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LITR 4370
TRAGEDY
Midterm1 Samples 2015 (midterm1 assignment) Model Answers to Part 1. Genre definition and example(s) |
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1. Develop a "working definition" of genre & apply to any genre of your choice besides tragedy.
Authors & titles (scroll down for essays):
Eric Anderson, The Triumph of Dark
Comedy
Alejandra Ayala, The “Happily Ever After” Genre
Michaela Fox,
“Undefining” the Defined
Shelby Hollen, Comedy for all personalities
Fariha Khalil, What is Genre?
Michael McDonald, In On
the Joke
Anahi Montemayor, The
Components and Examples of Genre and Sub genre
Nona Olivarez,
Genre: More Blurred Lines than a Robin Thicke Song
Shane O'Neal,
Getting Weird
Sarah Robin Roelse
Tamara Valencia,
Genre
“Offerings of Romance”
Victoria
Webb,
Mixing Genres
Emilie White, Horror: It’s a
Horrifying World Full of Suspense, Blood, Monsters, and…Romance?
Eric Anderson
22 February 2015
The Triumph of Dark Comedy
We all know, I daresay, the two famous masks of drama: tragedy, weeping;
and comedy, laughing. These grimaces offer a very plain binary under which we
may categorize certain modes of artistic creation. The genres are divided by the
emotion they aim to elicit; they are shorthand for an expectation, a tacit
"contract with the audience" (White, 1). While tragedy, "the liveliest pleasure"
according to Aristotle's Poetics (IV), is thought to be the more
meritorious and ennobling of the two genre monoliths, the existence of such a
distinction shortchanges the staggering impact that comedy, in its various
guises, is capable of. To suggest that tragedy supersedes all forms of comedy is
to suggest that so-called noble, heart-swelling catharsis—crying—is more useful
than ecstatic, visceral, gut-busting catharsis—laughing. I am skeptical of the
practical worth of such a claim of superiority. After all, crying and laughing
are eerily similar physiologically. People sometimes cry until they laugh, and
oftentimes it is unclear which emotion one is convulsed by. Dark comedy, by
focusing on grim or serious topics and combating them with disarming humor,
binds ostensibly opposed emotions and creates a unique, all-encompassing
ecstasy. Drowned in a sea of milquetoast modern-day content, the parody news
journal The Onion's special 9/11 issue (2001) and the surrealist
television comedy Xavier: Renegade Angel (2007-2009) stand out as
two dark comedy jewels glittering morosely, reflecting back the dreadful
insanity of life, endowing the audience with invaluable perspective.
Nietzsche is correct in deeming comedy "the artistic release from the
repellence of the absurd" (40). The implication is that the world is
inherently absurd and repellant, which is the foundation of dark comedy.
Organically, the world spawns madness; creators of dark comedy need hardly
provide the exaggeration less dire comedy requires. Rather, dark comedy is a
mimesis, an "imitation of nature" as Aristotle says, whose main difference from
tragedy is the attitude with which the topic is approached. In dark comedy's
case this might mean, for example: saturnine irreverence, shocking
lightheartedness, and/or critical and occasionally brutal polemic intended to
skewer some absurd ideology or behavior. Any taboo or socio-culturally sensitive
topic is unsafe from dark comedy's scrutiny, because humor is detectable even in
darkness. The masks are more closely linked than we may expect; yet "[a]gainst
the assault of laughter nothing can stand" (qtd. in "Theories of Comedy"),
enjoins Mark Twain, a formidable jokester himself. "History could make a stone
weep" (190), remarks an introspective pastor in Marilynne Robinson's novel
Gilead. Indeed, without humor and the tool of dark comedy, weeping like the
sad mask would be one of the only tenable reactions to gloom. The existence of
any given satire or parody "lets the audience understand that the work [being
satirized/parodied] is worthy enough to satirize" ("Satire in Modern Day"),
writes Kayla Riggs in her 2012 midterm paper. Dark comedy works much the same
way, in that it requires a majorly sensitive topic for the comedy to be
considered requisitely dark. The September 11th attacks, the deadliest tragedy
on modern American soil, meet this qualification.
With tactful and brave playfulness and trademark wit, The Onion's
issue 3734, a collection of articles published in the aftermath of the attacks,
transformed a weeping topic into a darkly comic one. One headline reads:
"American Life Turns Into Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie"; another: "Hugging Up
76,000 Percent". In yet another article, a representative of the stew brand
Dinty Moore, in a surge of patriotism, claims that "'The entire Dinty Moore
family is outraged by this heinous crime and stands firmly behind our leaders'",
an example of inflation wherein a typically inconsequential matter is swelled
beyond normal measure, here by comic bravado and solidarity, which is little
comfort at best. When pressed for opinion. The Almighty, full of anger, condemns
the act of maniacs killing in His name and restates his anti-violence position:
"I'm talking to all of you, here!"
continued God, His voice rising to a shout. "Do you hear Me? I don't want you to
kill anybody. I'm against it, across the board. How many times do I have to say
it? Don't kill each other anymore—ever! I'm fucking serious!" ("God Angrily
Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule")
This is an example of comic
incongruity because it runs counter to the mass perception of how God speaks.
Here, instead, his diction is vulgar and frazzled and not dignified and
heavenly. Accompanying this article is an inset graphic of a reticle with the
United States target; the overlaid caption crudely screams: 'HOLY FUCKING SHIT:
Attack On America', which is a visceral mimesis mirroring the collective
conscious at the time. To see such a sentence in print, even in a parody, offers
profound catharsis in the form of laughter. A casual laugh in response to some
unfortunate bozo slipping on a banana peel is one thing; using humor to
reconcile emotions in the wake of wide-scale tragedy is quite another, and
infinitely more emphatic. The Onion's unrelenting comic force, filtered
through dark circumstance, offers its readership much needed laughter, which is,
as Andrew O'Hehir says, "a weapon of symbolic rebellion" (qtd. in "Theories of
Comedy").
