Aleksandra Kołodziej

Genre hybrids

Genre is a French word meaning ‘type’ or ‘kind’. Film Genre is the classification of a
film into a type, category or form. We can talk about Genre if a group of films have an
analogical structure, pattern or conventions that can be easily recognized and that include at
least one of the following: themes, plot, styles, recurring icons, mood, settings, characters,
subject matter and content. The concept of Genre is very significant. People very often (if not
always) pay attention to the genre of a film they want to watch. Affinity to the specific genre
frequently decides if the film is worth watching. Genre can be seen as a kind of a code that is
used by an author of a film to communicate with audience, so that audience is informed what to
expect.

Even though there is no such thing as one complete list, we can distinguish some main
Genres: Action movie – mainly physical action are shown as opposed to dialogue. The action
usually involves individual efforts of the hero; Adult movie – (pornography) presentation of
explicit sexual subject matter; Adventure movie- shows travels, conquests, explorations,
struggles, similar to the action movie but mostly without violence; Biography – presents and
adapts the life of an actual person or people; Comedy – designed to entertain, amuse and make
the audience laugh; Gangster movie – shows baleful actions of criminals, murders;
Documentary movie – non-fiction film that presents reality; Drama – serious presentation of
characters and life situations; Family movie – premeditated to be appropriate for all age groups,
families; Horror movie – made to frighten and appeal audience fears, usually with terrifying
final; Musical – shows the stories using songs, dance scenes and choreography; Romance movie
– the central plot is about the romantic involvement of the main characters; Sci-Fi movie – story
set in other worlds or involving aliens or other imaginary creatures, usually there are some real
elements; Thriller – made to invoke thrill, uncertainty and to keep audience in suspense during
the whole film until the climax; War movie – presents subjects connected with sea, land or air
battles and war; Western – stories set in the second half of the 19th century usually in Western
America (Wild West), shows cowboys and society life of that time.

Every film have at least one major genre, but there are number of films that are
considered Genre hybrids combining three or four genre (or sub-genre) types or attributes from
several different genre backgrounds that identify them. Today its getting harder to assign film
Genre. In the case of contemporary films it is not easy to certainly say which Genre they
represent. Sometimes we can even notice that some films are connected with a specific Genre as
if by force, which is unnecessary because audience usually consider Genre hybrids as more
appealing and interesting. Actually in most cases films represent a “genre hybrid” and it is
important to remember that genres are evolving all the time and are not fixed entities. It happens
more often that the frontiers between genres become blurred. For last several years elements
that distinguish genres became more floating and flexible. Subject, plot, characters, narrations,
scenery and settings in lot of films do not belong to one kind of genre. There are too many
examples of such productions to name all of them, but in some films it is particularly
noticeable. Like in “Mulholland Drive” by David Lynch (and some other films of this director)
horror film, drama and thriller are combined and any film feature cannot define one specific
genre. While watching, the audience can only sense the atmosphere of each genre but cannot be
sure if what they see is horror, thriller or drama film because the plot, narration, scenery,
characters are not assigned to one genre. As it can be seen it happens that one director is often
associated with specific kind of films, even if his productions cannot be easily connected with
one genre. We can say that they specializes in hybrid genre.

Quentin Tarantino is an accurate example of such director. His film “Pulp Fiction”
(1994) is undoubtedly one of hybrid genre films. Although it is very often described as
Gangster film (which is the main genre here), it has also elements of a Thriller, Drama, Crime,
Action, Mystery and Black Comedy. This first Genre – Gangster film was initiated by political
events. Law (prohibition, big crisis) caused increase in crime in the USA and this made
gangsters public life heroes – they were on the first pages of newspapers, than Gangster films
started to be popular. Usually Gangster film shows crimes, murders and violence in some kind
of tactful, considerate way. In “Pulp Fiction” Tarantino is presenting typical stories of gangsters
but not in a typical way. Example of a perfect genre mix in “Pulp Fiction” is the very first scene
where a couple is sitting in a coffee shop, drinking coffee and talking about robberies. Suddenly
they decide to rob this restaurant. And it would have been quite normal scene in the Gangster
movie if they would not call themselves “Honey Bunny” and “Pumpkin” which makes the
audience laugh.

