Page 51 - A Handbook Genre Studies in Mass Media

CHAPTER 3

• The initial order of the story is disrupted almost immediately.
• The chaotic stage consumes the majority of the program and is the
source of much of its interest.
• The status quo is finally restored in the conclusion.

The beginning of a sitcom finds the world in harmony. However, the
initial order of the story is disrupted almost immediately signaling the
beginning of the chaotic stage. Cathy Baron compares the structure of a
sitcom to a man climbing a tree:

The setup is the man climbing the tree. The “act break” (right before the
first big commercial) is that “oh, my God” moment when the man is now
up the tree and the audience is wondering how he’ll ever get down. After
the commercial comes the “second-act complication,” which could be
his realizing that there’s a hornet’s nest in the tree. The resolution, in any
script, comes next: That hypothetical man who was up the tree is safely
on the ground again, for good or bad. 9

At the conclusion of the sitcom, order is finally restored. This formulaic
structure reaffirms cultural values. A latent message is that problems are
all solvable, and justice always prevails. Characters who have violated
the moral code of sitcoms (e.g., by lying or trying to be something they
are not) suffer the consequences. Misunderstandings are cleared up, and
characters who were at odds are reconciled.
In the structure of the horror genre, the resolution stage is not quite so
absolute. As with the sitcom formula, horror films typically begin with a
sense of order, but then quickly descend into the chaos stage. The char-
acters soon discover that the initial order was only an illusion. Behind
this fragile façade, evil is lurking—such as monsters that had heretofore
been dormant or forces that are hidden within human beings.
Horror programs generally conclude with the resolution stage; the
monster is slain and the world is saved. But although the crisis has been
momentarily averted, the story raises questions about evil that cannot
easily be dismissed. Consequently, the emotional response of the char-
acters combines sorrow and relief, rather than celebration.
Soap operas operate according to a variation of the order/chaos/order
formula. Within this “serial” model, a program typically features several
different subplots (secondary stories that are frequently interwoven into
narratives) at different stages of completion, interweaving throughout the
episode. These subplots are in different stages of development, so that while

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