The animated cartoon Xavier: Renegade Angel, the short-lived
surrealist dark comedy brainchild of the art collective PFFFR, is equal parts a
clever exhibition of rapid-fire wordplay and irreverent, critical send-up of
countless socio-cultural taboos and ideologies. The essential plot of each
episode follows Xavier—an incompetent, unreasonable, itinerant pseudo-shaman—in
his quest to comprehend and master various philosophical abstractions, Xavier's
wanderings inevitably lead to destruction and havoc while he ironically rambles
on unscathed, unchanged, oblivious as ever. X:RA is a mixture of low or
physical comedy and high or verbal comedy. The computer-generated aesthetics
qualify as low comedy: purposely horrendous, rudimentary, and amateurish for the
sake of easy, immediate laughs. Likewise, Xavier's physical appearance is
grotesque and comically incongruous: a faun-like body covered mostly with brown
fur; different-colored eyes; knee-joints that bend backwards; a beak for a nose
despite the regular mouth below it; a left arm which is a snake from the elbow
downwards; six nipples across his chest; and a third eye—usually concealed by a
loincloth—where his genitals should be. Dizzying, breakneck wordplay—including
the use of portmanteau, entendre, punning, malapropism, rhyme, and experiment—is
X:RA's trademark, and a trapping of high comedy through verbal wit.
Indeed, the linguistic flexibility and vigor is captivating enough that a blind
person could observe the show and not suffer much. This clever language skewers
the gravitas of dire situations, making X:RA an ultimate dark comedy.
Xavier brags that he is a "survivor—a dying breed", and a "conundrummer in a
band called Life Puzzler" (episode 1). Through a flashback hallucination, he
learns his dad perished in a house-fire and the culprit was "our son", which he
misinterprets as "arson" (episode 8). A preacher dryly remarks that the
congregation's "sign language translator has donated her hands to the Needy
Groper's Society" (episode 9). A burnout chides Xavier for using gendered terms
at a music festival called 'Burning Person', because "in today's day and age,
women can be set on fire, too" (episode 8). A gang-member reluctantly admits
that he likes to "kill on the toilet" (episode 2). Agonized by the presence of
her son upon notification of their accidental incest Xavier’s mother impales her
eyes with rods; in response, Xavier "Oedi-pull[s]" them out (episode 20).
Painting the world in shades slightly more ridiculous that it presents itself
in, Xavier: Renegade Angel is a relentless, clever, vicious mockery of
taboo and dogma.
Dark comedy concerns itself with the same weighty topics as tragedy but
instead uses humor to inspire acute emotions. Ambitious endeavors like issue
3734 of The Onion and PFFR's Xavier: Renegade Angel grab us the
collar and dangle is over the precipice of the absurdly dark modern world and
then plant us black on firm ground. Dismayed, astonished, invigorated,
breathless but laughing, we are
relieved to revel in cathartic ecstasy, given the alternative of overwhelming
apathy or despair.
Alejandra Ayala
February 22, 2015
The “Happily Ever After”
Genre
Throughout the years, the meaning
of Genre has evolved. According to Dr. White,
“Genre is a very flexible, adaptable term or concept” (Genres).
Genre helps categorize things, such as, movies, music, and novels. By
categorizing a work of art like those previously mentioned, it gives the
audience an idea of what the work is about. Jorge Lozoya stated, “Knowing the
type of genre a piece of work happens to be can often offer a synopsis of what
the audience can expect to happen”. However, this can get confusing when one
looks at genres such as, Romantic Comedy or Romantic Tragedy, like the play
Mourning Becomes Electra, because they
contain more than one genre. Having various genres in a movie or book can
sometimes dissatisfy the audience because the audience may be expecting the work
to have more of one genre than another; for example, one might go watch a
Romantic Comedy movie and expect the movie to have more romance than comedy,
when in fact the movie actually has more comedy than romance.
Romance is one of the most misinterpreted genres. The romance genre is
typically seen as being a love story, however, romance is or can be much more
than that. According to Dr. White, “in
literary studies romance means a broader, more inclusive type of story or
narrative
that usually
features a hero's journey or quest
through tests and trials (often
involving a villain) in order to reach
a
transcendent goal, whether love, salvation, justice (usu. revenge), or
rescue or salvation” (Romance). Romance novels and movies are not always
centered in a love story, but a love story is usually still included in the
story or plot. For example, one could see the movie
Abduction
directed by John Singleton
as a type of romance movie. Most people associated this movie as a thriller
movie rather than a romance; however, the main character, Nathan, goes through a
quest to find out who he really is after he learns that his parents, the ones
who had raised him, were not his actual parents. As mentioned in Dr. White’s
course website, romance consists of, “a physical journey or adventure… and may
involve trials, tests, or ordeal in which desire or vision or protagonist is
tested” (Narrative Genres). This is shown when Nathan goes on a journey to find
out who he is and he is faced with obstacles along the way. This movie also
portrays a love story that develops throughout the film. The audience knows
right away Nathan is interested in a girl, Karen, but he has not told her how he
feels. However, as they search for answers together, they begin to form a
relationship and eventually become a couple. An element in romance is that in
the end, as mentioned by Dr. White “the characters ‘live happily ever after’…”
(Genres). This also occurs in the end of Abduction, the main characters, Nathan and Karen, kiss and walk off
as the sun sets in the background. All is fixed and resolved in the end.
Going further into how a piece of work can have more than one genre, or as
Allison Evans stated, “two genres [or more] are intertwined with one another or
used interchangeably”, one can picture romantic comedy as an example of genres
intertwining. The movie
Bride Wars is a great example of a
romantic comedy. This movie is much more than just a love story; it involves a
friendship and journey as well. The main characters are two women who have been
best friends since childhood. Everything seems fine in the beginning, but then a
problem starts when both women end up getting engaged. Both women want to get
married in the same venue but a mix up occurs with the dates and they end up
reserving their wedding on the same day. A war starts between the two friends,
causing a separation, and they soon start sabotaging each other’s wedding plans,
hence the comedy aspect. Each woman has their own love story, but as the wedding
approaches and wedding plans are set, one couple’s love blossoms and strengthens
while the other couple’s love deteriorates and comes to an end. Each woman faces
a “personal transformation” by the end of the movie (Genres). One of the women w
breaks up with her fiancé and realizes they aren’t meant to be and that she
deserves better. In the end, both women reconcile and they “rise above it all”
(Genres). I think this is a perfect example of romance because it has both a
love story and a journey/quest.