Next scene presents two men in the car, wearing suits, talking for a quite long moment
about differences between American and Europe food. As they stop the car, get out of it and
take big guns out of the trunk we start thinking that they are not just some normal guys. But
then they are walking to the building, having quite long chat about women and foot massage,
and we wonder who are they? Finally they get into a flat, talk to three boys who were eating
breakfast, they again talk about food and kill guys in this flat. They are calm and it seems as if
killing people does not make any impression on them. In a regular Gangster movie it would all
look completely different. Probably this two hit men would not talk about such plain things as
food or massages. They would have kill these people immediately and while killing them, there
would be very big noise, camera would not stay in one place, film frames would be dynamic,
and the whole scene of a murder would not look as if killing is an ordinary thing. This is how
Tarantino is playing with genre. He shows, what normally is not shown in Gangster movies. But
how do we know if this moments are not real? Most of us have only seen crime like murder in
the film. In Gangster films such scenes are overdrawn. Maybe what Tarantino shows us is a
perfectly normal behavior or maybe it is only mixing Gangster film with Black Comedy?

It is obvious that “Pulp Fiction” is somehow a Adult movie because of its language (lot
of swearwords), references to sex, drugs, and crimes. It is Thriller because the audience can
never know what to expect in the next scene, we wait in suspense to find out how the stories in
film are going to finish. There are elements of Drama, when we watch and hear the story of
characters shown in a serious way. And of course it is Comedy, because scenes are interlaced
with ridiculous dialogues, music and pictures.

I believe that restricting film to one specific genre can cause it to be monotonous, trivial
and rather boring. Hence, having a hybrid genre breaks the monotony and enables authors to use
their imagination in wider range. The scenes of Pulp Fiction, as well as the characters, settings
and plot of the film fit the hybrid genre perfectly. Audience is able to watch the film from a few
different perspectives, without any prejudice by seeing the title or genre. The fact that most of
Tarantino films are hybrids, enables him not to restrict himself to one kind of films and to do as
much as he wants with a style of his productions and that makes them extraordinary and unique.
That is why the fact that hybrid films came into the existence should be treated as something
positive. I think that audience’s habits, history and days we live in decide of the popularity of
every genre. That is why some genres have almost disappeared, while other (like hybrid genre)
became more popular. It can also be considered that present events shape film industry. We
have instant access to almost all information from all over the world, we know about so many
occurrences and we want to see as many things on the big screen. Therefore, movie makers
have to adapt to our expectations and make films that would contain different styles at the same
time. Or maybe hybrid genres arose because we live in a society where time is something we do
not have enough and we like fast things: fast food, fast dating, ‘fast slim’ and fast reading. Not
to waste our precious time we listen to books on mp3 while our ‘abgymnic’ belt shapes our
muscles and we can vacuum at the same time. Maybe that is why people like hybrid films
because they are ‘all in one’, and we can watch comedy, thriller, crime story and romance
simultaneously. It is time saving.

But film Genre cannot fall completely because even if all boundaries between genres
would fade away, new classification criteria would be established. For example, like I said
before some producers can be associated with specific kind of films. His style can be seen in
similar characters, recurring settings or icons. We can say “I like Tarantino” and it does not
mean that ‘I like Quentin Tarantino as a person” but it means that I like his movies, his style.
His typical genre. The same we can say about Lynch or Coen brothers. In case of such
producers we can maybe even talk about their own genres.

Genre hybrids are probably one of the most universal genres because such films can be
watched by people who are not oriented on one kind of movies. Hybrids shows that film do not
have to be made in one style and it can be perfect alternative for those who would like too
experience more diverse emotions during one film.

Bibliography:

• ‘What is Genre?’. Ben Paulley.

<http://www.benpaulley.co.uk/sections/teaching/default.htm>
• ‘Studying Genre’. <http://www.digitalfilmarchive.net/clda/docs/StudyingGenre.pdf>
· ‘Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction’. Keira7. 30 Jan 2010.
<http://hubpages.com/hub/tarantinopulpfiction>
• ‘Gatunek filmowy. Zmierzch czy nowe oblicze?’. Kamil Brade. 06 Feb 2009
<http://www.legniczanin.pl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=519:gatu
nek-filmowy-zmierzch-czy-nowe-oblicze&catid=80:kultura&Itemid=77>
• ‘Crime and Gangster Films’ <http://www.filmsite.org/crimefilms.html>
• ‘Main Film Genres’. Tim Dirks. <http://www.filmsite.org/filmgenres.html>