Genre: The Conventions of Connection by Leo Essay

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Genre: The Conventions of Connection" by Leo Braudy is a bold and well-written article which acknowledges how too often in film theory and criticism, genre films are dismissed as fluff and all-together one-dimensional pieces of art. Braudy makes a strong case for genre films explaining how they actually represent intricate subversions or indictments of reality and he uses specific examples from westerns or musicals to support his case.

Braudy acknowledges that one of the reasons that genre films are so staunchly criticized is because they appeal to a pre-existing audience, whereas classic films have no such audience (435). But the basis of their criticism doesn't stop there: "Genre films offend our most common definition of artistic excellence: the uniqueness of the art object, whose value can in part be defined by its desire to be uncaused and unfamiliar, as much as possible unindebted to any tradition, popular or otherwise. The pure image, the clear personal style, the intellectually responsible content are contrasted with the impurities of convention, the repetitions of character and plot" (435). Gaudy uses this and other oft-cited reasons to explain why genre films are so often dismissed and relegated as inconsequential to the artistic experience. Many critics consider them to not be art at all, because of their inherent lack of originality and because of a particular predictability that these films appear to have. There's a formulaic quality that genre films are often accused of possessing and this sense of formula gets them criticized as often not being forms of art or not considered in the same class or league as other more serious films.

As Gaudy explains, critics harp on genre films for lacking a certain level of uniqueness; however Gaudy makes a strong case for explaining how such a contention isn't actually a valid reason for dismissing a film. "But why should art be restricted only to works of self-contained intensity, while many other kinds of artistic experience are relegated to the closet of aesthetic pleasure, unfit for the daylight? Genre films, in fact, arouse and complicate feelings about the self and society that more serious films, because of their bias toward the unique, may rarely touch" (Gaudy, 436). Here Gaudy makes a truly crucial argument in defense of genre films: they don't constrict themselves towards or away from certain subjects.

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In that regard, genre films are less restrictive than other more "serious" types of art. A genre film doesn't have the fear in proposing or posing its relationship to certain subjects; it thus has a greater level of liberty with what it creates and how it is able to interact with the world and the human condition.

Later on in this essay, Braudy explores the origins of where the bias against genre films and the heightened levels of distaste for them generally originate. Braudy cites the aesthetic theories of the romantic period as being largely responsible for this contemporary prejudice against such films (436). Within these aesthetic theories, as Braudy explains, the true artists was considered to be one who was unconventional, and who struggled on the edges of society and existence, trying to make his or her work unique so that it escapes "the dead hand of traditional form" (437). Braudy explains how such modes of thinking are ultimately fraudulent because art can't help but have some sort of relationship with the past either through "contrast or continuation" (437). In this sense, Braudy is able to shatter the commonly held illusions about art and time: Braudy is essentially saying that all art is in fact a product of its time, and that it simply can't help in being that. To allege that….....

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