Michaela Fox
Part 1
“Undefining” the Defined
We
as humans subconsciously and consciously categorize all elements of life. From
the most simple, “I like red meat,” to the slightly more complex, “I am a
democrat.” It is only natural that we categorize the most basic form of human
enjoyment—art. Genre concerns more than the mere labeling of films, poems,
novels, paintings, etc. It involves the factors that magnetize the observer
towards the piece, those that describe the ways in which it is unique. In a
similar manner to the methods of categorizing of individuals within society,
genre exists for the purpose of our desire to know and understand our
surroundings. As naturally inquisitive human beings, our desire for knowledge
determines how we react to an object. In this way, we ask about gender, race,
sexual orientation, religion—all characteristics that define us. However, we
cannot be put in “boxes” by these variables, but use them as “yardsticks,”
measuring details.
Genres, naturally, evolve over time in order to maintain a connection
with the present generation’s norms and behaviors. For example, the sitcom
Two and a Half Men involves
scatological humor through references to sex, which our present society (for the
most part) finds acceptable. Had the 1950’s sitcom,
I Love Lucy, involved such vulgar
dialogue, the audience would have disapproved. Therefore, topics within comedy
are constantly evolving, unlike those of tragedy, which focus on issues relative
to the unchanging soul.
Although newer genres tend to be trendy and forgotten with the
progression of time, I find the dystopian novel exhibits characteristics similar
to that of tragedy, ensuring—hopefully—its place among the meaningful and
memorable genre list. A dystopia refers to the opposite of an utopia, or “an
experimental community intended to reform or escape from normal human society,
often by substituting planning, cooperation, or collective values and practices
in place of laissez-faire, competition, and individualism.” The narrative
typically involves a protagonist living in a society that has been disrupted in
some manner, and now has a strict form of government in place to improve the
society. An issue of morality often lies at the center of conflict for the
protagonist—seeing fault in their current situation and looking to remedy or
make correct the problem. This aspect of the narrative applies to both the
dystopian novel and to tragedy.
In
Lois Lowry’s
The Giver, the
protagonist, Jonas, watches his father murder a newborn because of their
community’s value to reject sameness. However, the father finds no fault in his
doing as a result of his community’s strict government, designed to create a
utopia. Those that do understand the concept of murder—the “elders,” Jonas, and
the giver—face the morality of such issues. Here, the audience is faced with a
question of which demands an answer between two extremes: killing off society
completely or mandating unwarranted deaths and denying basic human rights.
Similarly, Agamemnon must choose between sacrificing his daughter or the entire
country. These choices are neither easy nor painless; they deal with the idea
that life is not perfect, imitating a reality of truthfulness.
While two genres can have similar narrative qualities—Agamemnon and
The Giver—they
may differ in subject/audience and/or form. Dr. White explains these three genre
classifications as “non-exclusive” in that variables of a genre will involve
elements from each category. This relates to the earlier reference to the
similarities between categorizing society and art. Just as we as individuals
have characteristics that place us in designated “categories,” so do genres, but
these characteristics act as units of unlimited measure, not definite placement.
Shelby Hollen
Comedy for all
personalities
For decades there have been many
different forms and styles of music, literature and movies that have surfaced
for the world to experience. These compositions are categorized by their
similarities and then all grouped under a word called genre. I like to look and
describe the word genre as if it were an umbrella. The genre is the shaft, the
different categories are the stretchers, and the ribs of the umbrella separate
the differences of the categories up. The canopy covers the whole umbrella and
symbolizes that just because something is in one category doesn’t mean it cannot
be a sub-category for another as well for example, a romantic comedy.
When someone asks you what kind of novel you re reading or what kind of
movie you are watching they are referring to the subject genre. When people
label the types of movies for example as a chick flick they are putting the
movie into a subject genre. However there can be some confusion with subject
genre. The distinction between subject matter and audience can be confused (qtd.
in White’s subject genre).
In
formal genre you are looking for the number and types of voices, there are three
types of representative genre. Narrator genre you will have someone who is
telling a story, this person is usually speaking to the audience of viewers
throughout the entire movie or show. For example the TV show
How I Met Your
Mother, Ted, the main character is telling his children the story of how he
met their mother, and the futuristic Ted is talking to the audience the whole
series. Dialogue is the most popular; this is where two or more characters are
speaking with each other while the viewers are listening. The difference between
dialogue and narrator is that the narrator is talking to the viewers where the
dialogue the viewers are watching the conversations happen. Then we have
Narrator plus dialogue, this is just a combination of the first two example I
just described, the TV show Saved By The Bell is an example of this, the
characters are in dialogue with each other, but there are certain parts where
Zach Morris stops and talks to the viewers.
Narrative genre is the kind of story you are watching or reading about. This
goes a little more in depth about the story line, and is different for every
genre. My most interested genre is Comedy, with that being said the narrative
genre usually starts off with a problem of some sort, and by the end of the
movie the problem has been resolved. However, there are many different
sub-genres of comedy and even though the problem has been solved it does not
mean you were not highly frustrated by the end.
There was a movie I saw a few years ago, it was a dark comedy called
Extract. This movie was very funny, however it go to a point where I was
wanting to yell at the TV screen because the frustrations throughout the movie
of the main character continuously trying to get his life back together and just
“blindly” walks into conflicting situations that keep setting him back. However,
even for this dark comedy by the end of the movie his conflicts were resolved.
