Summary
Contents
Subject index
Witty and accessible, Popular Culture Genres is a fascinating study of genres and genre criticism. Author Arthur Asa Berger empowers readers to make their own analysis by providing the methods and examples of good criticism. Part I deals with genres from a critical perspective, asking questions such as: How do the conventions of different genres affect the creation and production of texts and the audiences of those texts? Do certain genres have significant social and political implications? And, how do genres evolve? Part II takes a look at five “classic” popular texts (in both their novel and film versions). Viewing these works in the context of their respective genres is not only instructive in nature but captivating reading as well.
Theories
Genre study in film is based on the realization that certain popular narrative forms have both cultural and universal roots, that the Western of today is related to archetypes of the past 200 years in the United States and to the folk tale and the myth. A major value in examining particular genres of film is in discovering what elements we are responding to. An examination of what in a form makes it popular, makes it survive, relates it to forms that exist before it, informs us about what there is in film to which we respond.
The argument that people go to films simply for entertainment is fine, as far as it goes, but it does not answer the questions of why certain ...
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