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Dont Fence Me In: Reading Beyond Genre

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Feature Articles Feature Articles, , Issue 27 Issue 27 Robert Briggs Robert Briggs July 25, 2003 July 25, 2003
Talking about popular narrative in terms of genre would seem to
be one of the most natural things in the world. University
textbooks, for instance, regularly describe popular ction as genre
ction and go on to introduce it through a series of chapters
devoted to different genres. Book and lm reviews usually
establish from the outset that the lm or book in question is a
Western, say, or a science ction story. Video stores distribute the
multitude of video cassettes and DVDs onto different shelves, each
labelled according to the law of genre: horror, action, suspense,
romance, comedy and so on. And when it comes to talking
amongst friends about popular television programs, it is not at all unusual for someone to declare a preference for
sitcoms over soap operas or to express an increasing impatience with the amount of reality shows on television
today.
So the practice of classifying texts by genre is one with which most readers of popular ction and lm are entirely
comfortable even if the term genre is an unfamiliar one for some of those readers. But if that is the case, this ease
is felt in spite of the fact that most readers feel also, and without contradiction, entirely uncomfortable with genre
designations. As soon as the notion of genre is recalled in discussions of popular texts, that is, it is just as likely to
be challenged or recognised as being inadequate to the task. And so those same university textbooks which
introduce the different genres of popular ction will announce almost from the outset that of course the
boundaries of genres arent set in stone and that it is difcult to nd any agreement on the particular characteristics
of detective ction, for example, which could then serve as the basis for determining which texts belong to that
genre and which do not (see for instance McCracken 1998, p.12). Likewise, lm reviewers can argue that, despite
having all the appearances of a Western, Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992) is more an anti-Western, on account
of its alleged inversion of the themes and character functions conventionally associated with that genre (1). And
those people who have been to more than one video store in their lives could probably testify as they search the
comedy shelves for what they were certain was a drama to the contested if not arbitrary nature of genre
classications.
So it seems that genre is not quite the natural or certain idea that it might sometimes be taken for, since not only is
the identity of any specic genre always in dispute, but the very idea of genre is also accorded an ambivalent status.
We hold a certain faith, on the one hand, that there are genres and that the concept of genre may serve as the basis
for analysing popular lms (whether such analysis be professional or conversational). But we recognise, on the other
hand, that specic genres are always provisional and open to contention over their make-up that genres are,
essentially, unidentiable. Taking the ambiguous generic status of Unforgiven as an example, it would seem that
genre is a very strange notion indeed, for contrary to the conventions of the Western, the hero of Unforgiven,
William Munny (Clint Eastwood), is a ruthless, murdering outlaw; the law as represented by Big Whiskeys
sheriff, Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), is brutal, arbitrary and unaccountable; the imagined honour of the
gunght is reduced to the cruel and cowardly act of assassination; and the end of the lm sees no triumph of
civilisation over lawlessness, but only the renewed threat of bloodshed and violence. Yet the fact that the lm thus
appears to invert every thematic convention of the Western does not prevent it from being regularly classed as an
instance even as the apotheosis (a Western to end all Westerns) of that genre nevertheless. What sort of a
category is a genre, though, if it can include its very antithesis?
The way to answering that question, and hence the path to exploring the generic status of popular ction and lm,
might take us through the history and uses of the idea genre (meaning kind in French) within the academic
discipline of literary studies. For the strategy of analysing literature in terms of its different kinds has a long history,
going back at least as far as about 330 BC when Aristotle proposed to speak not only of poetry in general but also
of its species and their respective characteristics (1940, p.3). For Aristotle, and for a great deal of criticism since,
one of the rst tasks in analysing poetry is to identify what kind (or species) of poetry one is dealing with: dramatic,
lyric or epic. More recently, during the early- to mid-twentieth century, the notion of genre was subject to increased
debate and theorisation, rst in Europe and subsequently in the US. Throughout this period of reection on genre,
the focus was generally, following Aristotle, on distinguishing between broad forms of rhetorical presentation, such
as drama and poetry, but this time paying much greater attention to clarifying the characteristics of what had become
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the most pervasive species of literature: prose ction. This period was characterised, too, by increased discussion of
the different literary patterns or moods, such as comedy, tragedy, satire and romance, which were supposed to arise
from varying ways in which characters move within either a world of frustrated experience (irony or satire) or a
world of idealistic innocence (romance), or in which characters move from one of those worlds or states to the other
(comedy and tragedy). Even with regard to this form of classication, however, the generic categories had for the
most part been well-established since the time of Aristotle (2).