In
the movie The Ugly Truth
the main male character is shown as a male
chauvinist but all the women just fall all over him, except his colleague is
looking for true love. The main male character ends up showing her that all men
are pigs and she might as well deal with it if she wants to find love. This is
exactly what Aristotle is talking about when he says Comedy aims at representing
men as worse (qtd. in White, “Aristotle’s” par II). Another great example of
comedy is American Pie it is crude humor but at the same time does not painful
or destructive. Aristotle says the comic mask is ugly and distorted, but does
not imply pain (qtd. in White, “Aristotle’s” par V), which is exactly the kind
of humor American Pie has, it is funny for the audience watching because
the things that are happening to the actors in the film are so embarrassing and
awkward, the viewers laugh because they are glad it is not happening to them.
Definitions of genres are never black and white. There are so many ways to
describe a specific genre, especially comedy. First off if I am going to give a
definition for comedy the first thing that comes to my mind is funny. However, a
comedy can mean so much more than just being funny. Plus you have so many
sub-genres of comedy like, romantic comedy, dark comedy, comedy thrillers,
political comedies, stand-up comedy and urban comedies; the list can go on and
on. Yes at some capacity all of these are funny, but some of them are emotional,
frightening and gross. But I feel like with comedy you generally get a
happy/feel good feeling at the end because you can always rely on the conflict
to be solved.
Before taking this class I was under the impression that the genre was more
black and white. I have learned from this class so far that the genre its
definition is an ongoing process with a lot of gray area in between.
Fariha Khalil
22
February 2015
What is Genre?
Genre is what defines a work of art, whether it be a novel, a book, a
poem, or simply music, it gives the audience an overview of what they are about
to encounter. Before taking this class, I
thought of genre as just labeling the different forms of art as:
romance, science fiction, comedy,
tragedy, horror, fantasy, fairytale, and so on.
But, I came to learn that genre is not about giving names to books,
movies, songs, etc. Genre can actually be
“classified in
three broad,
non-exclusive” categories: subject/ audience, form, and narrative (Introduction
to Genre Handout).
In my essay, I
chose to explore the tragicomedy genre and through it, demonstrate the three
sub-categories of Genre.
The genre
of tragicomedy consists of both, a sense of comedy and a sense of tragedy having
either a happy ending or a tragic ending.
The first sub-category of Genre is Subject/Audience.
This sub-genre describes the “content,
subject, and special interest ‘or’ audience appeal of a text, such as ‘a crime
story’ or a ‘teenage movie’” (Introduction to Genre).
In my first year of college, I took the course the Survey of British
Literature and in that class we read the play “Doctor Faustus” by
Christopher Marlowe.
The play was about a well-educated German Scholar named Doctor Faustus
who becomes dissatisfied after studying medicine, law, and religion that he
decides to learn magic.
In order to
do that, he makes a pact with the devil to keep his soul after 24 years.
Throughout the play, Doctor Faustus plays tricks on people making the
audience laugh that the audience actually forgets that he has made a pact with
Lucifer to take his soul in the end.
Although, the play was pretty funny, it did not have a happy ending for Doctor
Faustus ends up dying.
At the time I
was taking the course, I did not know about the tragicomedy genre until reading
that play.
Another example of
tragicomedy, but with a slightly different ending I liked was the play “Much Ado
About Nothing” by William Shakespeare.
In
the play Beatrice and Benedict throw insults at each other which makes the play
funny, while Hero and Claudio fall in love and are to be married until a
misunderstanding occurs between the two lovers.
Claudio
thinks that Hero is an unfaithful maiden and decides not to marry her.
In order to prove her virtuous soul, Hero is forced to fake her death, to
which Claudio realizes that he had made a mistake about doubting Hero’s
character of a virtuous maiden. This all seems very tragic until the end when
Claudio and Hero do end up getting married after all.
Both of the plays were both comic and tragic with one having a tragic
ending, while the other had a happy ending.
The second sub-category of Genre is the Form.
This sub-category of genre “refers
to the number and types of voices in the genre, or the ‘form’ in which the
text appears” (Introduction Handout).
There are three forms of voice, narrator, drama or dialogue, and lastly,
narrator and dialogue.
Since these
were both plays, their authors used the form of narrator and dialogue.
While the characters talk amongst each other in the play, there is also a
narrator who describes or introduces certain situations that are about to take
place.
Lastly, the third sub-category of Genre is the Narrative genre, which
“refers to the type of
story or
plot that a work of literature tells or enacts” (Introduction to
Handout).
According to “Northrop
Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (1957)”, there are four basic story lines,
Tragedy, Comedy, Romance, and Satire.
Even though these are the four basic types of story lines, they also
overlap each other making some works of literature a Comedy Romance, or a
Tragedy and Romance, or what I chose to write over, Tragedy and Comedy
(Narrative Genres). This is an example of what Dr. White had said in class
“there are no pure genres.”
Although, these plays have comedy and tragedy, Shakespeare’s play “Much Ado
About Nothing”, also has some Romantic aspects.
Don Pedro, Claudio, and Benedict have returned from a war and also, the
play has some imagery about taming animals. Also, the love romance is visible
throughout the play with Benedict and Beatrice, how they portray their love for
one another with insults, and the love between Hero and Claudio.
Both of the plays, “Doctor Faustus” by Christopher Marlowe and “Much Ado
About Nothing” by William Shakespeare demonstrate the genre of tragedy and
comedy with different endings, one with a happy ending, and the other with a
tragic ending. These plays also demonstrate that there are really “no pure
genres” as one can easily overlap the other.
I personally enjoy reading genres that overlap, because it gives the work
a little twist to it.
Instead of
just watching a plain comedy or a plain tragedy, this keeps the audience on the
edge of their seat, to keep ready for a little twist.
Yes, sometimes it is disappointing to read or watch something very fun
and exciting that has a tragic ending or vice versa.
Michael McDonald
February 22, 2015
In On
the Joke
Genre in the simplest of thoughts is a straightforward and simple idea,
that allows individuals to classify the books, shows, music, and movies they
choose to enjoy. In theory those who enjoy watching fights and explosions should
all enjoy action movies, right? The problem with genre is that it’s not so
streamlined and singular. In reality individuals vary in taste and enjoy vastly
different types of enjoyment.
