Film Genre vs. Genre Film

I thought this article was interesting because it covered a generally well-known topic but put it in a different perspective. Initially, I was getting confused between the two terms because they can so easily be interchanged. I found myself losing my train of thought forgetting what each was. However, what I gathered from the article is that film genre and genre film are proved to be two different components of film by Schatz. In order to understand what we originally thought to be film genre, I thought Schatz’s analogy of language was interesting and useful. He explains, “As a system, English grammar is not meaningful either historically or in socially specific terms. It is manipulated by a speaker to make meaning. A film genre, conversely, has come into being precisely because of its cultural significance as a meaningful narrative system…a genre film represents an effort to reorganize a familiar, meaningful system in an original way” (693). In other words, although there are static aspects of film, there are elements that allow us to renegotiate the generic guidelines of what we consider to be film genre. One aspect of his argument that I found to be clear and one that I was able to make sense of was his discussion on how film genres are constantly refined depending on the social context or events that were occurring the time the film came out. Different social contexts or technological advances can change how audiences view a film. I was able to understand this point because I related it to Bordwell and Thompson’s definition of symptomatic meaning.