Gender and Popular Fiction - Movie Review Example

A PROPOSAL FOR A DETECTIVE GENRE FICTION Rationale This paper aims to demonstrate an explicit knowledge of genre conventions and how they may be adapted in order to invite critical reflection on gender and change. This objective is compelled by a necessity to use fiction as an avenue for reflection on gender and change, alongside potential modification of gender perceptions. The innovations made for this attempt in terms of the reader are tackling a gender issue through fiction and attacking gender-based paradigms that offer a shift of perception. For the market, coordinating with gender-based non-profit organizations for the sale of this fiction will help alongside utilizing the mainstream market. Genre: Understanding Its Nature The word "genre" comes from the French ( which was originally Latin) word for "class" or "kind" which is widely used in literary and media theory, rhetoric, and even linguistics referring to a distinctive type of text (Chandler, n.d.). It is generally an abstract conception rather than something that exists empirically in the world (Feuer 1992). Genre has mainly typological functions and its principal task is to divide the world of literature into classes, naming each of the types the same way as a botanist divides the realm of plants into variations in order to classify them. It should be noted that ever since the classical times, literary works have already been classified into belonging to certain general types. This is seen in literature whose broadest division is between poetry, prose, and drama, within which further divisions are recognized, such as comedy and tragedy within the realm of drama. Shakespeare has initially referred to these classifications as tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, historical-pastoral, pastoral-comical, tragical-historical, and so on (Chandler, n.d). Frye (1957) presented certain universal genres as key in understanding the entire literary body. Today's media genres are inclined towards relating more to specific forms rather than to the universality of tragedy and comedy. Contemporary films may be termed as routinely classified as "Asian," "Westerns," "thrillers," - genres which every household in modern society is familiar with. The same goes with television genres such as "sitcoms," "soap operas," and "game shows." Fowler (1989) claims that while we designate several genres to a various media realms, there are however many genres and sub-genres for which we have no names. It is suggested that the more complex the society is, the more genres may be found hitherto, thereby saying that the number of genres in a society depends on the complexity and diversity of that society (Miller 1984). Genre exists only as far as a social group enforces the rules that constitute them, signifying the primary role which society plays in the existence and abundance of genres ( Hodge and Gunther 1988). Derrida argued that it is impossible to produce texts that bear no relationship at all to established genres, since a text cannot be without a genre and that there is no genre-less text in the first place (Derrida 1981). To say that the hierarchical taxonomy of genres is an objective procedure may imply falsehood, since there are no specific "maps" of the system of genres in any contextual medium. Further, theoretical disagreements about the definition of specific genres also exist. It goes on to say that one theorist's genre may be a sub-genre or even super-genre to another, a case ultimately determined by how technique, style, mode, or thematic groupings are applied. Themes, however are inadequate as compared to techniques and style in determining genres, since any genre may have a theme (Bordwell 1989). Knowing whether animation and documentary films are genres or modes pertain to this concern, and if slapstick is a genre or a formula used in movies. Some genres that may be found in films are grouping by period or country (British films of the 50s), by actor, director, producer, studio, series, style (silent movie), structure (narrative), purpose (to entertain, etc.), audience (adults only), subject or theme (politics film, general patronage movies) (ibid). Robert Stam (2000) has his own way of categorizing films, pointing out that other genres are borrowed from literature such as comedy and melodrama or from another medium such as the musical. Some are categorized according to budget, performer, artistic status, location, or racial identity (i.e. Black cinema). It is said that there are no means by which to mark off genres, neither a sufficient condition that experts or ordinary filmgoers may find acceptable (Bordwell 1989). Since practitioners and the general public have their own perceived set of genre labels apart from the others, a query of whose genre is it anyway is significant to be posed (Chandler, n.d.). In this regard, Stam identifies problems with film-related generic labels, such as extension, (narrowness of labels), normativism (possession of preconceived ideas or criteria), monolithic (belonging to only one genre), and biologism (evolving in a standardized life cycle). Stam furthered than subject matter is the weakest criterion of genres, since how the subject is treated is not given attention by this criterion. Hence, Andrew Tudor (1974) calls this fundamental problem of film-related genre identification as the "empiricist dilemma." Adding to this is that it is often easy to find texts that are exceptions of a particular genre since there are no rigid rules of inclusion and exclusion. This would explain why audiences might tend to watch the same narrative over and over, since how they may perceive a particular contextual meaning or criterion in one phase may not bear the same genre perception the next time they saw such narrative. This is because it is difficult to make clear-cut distinctions from one genre to another, as genres may tend to overlap and there is no single genre present in a film theme such as comedy-thrillers (i.e. Scary Movie). However, genres require a certain relative prominence that is distinctive from the rest; since difference is an absolute necessity to the economy of genre, as mere repetition would not attract audiences (Neale 1980). A Detective Fiction Proposal The genre used for this fiction is a detective fiction, which is a branch of crime fiction centered on the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective. Commonly, in this fiction, the investigator has a less able assistant who acts as his/her audience surrogate. The genre of this fiction is apparently a detective one. This is however centered on gender issues as what is required in this paper. The genre of this fiction is thus a detective genre with some underlying gender issues indicating an imposed inequality between the genders. The proposal for a detective fiction must be centered on issues about gender as it should exhibit and invite critical reflection on gender and change. It will show power struggle between a woman