The word “genre” itself aims to make
things simple, and at its basest form it does. Dr. White states when asking
about a genre, “The audience trusts that a comedy will make us laugh, or a
detective novel will solve a crime” (Genre Source Page). The problem arises when
individual pleasures come into play. Comedy is meant to make everyone laugh, but
what is found funny by one may not be by another, thus creating categories that
exist within the base forms of genres.
Comedy has always been one of my
favorite genres, as a kid I enjoyed watching Adam Sandler films and the physical
gags that would make me howl and laugh, and in turn make my mother roll her eyes
and shake her head. Sandler deals in what would be defined as low comedy or
slapstick. Essentially this kind of comedy is focused of physical gags and
essentially many, many poop jokes. This kind of comedy doesn’t force its
audience to think too hard about what is supposed to found funny, it simply
gives it to its audience. High comedy on the other hand forces its audience to
be as quick witted and clever as the jokes themselves. In my older age I prefer
the higher brand of comedy more so than the low. In particular I’ve come to
appreciate the kind of high comedy that is seemingly aware of itself.
Meta-Humor or Meta-Comedy is
necessarily a new idea, but one that isn’t often utilized or when done isn’t
done well. The idea behind meta-comedy is that it in a way is aware that it is
openly mocking or doing the tropes that it is mocking. Meta-Humor tends to
reside in the higher levels of comedy since it often references other shows,
books, or movies to generate its humor. This forces the audience to at least be
aware of what the humor is referencing for understanding. For example, the
television show Community follows a
group of seven students who attend Greendale Community College. Within the show
the group finds itself in the center of the insanity that unfolds within the
college. The meta-humor in the show comes from the character of Abed Nadir. Abed
quite often throughout the series equate the situations that the group find
themselves in to situation that occurred in other popular television shows or
movies. In one episode in particular Abed claims that it is the classic tv
“bottle episode”. A “bottle episode” is an episode produced inexpensively and
restricted in scope to use as few, or no, non-regular cast members, effects, and
sets as possible (Wikipedia). Abed is often the primary source for most of
Community’s meta-humor, but the show itself is drenched in it.
I’ve also found meta-humor in
different types of literature, but one of my favorite uses of it comes in the
form of the Deadpool comics. Deadpool
being schizophrenic often “breaks the fourth wall” and addresses the events that
are occurring within the pages of the comic directly to the readers. Deadpool is
famous for this mainly because he is one of the few comic book characters who
“actively” engage with his audience and he does so in a humorous way.
Examples:
Community “Bottle Episode”
Deadpool:
http://cdn3.whatculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Deadpool-71.jpg
Anahi Montemayor
February 22, 2015
The
Components and Examples of Genre and Sub genre
Genre is a definition to describe a
piece of work, for example: a movie, a play, a novel, etc. This describes the
“bigger picture” of the work that a person is watching or reading. Dr. White
says, “There are "no pure genres"—nearly all works of art and literature
contain elements of other genres; e.g. "romantic comedy." A movie or piece of
writing can be described as a “comedy” or “tragedy” because that is what the
work is overall. Knowing this, a genre does not automatically mean it only has
that genre, it has to involve a little more of other type of genres for the
movie to make sense. Just like Twelfth Night does, even when comedy is the
principle genre, it has other types of sub-genres, which allows the play to flow
in a way that makes sense.
The reason I enjoy this play is because the romance aspect the play brings in. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare is my absolute favorite play yet; this falls into the comedy genre, which is not my favorite. The play is mainly about Viola disguised as a man named Cesario falls in love with Orsino, and Olivia who has seemingly fallen in love with Cesario, who is a woman disguised as a man. This comedic play is shown through the people that are disguising themselves as well as the clown that plays throughout is. For instance, when Olivia asks the clown a question he answers it with a smart remark.
OLIVIA
Clown
draught above heat makes him a fool;
the second mads
him; and a third drowns him. (Act I,
Scene I).
Like Doctor White explains on his
website, “Comedy- This story-line often begins with a problem or a mistake (as
in mistaken identity), but the problem is less significant than tragedy.
The problem may involve a recognizable social situation, but unlike tragedy, the
problem does not intimately threaten or shake the audience, the state, or the
larger world.” The genre Comedy, intakes many different types of
sub-genres, like romance and tragedy, which is in almost everything we read or
watch. A comedy could not be a comedy is it did not have tragedy, romance, or
any other genre. There has to be a reason for it to be comedic.
A modern example of Twelfth Night
could be the movie She’s the Man (2006). This comedy movie has many similarities
in the characters names, there’s a love triangle, and Viola, who is the main
character, cross dresses in order to join a men’s soccer team she in not able to
join while being a woman. While this is considered a comedy, it also has
romance. Viola ends up falling in love with a team mate, who does not know
because she is crossed dressed as a soccer guy, and so on. This shows examples
for an audience that does not understand the meaning of genre and sub genre when
reading or watching a much and older piece of work, like Aristotle’s Poetics.
This piece of writing heavily involves the genre tragedy, yet it has comedic
references that help the story line have some “comic relief”. In this work he
says, “...Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better that in
actual life…” (II). The genre being Tragedy, and sub-genre being Comedy helps
the audience get some sort of balance of emotions. While it can be mostly a work
tough on the heart, comedy scenes come in with some relief to prepare the
audience for the ending.
Nona Olivarez
Genre: More Blurred Lines than a Robin Thicke Song
Picture
this. You step inside your local Barnes and Noble book store and the smell of
fresh roasted coffee overwhelms your senses as your eyes dart back and forth
while you take in your surroundings. There’s a big task at hand: deciding which
area of books to tackle first. Conveniently the books are organized into
different sections with a big square name tag hanging down from the ceiling,
each one pertaining to a particular category. The words romance,
science-fiction, mystery/thriller are printed neatly and purposefully on
different square pieces of plastic with the intention to help the consumer, you,
find which type of book they would like to read. This form of categorization is
seen not only in books stores but in music stores and even on websites such as
Netflix, and presents an example of how we, as humans, attempt to organize the
world around us so we can reach the highest level of efficiency as possible.