So the idea and the practice of analysing literature according to its genres have been around for quite a while, and
this apparent perpetuity may go a reasonable way toward explaining why we might take for granted such an idea and
such a practice. With regard to todays popular narrative, however, there seems to have been a slight shift in our use
of the idea of genre. For in the rst place we mostly understand popular genres to constitute slightly more specic
categories of literature, each dened varyingly according to thematic concerns, plot structures, character functions
and stereotypical images. Popular genres thus seem to be named by a set of textual features that can transcend
traditional literary criticisms generic boundaries. The same set of themes, plots and images, that is, can easily
appear across different forms of rhetorical presentation and operate according to a variety of literary moods. And so
the category of the Western can be used to designate a set including both written texts (such as the books of Louis
LAmour) and cinematic texts (including many of the lms starring John Wayne). That same set can contain stories
that are apparently comic (Silverado, Lawrence Kasdan, 1985), tragic (The Shootist, Don Siegel, 1976), romantic
(The Searchers, John Ford, 1956), or ironic (High Plains Drifter, Clint Eastwood, 1973). So long as theres a group
of men (predominantly), sporting six-shooters, wearing ten-gallon hats and riding horses across nineteenth-century,
North-American plains dotted with outlaws or Indians, in other words, we feel fairly comfortable with the idea that
were visiting the world of the Western.
To the extent that popular genres appear to be established
on the basis of their similar plot structures, their use of
stereotypical images and so forth, it is not at all unusual, in
fact, to speak of popular ction not simply as genre ction
but moreover as formula ction. Certainly, a great deal of
academic criticism of popular ction and lm has
employed the terms genre and formula almost
interchangeably. Brian Atteberys Strategies of Fantasy, for instance, begins its account of new directions in fantasy
writing (and in fantasy criticism) by inviting the reader to consider two very different denitions of fantasy. The rst
of these denitions is instantly recognisable: fantasy is a form of popular escapist literature that combines stock
characters and devices wizards, dragons, magic swords, and the like into a predictable plot in which the
perennially understaffed forces of good triumph over a monolithic evil (1992, p.1). This form of fantasy, Attebery
states, is fantasy-as-formula, and as such it is relatively easy to describe and its success depends on consistency
and predictability (1992, p.2). While Attebery limits his discussion primarily to fantasy literature, it wouldnt be
hard to identify any number of cinematic texts The Beastmaster (Don Coscarelli, 1982), Krull (Peter Yates, 1983),
Deathstalker (John Watson, 1984), Dungeons and Dragons (Courtney Solomon, 2000) which apparently conform
to the denition of fantasy-as-formula. But for Attebery this denition of fantasy is incapable of recognising the
fantastic nature of such works of literature as Alice in Wonderland, A Midsummer Nights Dream or even Paradise
Lost or such lms as, say, Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming et al, 1939), Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson, 1964), or
The Mummy (Karl Freund, 1932) not to mention many contemporary works that recapture the vitality and
freedom of non-mimetic traditional forms such as epic, folktale, romance, and myth, while exemplifying the
potential of a sophisticated mode of storytelling characterised by stylistic playfulness, self-reexiveness, and a
subversive treatment of established order of society and thought (1992, p.1). While many readers would never
think of including Shakespeare or Dante under the heading of fantasy, some of their works are indicative
nevertheless of what Attebery calls the fantastic mode: a mode which takes in all literary manifestations of the
imaginations ability to soar above the merely possible (1992, p.2).
