Genre

Genre has been my favorite portion of this course. I find it fascinating that human-kind has been so hell-bent on labeling, categorizing, and boxing up every section of their lives that genre has become so vital to how people function. For example, Netflix records that I am watching “romance” and “teenage” movies and television shows, and knows that the defining characteristics of those shows will help me find another movie that I will enjoy.

Personally, I really like the idea that there is no such thing as one “clean” genre that everything has more than one mode occurring. In class I used the example of the novel and broke it down into a few different genres within the large label of “novel”.

Within a novel you might find that you have the:

• ·         Front Cover
• ·         Title page
• ·         Page dedicated to other titles by author’
• ·         Copy right pages
• ·         Acknowledgements
• ·         Contents page
• ·          Introduction
• ·         The novel
• ·         Next novel promotion

I am arguing that all of bullet points are each their own genre of=r category that build up a novel, yet the novel itself is considered a genre. I don’t believe in one clean genre that isn’t multimodal in one way or another.

In class we discussed “the introduction” as a genre, especially how different publishers will have different introductions to the novels. Some introductions are written by the author, but more often introductions are written by others who have read and critiqued the piece. From what I have seen many of the introductions written by others, the novels have been from classics like Beowulf or Dante’s inferno.

 The introduction for Modern Mephistopheles, for example, was written for L. Allcot. The introduction gave some pretty clear distinctions as to what the author was like as well as what happened in the novel. If I had read it first it would have influenced how I read the novel. For fun I took a look at one of my favorite author’s introductions to her novel. (keep in mind that this author writes science fiction)

In all of her novels Patricia Brigs writes her own introduction to the piece. It’s always short sweet and to the point. This novel has been different then most, as explained in the introduction, the short stories are placed in the world of her most popular series, but not the series itself (although the cover claims to be a part of the series). I feel like there is a lot that you can see in this introduction that is different than most. As said in class “an introduction says more about the writer of the introduction then the novel itself”, and I completely agree. In this short and to the point piece, Briggs shows that she is concerned about the impact that these stories might have on a reader that was hoping for another Mercy Tomspon story (not everyone but her). She also explains any possibly troubling or time confusing pieces within the collection of short stories. Underneath all those words I feel like the author is trying to explain her intentions in creating a piece, this is new for P. Briggs to address. When she says “Short stories have allowed me to explore Mercy’s world from different perspectives…the books could not”, Briggs is addressing the fact that she might be breaking out of her standard mold and is aware that it might offend some readers. What I find interesting about Briggs explaining her intentions in the novel being created versus any of the other introductions I have read that were written by someone other than the author of the piece is that she didn’t attempt to influence the content of the novel either.

THE UNITED STATES OF TARA:

So I’m not going to lie, this television show terrified me. It terrified me to the point that I cannot actually say that my eyes witnessed all of the “important” moments of the piece. I found myself asking what about this piece was so “shocking” that I found myself embarrassed to be watching it. I think that I discovered that watching this television show in public (Renne Library, with Cherise, to be exact) was a part of the shock of the show. On the other hand, I think that the real reason that this show terrified me was because the grotesque addressing of serious issues bugged who I am as a reader and watcher of the television series.

AS IT PERTAINS TO GENRE:

I thought that the interesting part about this piece was that it seemed so genre-less. On the other hand, it has been classified as an “American television comedy-drama” by Wikipedia. I can see why it has been classified as comedy and drama but I feel like there are moments where this show does so much more than that. For example in the pilot when Tara beats up her daughter’s boyfriend, I found myself cheering for Tara because the punk had been beating up on her kid. (that is just so not OK!). That moment when I wanted to give Tara’s alter ego a high-five it hit me how twisted it was that I thought a grown up woman hitting on a 16 year-old boy was okay. I felt like that moment in the movie really drew out what kind of moral values (or flaws) I have by what I was willing to “be okay” with a person doing. (although I found it so unrealistic that there weren’t any repercussions for Tara on that end)