Furthermore each carefully organized category is seen as a type of genre, and
genre allows the reader to know what type of book they are about to read.
The term genre does not solidify each work of art into a category;
instead genre functions as a “yardstick” to measure the piece of art by (Dr.
White’s course website). Genre is a word that describes a piece of art, such as
literature, and functions only as means to classify works of art by similar,
reoccurring characteristics. Often, genres overlap as witnessed in many of our
readings including the Bacchae which the discussion leader, Eric Anderson, pointed out
contains elements of comedy even though the
Bacchae is famously labeled a tragedy.
Simply put there are “no pure genres” which means all works of art contain
elements from more than one genre (Dr. White’s course website). As Rebecca
Bridgmohan states in her essay, “whether genres pertain to a movie, a play, or
another form of literature or art, they become less confusing when you begin to
understand them as categories that can be interchangeable, rather than ‘set in
stone’”.
Genre is divided into three different parts including subject/audience
genre, formal genre, and narrative genre. Firstly subject genre refers to when
someone calls a movie a “chick flick” or a “tear jerker”, which classifies the
work of art in its simplest form of content. On the other hand, formal genre is
concerned with the arrangement of the text, meaning how the story is being told
through voice. If the character speaks directly to the audience, like in a poem,
then the work of art becomes labeled “single voice”, yet if the character speaks
to the audience and also has a conversation with other characters it is called
narrator plus dialogue, and further if the character only speaks to other
characters without involving the audience it is referred to as dialogue.
Lastly narrative genre pertains to the
story/plot, and there are four main story lines: romance, tragedy, comedy, and
satire. Each story line follows a pattern of certain characteristics that
determines what type of narrative genre the literature falls under. However as
mentioned before these lines of division are often blurred, which explains why
some works of art are described as “romantic-comedies” and not just one or the
other.
Comedy is a narrative genre that deserves a little more explanation
because of its characteristics that so often blur into other genres.
Aristotle’s
Poetics asserts that comedy “is an
imitation of characters of a lower type”, unlike the higher type of noble
characters portrayed in tragedy; the lower type character is usually physically
funny looking and oftentimes makes a spectacle of him/herself like the actress
Rebel Wilson in the movie Pitch Perfect.
On the opposite side there is comedy that is witty and relies more on
intellectual humor rather than physical humor known as “high comedy”, so of
course there exists a “middle-class comedy” that uses a little bit of both high
and low comedy. Aristophanes’s play
Lysistrata is a perfect example of middle-class comedy because there is just
as much wit as there is scatological or “low” humor. The story line of a comedy
is pretty simplistic in the sense it begins with a problem of little actual
danger or consequence, and then the problem is resolved happily at the end
displaying a “restoration of unity” (Dr. White’s course website). For example,
at the end of Lysistrata everyone is
happily dancing and rejoicing because of their new found unity where not only
the men and women are reunited, but the cities at war also reach terms of peace.
The Greek god Dionysus is typically associated with Comedy and particularly
Lysistrata because of the many phallic
images that identify with Dionysian worship (Dr. White’s course website).
Nietzsche would mostly likely describe the end scene of
Lysistrata as Dionysian because the characters consume wine and as
we college students call it, commence “party mode”, but from an Apolline point
of view the scene of unity also brings everything together.
While
Lysistrata is mostly seen as a Comedy
there are apparent aspects of desire and loss that are primarily associated with
Romance. The women in an attempt to convince the men to decease fighting decide
to withhold themselves sexually from their husbands. This deprivation of sex
creates a sense of loss for the men since they no longer have their wives to
fulfill their needs, and as a result of loss an unyielding desire becomes
evident as most of the men find themselves humorously unable to control their
sexual urges physically. Conclusively,
Lysistrata is just one of many examples of how genres overlap and blur the
lines that separate them.
The next time you find yourself at Barnes and Noble remember that each
section labeled by a genre is merely a guideline for you to follow, and just
because a novel is classified a Romance it does not necessarily mean it will be
full of mushy love scenes, or that a Comedy is simply a bunch of poorly written
jokes with all too predictable characters because in reality literature is
substantially more complex than simply what genre defines it as.
Shane O'Neal
Getting Weird
In popular fiction, genre is used to classify stories according to a set
of broad, overarching themes. These are what we call subject genres as opposed
to form and narrative genres. Horror, romance, western, and science fiction are
some common examples. Although I am rarely a fan of horror films, I'm something
of a fanatic when it comes to horror and weird fiction. According to The Weird,
a doorstopper anthology edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, the “weird tale” was
defined by Lovecraft as a story that 'contains a supernatural element, but does
not fall into the category of traditional ghost story or gothic tale.” The weird
is, in fact, a much broader classification than is horror.
While horror obviously aims to be horrific, a weird tale does not
necessarily have to be a frightening tale. According to Vandermeer, “it
represents the pursuit of some indefinable and perhaps maddeningly unreachable
understanding of the world beyond the mundane.” A fantastic early example of
this is the dreamlike The Other Side, published by Alfred Kubin in 1908. It
tells the story of Pearl, a mysterious city in the depths of Asia whose society
is based on instinct rather than reason. In many ways, it is a dystopian fable.
While some see it as satire, and some see it as simply a gothic fantasy, it is
inarguably beyond the mundane.
Besides the subject genre, there is also the narrative genre. A work may
be a tragedy, a comedy, a romance, or a satire. It's funny to think that the
weird tale has tackled each of these forms at point or another. If you enjoy
Shakespearean tragedies, why not check out William Shakespeare's Land of the
Dead by John Heimbuch? The play is hailed as “a true and accurate account of the
1599 zombie plague.” Satire is one of my favorite things in the world. One of my
favorite short stories, Full Dental by Tom Bordonaro, is a hilarious and
effective combination of the genres. Office politics, diversity in hiring
practices, and zombies make for some great moments:
“He wondered if that cute chick from the Starbucks on the corner would go
out with him after she got out of the hospital. He thought she'd be just as cute
with one hand ―although maybe not as good at making Frappicinos. Why did those
things even go in there? They didn't drink the coffee; just ordered it and then
poured it over their heads.”
