Genre in Media

The word genre is originally derived from the Latin language literally translated it mean "kind" or "group". Although the word originally comes from Latin it was actually the French that took the word and developed it into the word we can define today. The French used the word as a way to categorize their different types of entertainment such as; Books, Plays and Music. The genre something is in is determined by certain criteria That makes them a specific type of whatever type of entertainment you are viewing/listening to/reading. In film these are usually based on themes that are displayed in the media product. Sometimes Media institutions can fir more than one genre in a media product, these create Hybrid Genres, the most popular hybrid genre is RomCom which is a combination of the genres Romantic and Comedy.

An example of a genre is "Thriller". Thrillers heavily stimulate the viewer's moods, giving them a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, surprise, anxiety and terror. Films of this genre tend to be adrenaline-rushing, gritty, rousing and fast-paced. 

An example of a thriller film is "Inception", released in 2010 and directed by Christopher Nolan. This movie falls into the thriller genre because it includes a few characteristics that a thriller movie must have, for example the film inception includes themes such as a lone protagonist (Leonardo  DiCaprio) and a controversial ending with which there could be a lot of debating on what actually happened.

Another genre that is often targeted in Hollywood is the "Comedy" genre, this includes films like "The Mask", "Bruce Almighty" and "Kevin and Perry Go Large". There are many different type of comedy, one type of comedy is called slapstick humour, Slapstick is the recurse to humour involving exaggerated physical activity which exceeds the boundaries of common sense. This is included in the film The Mask. Here is a scene from that film which I would put in the category slapstick humour

Comedy films also achieve their goal of being funny through subversive depictions of characters.


The genre Horror is a genre that's main aim is to be seen as scary to the viewer. An example of a horror film is the film "SAW" this film achieves its target of being scary through blood, gore and extreme violence