What is Genre?

Whenever I think of the word "genre", I think of categories. Many people categorize works such as movies, books, and music into different genres. Some example of movie genres, include horror, romance, comedy, and action. For book genres, there is sci-fi, fiction, non-fiction, and thrillers. For music genres, there is rock, pop, jazz, and hip hop. And I am just listing a few genres for each work. As you can see there are hundreds of genres! But what makes up a genre? Is it how people act in movies? Is it based on the characters attitude in the book? Is it how the music flows? To me, it is based on many different aspects. For example, on the first day of class, we looked at the music side. We examined three types of genres of Taylor Swift's song, Wildest Dreams. The first genre was her music video which sounded very much like pop because of the drum beats for example. The second genre was her acoustic version of the song which you could tell because Taylor's voice sounded very slow and she played one musical instrument. The third genre was very different compared to the last two. It was sung by a different artist which sounded very folky. Their voice reminded me of The Beatles. As you can see one song can have many different types of genres.

As you can see from my generic definition of genre, I need to expand it. I did not think of the word until Mrs. Mauk asked the class what our own definition was of the word. I kept thinking to myself, "what should I write?" The only thing I really knew about genre were categorizing. After class, I realized it is important to know what genre means since the class is called Research, Genre and Context. I am glad that after taking this class, I will have a better understanding of genre.

#blog #prompt1 #genre