Society's obsession with zombies drives me crazy, but they certainly have
managed to infest every nook and cranny of the entertainment world, and their
stories do qualify as weird fiction. Romance and the weird are obvious partners
and have been for a long time. From Dracula to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
to Anne Rice, the cocktail has proven itself to be a viable and marketable one.
The combination of comedy and the weird (apart from satire) is more
common, in my experience, within the cinema. Terry Gilliam's Brazil is a good
example of this dynamic at work. The Evil Dead II and most Bruce Campbell films
are better known possibilities. My personal favorite, though, and in fact one of
my favorite films regardless of genre, is Hot Fuzz with Simon Pegg and Nick
Frost. The storyline revolves around a town whose leaders have formed a cult
that murders those who might diminish the town's perfect image or prevent it
from winning Village of the Year. The English wit is hilarious, and it even
manages to take on Hollywood action films in the final scenes. Even so, it's
apparent throughout the film that something is not quite right. In a way, “not
quite right” is the very definition of “the weird”.
Sarah Robin Roelse
“Oh! The
Horror!”
Genre. When I think of genre,
I automatically go back to my days of early college where I worked at
Blockbuster, Inc., and each film had its place on the wall around the store or
on these horrid shelves that we had to constantly keep re-alphabetizing:
Children and Family, Comedy, Drama, Horror, and Action.
Genre, as a working definition, is very easily stated in that it gives
humans a way of organizing material by the amount of consistency it has with
other pieces of similar substance (art, music, film, animals, or even fashion).
While having genres does serve a purpose for means of cataloging bits of
work, no piece fits into one singular
classification (i.e. in Stephen King’s The
Stand, the story falls into genres of science-fiction, horror, romance, and
drama).
The genre that I am most attracted to is that of horror (which often
resembles the romantic), and while we haven’t seen much of it this semester, I
feel that is worthy enough to speak of on my own.
Even looking at a piece of literature as old as
Agamemnon, there are speckles and
inklings that can link us to the genre of horror—such as a wife murdering her
husband (even though this action takes place off stage, there is that element of
surprise, shock, and fear for what these actions will eventually bring, not to
mention the spectacle and sound that the incident makes).
Another example that exudes an enormous sense of horror is Edgar Allen
Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, a story where an unsuspecting man is buried
alive inside of what is considered a catacomb or wine cellar; the horror here
affects the reader’s psychological emotions and eludes to the idea of
Nietzsche’s ideal spectator, where the reader can envision themselves being
buried alive and makes them feel uneasy or on edge.
Typically, when horror is thought of, one recalls images of bloodshed,
overkill, mass-murderers, or Jason with his machete; there is a typical formula
to many horror films pre-1996 (when the genre changed its game):
the African American (or “token” minority) will be the first one to be
killed in the movie; the virgin is overall triumphant in staying alive (at least
in the first installment); and the killer is “always going to come back for one
last scare”
In recent filmography, we have had a pivotal point in horror (one that I
am not particularly fond of, but hey, it is what it is) – that is, satirizing it
with extreme elements of comedy (or what is thought of as comical), for
instance, films such as Scary Movie, Cabin
in the Woods, or Tucker and Dale vs.
Evil. These films have elements
of horror in them, such as the supernatural, death, and murder (which can also
classify them as romanticism), but writers go a step further and reach into the
world of comedy to parody classic horror films; we also see this happening in
current literature such as Seth Grahame-Smith’s
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a
very serious zombie rendition of the classic
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
As a genre, horror can be broken down into many
sub-genres that include:
vampires, zombies, werewolves, mass murderers, haunted houses,
supernatural or paranormal activity, thrillers, psychological horror, teen
horror, comedic horror, and even legends or folklore.
I feel like we don’t look into horror enough academically because it is
seen as “evil” or “demented,” but in all reality, as someone who has experience
in what the general public rents or goes to see in theaters, horror is at the
top of the list because it makes the viewer react to the situations before them
– we scream, jump, and run out of theaters because it makes us, as humans, feel
alive and escape reality for an hour and a half or more – and after all, isn’t
that what good literature and film are intended to do?
Tamara Valencia
Genre
“Offerings of Romance”
Whether referring to music,
fine arts, poetry, literature, and the like, we tend to categorize artistic
undertakings in particular forms-in regards to technique and what is contained
within a work. As
Andrew Feith in ‘”Genre
and “Crime Romance”’
suggests, the best way to distinguish
different works as a particular genre is in
questioning, setting, plot, conflict, and characterizations, which are elements
of subject genre.
What about form and narrative genre? Form
suggests a particular shape or order of words as one might recognize in the
poetry of authors such as Keats or Poe. Narrative though, contains the features
of comedy, satire, tragedy, and romance. Conviction asserts that a work contain
but one feature, but as our web source suggests, genres are known to live “out
of the box” and in each other’s boxes, if you will, for this is wherein the
imaginative flow lies. Ah, perhaps I digress, or perhaps not? Even Keats’ and
Poe’s prose hold rudiments of the subjective, and narrative such as gothic
tragedy. Both authors are known as romance authors. To return, my focus is on
romance, all forms of literary romance but particularly gothic romance.
The author Charlotte Bronte
comes to mind, with a favorite book of mine,
Jane Eyre. A familiar, I would think,
to literary scholars such as we have acquaintance in our class. I would suffice
to say that Jane Eyre is a Gothic Romance novel, containing the dark and
ghostly, the sublime, a Byronic hero, and a hero’s quest, a feminine hero’s
quest. Of course, this adds a feminist spin to the novel as is well analyzed in
the literary world. Jane’s quest for
autonomy within her era and within her romance with Rochester is in the least of
explanations, admirable.
The novel completely falls within the
romantic notions of gothic romance, but I also see representations of the
Dionysian impulse, and Apollonian restrictiveness, and rigidity within the
characterizations of the Reeds at Gateshead House, the school caretakers, and
within Jane and Rochester themselves, who resolve their internal conflicts
enabling them to unite in the end.