It is as an attempt, therefore, to prevent neglect of the works of fantasy ction that exceed the bounds of fantasy-
as-formula that Attebery proposes to study fantasy as a genre:
The fact that some fantasists do remake the language [of fantasy] as they speak it, that they follow conventions
but not slavishly, is my primary justication for looking for a middle ground between mode and formula. This
middle ground is the genre of fantasy (1992, p.10).
Interestingly, though, if Attebery proposes to focus on the middle ground between mode and formula in order to
justify the study of fantasy ction, his insistence on genre is also a matter of pragmatics: a way of focusing on
fantasy texts that are worthy of analysis (according to him) without stretching the scope of fantasy beyond reason.
For it is difcult to say anything meaningful about either the mode, which is so vast, or the formula, which tends
toward triviality (1992, p.2). In this way, however, Attebery ultimately reafrms formula as the dening
characteristic of the genre of fantasy, despite his attempt to distinguish a concept of genre from a concept of
formula. This is because the only means that Attebery nds for meaningfully identifying specically fantasy texts
out of the vast ocean of ction and lm that rather adopts a fantastic mode is to examine such texts in terms of the
extent to which they adhere to the fantasy formula. Since the fantastic mode, which can be found in all
manifestations of the imaginations ability to soar above the merely possible, cannot be used as a means for
identifying those texts that belong to the particular genre of fantasy, in other words, formula remains the sole
criteria for recognising a text as belonging to this genre rather than that. After all, William Munnys fantastic feat
(during the climactic scene of Unforgiven) in shooting down ve armed men in a saloon without sustaining a single
bullet wound to himself and after his own gun misres! could easily strike one as a manifestation of the
imaginations ability to soar above the merely possible. Yet few people would class that lm as belonging to the
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genre of fantasy, for the simple reason that theres nary a wizard, dragon nor magical sword to be seen throughout
the entire lm.
While there is a sense, therefore, in which the ideas of formula and genre are taken to be distinct, when it comes to
analysing popular narrative genre regularly reduces to formula. And this is perhaps why John G. Cawelti, in an
inuential afrmation of the worth of popular ction and lm, proposes to study not genre ction but formula
stories as art and popular culture. Cawelti insists that popular texts are formulaic through and through, both in their
use of cultural stereotypes or cliched stylistic devices, and in their reliance upon predictable plot patterns or
archetypes that, if not universal in their appeal, have certainly been popular in many different cultures at many
different times (1976, p.6). But while the description of ction or lm as formulaic very often implies a negative
evaluation (as is clearly implied by Atteberys account of the triviality of fantasy-as-formula), Cawelti is for the
most part unperturbed by this fact. He is concerned rather with the description of formula ction and the ways in
which specic cultural themes and stereotypes become embodied in more universal story archetypes (1976, p.6). In
this respect, his use of formula as a means for identifying different types of popular ction and lm conrms the
notion that the categorisation of popular lm is made primarily on the basis of reasonably distinguishable sets of
textual features plot structures, character functions, and stereotypical images irrespective of whether those
features are understood as indicative of formula or of genre. Indeed, for Cawelti, the difference between a notion
of formula and one of genre has to do more with technical differences in the process of textual analysis than with the
different characteristics of the text as such:
The concept of formula as I have dened it is a means of generalising the characteristics of large groups of
individual works from certain combinations of cultural materials and archetypal story patterns. It is useful
primarily as a means of making historical and cultural inferences about the collective fantasies shared by
large groups of people and of identifying differences in these fantasies from one culture or period to another.
When we turn from the cultural or historical use of the concept of formula to a consideration of the artistic
limitations and possibilities of particular formulaic patterns, we are treating these formulas as a basis for
aesthetic judgements of various sorts. In these cases, we might say that our generalised denition of a formula
has become a conception of a genre (1976, p.7).
