Page 55 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

44 • Sport, Media and Society

structure, as the film follows Balboa’s preparation for the big fight that concludes the
fi lm. By contrast, Bull Durham (1988) does not feature a ‘big game’, and when the
hero, Crash, breaks the minor league home run record, it is an anticlimactic moment
that does not even appear on the screen.

When films display shared elements—recurring plots, conventions, themes and
values—it is possible to group them into separate genres or types. Both the produc-
ers and consumers of film use their knowledge of the conventions of different genres

in making meaningful sense of events on screen. For example, some recognisable
film genres might include the western, the musical, the ‘coming of age’ fi lm, the

war movie, the science fi ction film, the romance, the horror film or the comedy.
Sometimes actors and directors are associated with particular genres. For example,
John Wayne, Glenn Ford and Clint Eastwood are associated with westerns. Sport
movies are less likely to be associated with particular actors or directors as they
rarely specialise in this type of movie. Sylvester Stallone has starred in the series
of Rocky movies and Kevin Costner has starred in three movies featuring baseball:
Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, and For the Love of the Game (1999), as well as a
golf movie, Tin Cup (1996), and a cycling movie, American Flyers (1985). However,
neither actor can be identified primarily as a sport fi lm hero.

Movie-goers are so familiar with generic characteristics of fi lm that fi lm-makers
are able to condense plots or sequences by relying on the audience to fill in the gaps.

For example, in sport films, we rarely see a competition in its entirety; instead the

event is signified by highlights that convey in shorthand the drama of the contest.
This might include shots of the scoreboard to locate changes in time, a quick half-
time talk or an emphasis on particular key moments in the game.
O’Sullivan, Dutton and Rayner (2003) highlighted two consequences of the reli-
ance on genre as a convention: the marginalisation of media that challenge traditional
genres and the potential limitations of formulaic narrative conventions. In westerns,
it is expected that the hero will defeat the bad guys and restore law and order to the
community. In sport movies, it is typically expected that the hero will win the big
game and demonstrate qualities of hard work, effort, skill and determination. Origi-

nality in genre films is a result of the combination of this formula with elements of
unpredictability. The pleasure for the audience may be ‘as much in the conventional
base as in the surprise twist’ (Phillips 2000: 23).

While genre films may vary the details, they use the same underlying pattern
repeatedly, so that the ‘same fundamental conflicts are resolved over and over again

in similar fashion’ (Altman 1999: 25). Berger (1992) delineated aspects of fi lms
that can be considered formulaic, thereby forming the basis for a particular generic
category: time, location, heroes and heroines, villains, secondary characters, plots,
themes, costume, locomotion and weaponry. Using the western as an illustration, he
showed how these elements remain stable across the film genre. For example, Berger

(1992) observed that