Back to Jane’s quest for love and married
life. As a romantic narrative, the action
in Jane Eyre is taking place as a personal transformation and a journey across
class lines (course webpage). She goes to Rochester’s estate Thornfield as a
governess to the child Adele.
As
her character develops within the novel, she is on a journey of discovery. We
can use Nietzsche’s “Birth of Tragedy” and his analysis of the Dionysian and
Apollonian to describe the internal struggle and ultimate transcendence of Jane
Eyre. Jane is on a personal journey
in which she refuses to release herself to her Dionysian wanton. One where her
Apollonian reason and individualism, hold her with her wits about her, enabling
Jane to have the object of her desire, and hold onto her feminine anonymity.
With the Dionysian and
apollonian influences and resolution of internal conflicts, the journey of
discovery, underlying notes of doom, despair, sadness, and mistreatment of Jane
throughout the novel, as well as the personal transformation of Jane and the
transcendence into the life she desired with Rochester, Jane Eyre is the
embodiment of the Gothic Romance, but as Dr. White points out on our website,
genres overlap and cross each other bringing a romance narrative, gothic
romance, tragedy and the sublime.
Victoria Webb
Mixing Genres
Most, if not all people, have asked or have been asked the question
“Well, what type of movie/book was it? What is the genre?” and now the receiving
end of that question is forced to recollect all the events throughout the piece
of work and explain things such as “Well, it was definitely a thriller, but
there was a bit of romance between two characters. I would even say this one
part was scary. Now that I’m thinking about it, there was a bit of mystery to
the plot”. Well, what is the genre? A common fallacy is that genres are like
sorting boxes that every piece of art, whether it is literature, play, or movie,
must fit into; this is simply not the case. Dr. White tells his students not to
think of genre “as a box to put a work of art in, but a yardstick to measure it
by” (White, Genre notes, 2015). When we stop looking at genres like primary
colors, and begin to mix them together, we create a brilliant spectrum of
genres.
While staying away from purely defining tragedy, it has already been seen
in some of the material viewed in class, that other genres make its way into
works that are classically defined as “tragedy”. One of the first plays
discussed in class was the play The
Oresteia
Agamemnon, and while traditionally
this play is known as a tragic play, there were clearly aspects of comedy. While
times have changed and our new definition of comedy doesn’t necessarily mean the
same thing, there are still aspects of this genre that remain constant by
today’s modern opinion. Classical comedy, as defined by Dr. White in his page
over Aristotle’s
Poetics, like tragedy, is an imitation of man. However, Aristotle
believes it differs from tragedy in the way that it is a lower form of
imitation; it “consists in some defect or ugliness which is not painful or
destructive” (Aristotle’s
Poetics, 2015). We can gather from
this information that comedy means ugliness but without the implications of
actual pain to the characters.
Diving a little further into the genre of comedy, we see that it contains what
is called “high humor” and “low humor” (White, Comedy notes 2015). Low humor is
categorized by its physical qualities, and high humor by its intellectual
qualities. Dr. White explains that wit is a form of high humor; wit is defined
as “quickness of intellect or liveliness of fancy” (White, Wit & Humor + Dark
Humor, 2015). Now having defined comedy and its forms, we can analyze whether or
not tragedies such as Agamemnon, would
contain comedy and for what reasons. For example, the low class guard in the
beginning of the play, is comedic. While he is not cracking jokes or witty, he
is an exaggeration of ignorance, which gives the audience a break from the
seriousness of the tragedy (see Agamemnon,
lines 39-42).
This example of two genres mixing together in order to form a
multidimensional piece of art, gives us a brief introduction into common
occurrence of the intermingling of genres. As Dr. White states, “there are no
pure genres” (White, Genres notes, 2015). In order to classify a genre, you must
look for three things: the subject or “audience appeal” of said work; the form,
meaning “the types and numbers of ‘voices’ involved in the genre”; and the
narrative, which is the “type of story” being told (White, Genre notes, 2015).
Understanding that there are no pure genres and that there may be a bit of wit
mixed into a tragedy or even a bit of romance mixed into an action movie, allows
us as the viewers or readers to appreciate the way each work together to create
a work of art.
Emilie White
February 23, 2015
Horror: It’s a
Horrifying World Full of Suspense, Blood, Monsters, and…Romance?
The use of genres is an attempt to classify and categorize the arts. The
most common types of art to divide into genres are movies, music, books, and
plays. One of my favorite genres of movies is horror. As we’ve discussed in
class, there are “no pure genres.” This is true even for horror movies. In the
most current remake of the film,
The Last
House On the Left, a girl’s parents take revenge on the group of people that
assaulted and attempted to murder their daughter. This horror movie is full of
blood and gore, but there’s also a romance narrative with the storyline of
revenge. Revenge is also the focus in
The
Libation Bearers as Electra and Orestes plot to kill their mother to get
back at her for killing their father, Agamemnon.
Most horror movies exhaust their story with as much blood and gore as
they possibly can. But, the genre horror is too broad. There’s a wide range of
horror movies. Some focus entirely on showing as much blood and gore as possible
that the underlying story is either non-existent, or it makes no sense at all.
Others are more storyline based with a focus of playing off of the audience’s
fears and expectations. Movies like
Paranormal Activity, The Others, and
The Woman in Black don’t even contain any bloody scenes and don’t rely on
having visible monsters throughout the film. The majority of the movie is
suspenseful and gets the mind working to make the audience’s adrenaline pump and
make them jump while never actually showing them what they seem to fear.
Sometimes the unexplained phenomena is worse than seeing a monster.
While many horror movies have an underlying theme of revenge, and most
ends with a clear resolution or a character’s transcendence, they are far from
being considered romances. Many horror films have a clear storyline of revenge.
Sometimes the monster is looking for revenge, like in the
Friday the 13th series,
other times the other characters are looking to protect and avenge something
done to their friends or loved ones, like in
The House on Haunted Hill. Either way, the genre of horror is
definitely one that mixes stories from other genres into its plots and
storylines.
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