Page 185 - A Handbook Genre Studies in Mass Media

CHAPTER 7

ful sets, along with the game paraphernalia (a giant roulette wheel and
big board) combine with other production elements, such as the glam-
orous host and hostess and peppy music, to create messages about the
glamour and excitement of game shows. Similarly, stylistic innovations
can convey messages about the distinctiveness of a genric program. For
instance, the absence of a laugh track in Arrested Development alters the
way that viewers are accustomed to respond to the program. Moreover,
the series has a documentary feel, due to the use of natural light (as op-
posed to a fully lit soundstage) and the use of one camera, rather than a
multiple-camera format.
Production elements provide subtle commentary on the plot and the
characters in genres. For instance, media critic Alessandra Stanley ob-
serves that music operates as a code in the wife swapping reality shows:
“The shows have the same jaunty, mocking undertone (dueling banjo
music when the family is poor and rural; Hitchcockian chords when an
unwelcome surprise is imminent).” 1
Production elements also send signals about the worldview of the
genre. Journalist Caryn James points out that the use of music in the
crime drama Robbery Homicide Division helped to create a dark, mor-
ally ambiguous world:

[One] episode begins with an amazing four-minute sequence that takes
place on a clear, sunny day in the parking lot of a shopping mall. A police
car pulls in, shots are fired, pedestrians run and one of the officers looks in
horror toward what is now the corpse of her partner sitting next to her. All
this happens with virtually no words, just the sound of a hip-hop inflected
song (DJ Shadow’s “Blood on the Motorway”), as the camera becomes an
active storyteller leading us through the bloody narrative that sets off Cole’s
investigation. The executive producers, Mr. Mann and Frank Spotnitz (a
producer of “The X-Files”), have created a style that does not dominate
substance so much as it makes a dark subject palatable. 2

In the horror genre, the distinctive use of lighting underscores its
focus on: “the dark side” of existence. As Webster University student
Eric Burg points out, one of the stock characters in horror films is the
“creature of the night”:

The creatures of the night appear after sunset, when the full moon rose
into the black sky and man turned into beast. For instance, the Wolfman
is a creature who is half man half wolf, who can only attack its prey when

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