and a man and/or a woman and her social environment in a detective career, which made her decide to be the direction of her career due to her interest in it. The fiction proposed in this paper is a detective film of which the detective is a female (Andrea) with a male assistant named Leo. Andrea is a female detective of Powers Detective Agency, which she owns. She left the police force as Lt. Andrea Powers and decided to open a detective agency. However, she has to pose as a male detective in order to have clients, which she is able to do through the online detective website of her agency and a reprogrammed voice receiver whenever clients would call and follow up on a certain case. Sometimes, when receiving calls from clients, she has to pretend as the secretary of "Lt. Bill," the agency's owner and detective. This is all because clients tend to turn their backs whenever they found out that the detective they were consulting with is a woman. Before resorting to her pretenses, Andrea used to stand on her ground and tried to prove that she was good, but when she always went penniless, she decided pretend as a man. It was the beginning of a detective career for her. Whenever she shows up to her clients, she needed to pretend that she is "Lt. Bill's" secretary, her made-believe code name of the male detective that she invented. Andrea's detective agency is so successful because of her analytical and physical skills, and only her being a woman is the only problem that hinders her to be truly accepted and successful in her detective career. Soon, when her work piled up, she hired a male assistant, Leo. Leo thinks that the detective job must not be for his chief since she is only a female, but could not reverse the position because she has been in the police force and got an excellent record, while he was a college dropout who had a short detective experience that made her hire him. He was gritty that his boss is a female and orders him about some detective stuff. He starts thinking that he will overcome the strict and stringent manners of his boss by seducing her, which he thinks is always the weakness of every single woman. Andrea would also give him pointers about effective detective schemes, which he shrugged off because he feels belittled being given tips by a woman about effective eyeing. Andrea and Leo have to finish a very important detective case - the real motive of a murder of a wife by her husband. The motive could not be obtained from the husband himself, since he was killed in a buy-bust operation by the police. Andrea gave Leo an assignment, which is to find out the motive of the husband about killing his wife, a case approached to the agency by the daughter of the couple. The daughter wondered why her father murdered her mother, since she witnessed them as a loving couple all her life. Leo pretended to do the assignment, but did not. When Andrea found Leo very slow in finishing the assignment given to him, Andrea decided to do the work herself. After a few days of working it out, it turned out that the real motive was a huge insurance amount. Meantime, Leo was busy thinking of schemes about how he might make Andrea fall for his charm, and convinced her that he must run the detective agency while she can play second fiddle as his assistant or secretary. After all, these are the place of a woman in this classic detective career. The passes that Leo was scheming on Andrea would not be undertaken easily because she was not an easy 'victim.' However, he found out about Andrea's pretenses of being Lt. Bill in order to cover up for her gender. He then thought of posing as Lt. Bill to her clients and intervened with her computer files. He was adamant in proving that he is the man here and he is willing to take Andrea back to her proper place. Andrea eventually discovered the intervention that Leo did on her files and decided to do an investigation of him herself. She discovered that he wanted to overtake her position in the agency and that he did not do all his assignments but reported they were all accomplished. She analyzed that she wanted to sabotage her agency by inactivity in his job, which might surely scare clients away. She then decided to fire him and call the police to give him a decent lesson. It was the time when Andrea finally realized that she should uncover her real identity. She called for a press conference with a local media and revealed that she is behind Powers Detective Agency. Later, she advertised her agency in the local cable television. She is now empowered to stand as a woman detective and prove her skills and strength on the field. Further Insights The reader is expected to adapt a critical thinking stance on the situation of Andrea Powers and the intended male domination on her achievements, through the epitome of Leo. She is struggling herself in the career that she chose for herself in which she has her full interest. Her wavering action in the beginning, such as her decision to invent a Lt. Bill for her agency shows her insufficient 'powers' to overcome the adversaries that come her way just because she is a female. In the end, though, her own experience with Leo enlightens her that there is no one to hold on to but herself, and that she should start standing up for what and who she is - a capable woman in the once male-dominated world of detective career. This shift of consciousness indicates a call for change on certain gender issues, which the woman herself should primarily initiate. References BORDWELL, David, 1989. Making meaning: inference and rhetoric in the interpretation of cinema. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. CHANDLER, Daniel, n.d. Retrieved on August 17, 2008 from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/intgenre/intgenre.html DERRIDA, Jacques, 1981. The law of genre. In W J T Mitchell (Ed.): On Narrative. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. FEUER, Jane, 1992. Genre study and television. In Robert C Allen (Ed.): Channels of Discourse, Reassembled Television and Contemporary Criticism. London: Routledge, pp. 138-59. FRYE, Northrop, 1957. The anatomy of criticism. Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press. FOWLER, Alastair, 1989. Genre. In Erik Barnouw (Ed.): International Encyclopedia of Communications, Vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 215-7. HODGE, Robert & GUNTHER Kress, 1988. Social semiotics. Cambridge: Polity. MILLER, Carolyn R., 1984. Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech. 70: 151-67; reprinted in Freedman & Medway (1994a, op. cit.), pp. 23-42. NEALE, Stephen, 1980. Genre. London: British Film Institute [solely concerned with film]; an extract can be found in Tony Bennett, Susan Boyd-Bowman, Colin Mercer & Janet Woollacott (Eds.) (1981): Popular Television and Film. London: British Film Institute/Open University Press. STAM, Robert, 2000. Film Theory. Oxford: Blackwell. TUDOR, Andrew, 1974. Image and influence: studies in the Sociology of film. London: George Allen & Unwin. Read More