This distinction between formula, as a basis for determining a popular texts meaning or cultural signicance
(collective fantasy), and genre, as a means for assessing a popular texts aesthetic worth, is one which mirrors a
debate that has periodically arisen throughout the history of literary criticism and its use of genre as a critical
concept. Basically, while many literary critics approach genre merely as a tool for describing literary works, for
clarifying traditions and identifying literary relations, quite a few genre critics, including Aristotle and his many
neo-Classical followers, have felt that generic categories represent literary ideals against which actual works of
literature can be assessed according to how successfully they reproduce those ideals. For the latter group, to put it
crudely, the more a work of literature conforms to the standards of a genre the more likely it will be judged as
having succeeded in its literary aspirations. In the realm of popular ction and lm, then, the use of formula as a
basis for making aesthetic judgements would seem to require evaluating popular texts in terms of the extent to
which such a text either successfully reproduces the conventions of a popular formula or, more likely, deviates
from the at standard of the genre to accomplish some unique individual expression or effect (1976, p.7).
Once again, however, the translation of the critical concept of genre from the discipline of traditional literary
criticism into the study of popular lm seems to involve a shift in the usage of that concept. Indeed, to the extent
that the aesthetic worth of a work of literature and hence its ability to act as a source of original insight or of
profound observations about the human condition is regularly seen as tied to that works degree of originality, this
shift in usage is something more like a reversal. This is because, within the tradition of the literary classics, the
generic constitution of a literary work is no impediment to its evaluation as aesthetically worthwhile. On the
contrary, if a particular work is thought largely to achieve the potentials of the generic ideal where genre refers to
very broad categories such as drama and prose or tragedy and satire this achievement is just as likely to be
taken as a sign of the works signicance, originality and acuity. In the case of popular lm, though, the generic
nature of a particular text is damning evidence insofar as popular genres are recognised rather as popular formulas
of that texts lack of aesthetic worth and its lack of artistic vision. In short, a literary work can conform to the
conventions of a genre and still indeed, therefore be aesthetically signicant, whereas a popular texts putative
reliance upon formula is a mark of (is in fact constitutive of) that texts triviality and lack of originality (3).
Thats not to say that certain generic or formulaic instances of popular lm never can be nor ever have been
judged as thematically complex, highly original and aesthetically worthwhile. But when it comes to talking or
thinking about popular ction and lm in general terms, prior to or at a distance from the detail and specicity of its
particular instances, the supposed formulaic or generic nature of popular narrative goes hand in hand with its
necessary lack of originality and absence of aesthetic signicance, since the idea of formula and the idea of
originality are diametrically opposed. Simply, a cultural text cant be thought of as being both formulaic and original
at least not without the originality of that text being understood as moderated by the formula, as being a limited
originality, which is to be contrasted with the unrestrained and uncompromised originality of the great, canonical
works of literature. This general concept of popular narrative as essentially generic produces, moreover, a specic
and calculable effect with regard to the reading even of particular instances of popular lm. For if popular lm is in
essence formulaic, then those popular texts that are judged as original and meritorious can only be seen as
aberrations, as accidents or as exceptions to the rule the rule being, of course, that popular texts are incapable of
achieving aesthetic signicance. And this rule is no more evident than in the idea (following Attebery) that formula
tends toward triviality and in the idea (following Cawelti) that the notion of genre is best used to evaluate popular
ction and lm by analysing specically the way in which the individual work deviates from the at standard of
the genre to accomplish some unique individual expression or effect.
To underline Caweltis and Atteberys respective complicity with a general conception of popular ction as
uninspiring, despite their individual afrmations of the worth of popular ction and lm as a valuable area of
academic analysis, is to stress at the same time the historical predominance of the idea of the generic nature of
popular narrative. In both cases, whether popular lm is described as formulaic or as generic, the thing which is
thought to dene the generic or formulaic nature of a particular text is something that is understood as lying within
the text: genre is determined on the basis of the textual features of a specic ctional work. Of course, this
understanding of genre is so undeniable, so self-evident, that even to characterise it as an understanding, as though
there might be other, perfectly legitimate ways of understanding genre, is to risk the charge of absurdity. For no
matter what specic features one might argue as forming the criteria for determining genre, it is perfectly obvious
that such features must lie in the text: for if genre is not to be found in the text, then where else is it to be found?
