Essays
CLASSIFICATION ON MOVIE
Going to the cinema has been one of the most popular leisure activities of modern youth. With higher living standard and more disposable income, more and more people can afford going to the cinema on a monthly or even weekly basis. Therefore, it is reasonable for more and more movies made every year. According to Theatrical Market Statistic in 2011, the number of movies released in 2011 has increased to 610 compared to 475 in 2002. This also means that audiences have more choices. With the vast amount of movie reviews and trailers available on the internet, viewers can almost find any movies of their own interest instantly by considering different criteria: their physical effect, setting, and target audience.
Williams (2003, as cited in Grant, 2007) stated that melodrama, horror, and porn are “body genres” because they all have certain effects on human physical state. As explained by Grant (2007), melodrama can make audiences cry by exagerated tragedies; horror can elicit screams, chills, goosebump, sweating, and other symptoms of fear; and porn can cause arousal. Whitlock (2011) pointed out that some kinds of melodramatic plays resemble particular types of movies nowadays:
Domestic melodrama vs. Soap Operas
Frontier melodrama vs Westerns
Crime melodrama vs. Cop dramas
Nautical melodrama vs. Pirate films
In addition, horror also has several sub-genres such as comedy-horror, slasher (with a lot of explicit killing scenes), supernatural-horror (ghosts, zombies, super powers, possession), and urban legend (modern folklore, haunted house) (unknown, 2012, Heather, 2013). Finally, porn can be classified base on the exposure of sexual content from soft-core to hard-core. Depending on what kind of experience they would like, the viewers can choose movies to watch accordingly.
The second criterion for movie classification is the setting. Script writers’ imagination never ceased to amaze us on numorous distinguish backgrounds such as the
Going to the cinema has been one of the most popular leisure activities of modern youth. With higher living standard and more disposable income, more and more people can afford going to the cinema on a monthly or even weekly basis. Therefore, it is reasonable for more and more movies made every year. According to Theatrical Market Statistic in 2011, the number of movies released in 2011 has increased to 610 compared to 475 in 2002. This also means that audiences have more choices. With the vast amount of movie reviews and trailers available on the internet, viewers can almost find any movies of their own interest instantly by considering different criteria: their physical effect, setting, and target audience.
Williams (2003, as cited in Grant, 2007) stated that melodrama, horror, and porn are “body genres” because they all have certain effects on human physical state. As explained by Grant (2007), melodrama can make audiences cry by exagerated tragedies; horror can elicit screams, chills, goosebump, sweating, and other symptoms of fear; and porn can cause arousal. Whitlock (2011) pointed out that some kinds of melodramatic plays resemble particular types of movies nowadays:
Domestic melodrama vs. Soap Operas
Frontier melodrama vs Westerns
Crime melodrama vs. Cop dramas
Nautical melodrama vs. Pirate films
In addition, horror also has several sub-genres such as comedy-horror, slasher (with a lot of explicit killing scenes), supernatural-horror (ghosts, zombies, super powers, possession), and urban legend (modern folklore, haunted house) (unknown, 2012, Heather, 2013). Finally, porn can be classified base on the exposure of sexual content from soft-core to hard-core. Depending on what kind of experience they would like, the viewers can choose movies to watch accordingly.
The second criterion for movie classification is the setting. Script writers’ imagination never ceased to amaze us on numorous distinguish backgrounds such as the
References: BBFC The Guidelines. (2009, Jun.). Retrieved Jan. 9th, 2013, from British Board of Film Classification: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/BBFC%20Classification%20Guidelines%202009.pdf Grant, B. K. (2007). Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology. London: Wallflower Press. Heather. (2013). Best Types of Horror Movies. Retrieved Jan. 9th, 2013, from The Top Tens: http://www.the-top-tens.com/lists/scariest-types-horror-movies.asp Theatrical Market Statistic 2011. (2011). Retrieved Jan. 9th, 2013, from Motion Picture Association of America: http://www.mpaa.org/resources/5bec4ac9-a95e-443b-987b-bff6fb5455a9.pdf unknown. (2012). Horror. Retrieved Jan. 9th, 2013, from The Script Lab: http://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/horror Whitlock. (2011). Melodrama. Retrieved Jan. 9th, 2013, from CSU Chico: http://myweb.csuchico.edu/~klwhitlock/TEXT/Melodrama/melodrama.html Williams, L. (1991). Film bodies: Gender,Genre, and Excess. Film Quarterly , 44, 2-13.