This week we’ve spent a lot of time talking about genre, and its relation both to our focus of world and to the more general storytelling technique and the plots it produces. During our discussion on definitions of genre on Thursday, Stayci mentioned a theorist by the name of Blake Snyder who dismissed the idea of genre as they don’t actually tell you what a film is about, what happens in the story. Instead, he suggested the concept of 10 story types, which are essentially semi-formulaic tropes that span across genres. The Golden Fleece story type, for example, chronicles the quest for a clearly defined prize, physical or otherwise, that is hard to achieve, and follows our character/s on a journey of self-discovery and internal change. The Fool Triumphant, in contrast, pits an underdog character of seemingly poor character/skills (pathetic, you might call them) pitted against and eventually triumphing over the establishment.

When thinking about what we discussed regarding genre this week, I felt that many of the films we put in specific genres or grouped together were often only cosmetically similar. The setting of their world/story was very similar, similar character cropped up again and again and even filming techniques, colouring and soundtrack recurred between films of a particular genre. I particular found the definitions in Dancyger and Rush (2013) problematic as although generally what they said about films of particular genres was true, you couldn’t envision a particular story just by reading their descriptions. Everything was very vague and gave you no sense of what the plot of a film might look like.

I found Snyder’s story types very interesting because upon reading them I could instantly a) imagine what sort of story they were referring to and b) recall dozens of films I’d seen that fit that story type, despite the individual story types seeming very specific. This is what I think is so powerful about them for describing story rather than traditional understandings of genre; despite their specificity, they’re instantly recognisable and salient to almost every (mainstream) film. For example, two particular films came to mind when I was reading about the Golden Fleece story type: O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2004) and Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle (2004). The former is very explicitly a version of Homer’s Odyssey, and thus it’s no surprise that it borrows story elements from the Greek myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece. However, to call O Brother an epic or an adventure would be incorrect; although it mimics the schemes of these genres at times, it is more of a comedy and period satire than anything else. These terms don’t capture what the film is really about; however, if you frame it in terms of the Golden Fleece, you gain a much clearer idea of what actually goes on in Coen brothers’ film. Harold & Kumar is even further from what you’d imagine a Golden Fleece tale to look like; one can safely say that it is a stoner comedy. However, it features two protagonists (Harold and Kumar) on both a physical quest for a known goal (White Castle) and a mental journey of self-discovery (what they want to do with their lives), throughout which they face a variety of obstacles which they must overcome (the police, their family, their neighbours, Neil Patrick Harris, being high). Despite the Golden Fleece seemingly being a story type most commonly ascribed to adventures and epics, it is actually one of the most common story types in stoner comedy (Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny, Pineapple Express, Dude Where’s My Car?, Friday etc.)

However, there is one thing that these story types seem to lack, which, despite how interesting and useful they are to screenwriting in general, is the most important thing to our practice this semester: because they can encompass so many different stories, they rarely can tell you what sort of world said story will take place in. Because the Golden Fleece can be used to describe an historical epic, a modern-day adventure or a film about two dudes smoking weed, it means it can’t be used to indicate what sort of world this journey will take place in. However, personally I am able to imagine elements that are in many ways unique to the world (setting, tone, logic, pacing, history) when I hear a genre. If something is science fiction, 90% of the time it’s going to be set in space, the future or have some brush with extraterrestrials or advanced technology. If something is noir, it’s going to sombre, pessimistic and feature lots of rain and dark colours. Genre should be used as a basic template for the world we want to create; however, when we get into the specifics of our characters and story, I believe story types are a lot more useful.