates hierarchy among genres ○ Defines taste ● Overcoming limitations: ○ Discursive approach ■ Instead of bringing own assumptions, look at the practices themselves ■ Interaction between definition, interpretation and evaluation ■ How constitution happens

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Isolate moments that create genre Bottom up approach Most appropriate approach for TV

Case study: Soap opera ● Easy to make fun of ● Socialist soaps: ○ Utopian conditions ○ Made their own twist on soaps due to authorities ○ Focuses on lifestyle instead of propaganda ○ Shows were exported, made money ○ Common features ■ Comic socialist versions of “neighbours” ■ Set in housing or workplace ■ Socialist values ■ Consumer society values ■ Depoliticized by satirical undertones ■ Inspired by and borrowed western models ■ Generational gap: kids smarter than parents ■ Post-socialist popularity: reruns, remakes ■ Central female characters Specificity of US television genre ● Prevalence of synthetic forms, especially in network era ○ Spinoffs ○ Copies ○ Recombinants ● TV is just bad, anxiety about network’s future Teen TV: ● Genre as cultural category: ○ Evolves over time ○ Beyond definitional approach ○ Ask what genre means for a group in cultural instances, industrial and audience practices ○ Soap can be quality TV too, but most shows in post-network are hybrids ● Teen TV as generic cluster ○ Definitional: sitcom or soap opera origins ○ Interpretive: “bubble gum for the eyes” or are they educational, quality? ○ Commercial vs public? ○ What does genre mean for groups ● Main components of teen tv ○ Rooted in adaptations: form adult genres ○ intertextual/self-reflexivE: more meta and post modern

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Transmedia: related to adaptation, connects to fan response, merchandise, social media ○ Hybridization: from family sitcom and serialized soap opera into teen soap and sitcom Examples: ○ Teens in domestic sitcoms ■ 1950s: father knows best, aspirations shut down, wants to be engineer but just marries one ○ Gidget ■ Music key role ■ Seeing from teen perspective, but does father still know best? ○ Period shows ■ Ideology meets genre ■ Not wanting to be like your parents ○ Sabrina the teenage witch ■ adapted bewitched ■ Came from archie comics ■ Shutting down male voice ○ Growing pains ■ PSA about drugs ○ Freaks and geeks ■ Niche too early, ended right quick ■ Referencing and making fun of PSAs about drugs and whatnot ○ Moesha ■ Post-network ■ Mostly black cast ■ Didn’t do so well on UPN ■ Still kinda cheesy but they talk about more taboo stuff ○ Blossom ■ Father figure ■ Crime and punishment ■ Teens as free agents ■ Gender differences ○ My so called life ■ Specific for its time ■ Quality teen tv, gone too soon ■ Broad appeal, but not good enough ratings ○ The OC ■ Judaism vs wasp ○ Gossip girl ■ Fashion world and teen TV ■ “Poor brooklyn” ■ Growing up too fast Socially conscious TV:

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○ Beyond US Post-network US TV ○ Does work of public service initiatives ○ Touches on a lot of social issues ○ Don’t work so well in college context...