Still, Caweltis suggestion that the originality of a popular text, its uniqueness or individuality of expression or
effect, can be measured in terms of the way in which the individual work deviates from the at standard of the
genre already implies a concept of genre that sees generic traits as located precisely elsewhere than in the text. For
such an approach suggests that the individuality of a text is not something that simply belongs to that text, as though
a text were, in and of itself, original or unique. Rather, the individuality of expression or effect is something that can
be assessed in terms only of how the text deviates from those texts that are seen as exemplary of a genre. The texts
individuality, in other words, is relative insofar as it lies in the texts purported difference from other texts. But if
thats the case, then it follows that the supposed similarities or identities that are understood to constitute a genre (or
a formula) are also to be found only in the comparison of one text with other texts. In short, genre lies not within a
text but between texts in the apparent relations between texts and a consequence of this is that both the general
categories of genre and the specic judgements made on the basis of such categories are always relative and, in a
certain sense, arbitrary. Specic judgements about generic identity must always be relative, since they can only be
made in relation to a given set of texts, and they must be arbitrary to the extent that the set of texts referred to could
never be exhaustive or complete. From this it follows that the general categories of genre must also be relative and
arbitrary on account of the fact that such categories can only be determined by way of a specic judgement.
It is not at all the case, therefore, that the popular 1960s
television series Star Trek, say, simply is a science ction
program on account of the fact that its set in space (4)
after all a great number of the texts that we identify as
science ction are set on Earth. If we consider those latter
texts to be examples of science ction nevertheless, it might
be because these texts appear to explore the social
consequences of new technologies and the human costs of a
world that is becoming increasingly technological. It is on
the basis of this understanding of science ction, for
example, that the classic lm Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1926)
which depicts an almost totally mechanised world in which the working people have been reduced to a virtual
servitude to the machinery and, further, now face the threat of being replaced by robots is considered to be a
prophetic instance of science ction lm. Thus, for all that Star Trek might appear to be science ctional through
and through, its depiction as science ction is dependent upon what amounts to a kind of implicit, and by no means
exhaustive, comparative study of a number of texts that may or may not themselves be judged also as instances of
science ction. But this doesnt mean that the idea of genre has no meaning or force, and it certainly doesnt dispel
the allure of genre as a means for analysing popular lm. For ideas about popular narrative, such as the idea of
genre, have been fairly well established over the course of at least a century (and probably much longer) within our
critical disciplines and languages, as well as through popular or unofcial channels. The notion of genre,
moreover, is one that organises not only our critical reections upon popular ction and lm (in reviews, for
instance) but also our everyday practices of consuming or engaging with popular cultural texts. If you wanted to
watch another show like Star Trek (or another lm like Metropolis), in other words, you would probably be
disappointed if someone directed you towards The Shootist, a lm set in 1901 and starring John Wayne as a
gunslinger who rides in from the Wild West in order to organise his affairs before his impending death from cancer,
but ends up dying in a shoot-out in a saloon. And so the fact that, strictly speaking, genre designations are always
relative and arbitrary doesnt mean that texts arent readily and regularly identiable as instances of a genre.
Irrespective of whatever we might have said so far about the arbitrariness and, indeed, insubstantiality of genres, in
other words, the fact remains that The Shootist is a Western and Star Trek is science ction, and anyone who tries to
tell you otherwise must be mad!
But theres the rub because it is actually very easy to see Star Trek as drawing upon the conventions of the
Western. Every episode of the original series, in fact, afrms Star Treks afnity to the lms and books of the
Western genre through the statement over the opening credits of the line, Space: the nal frontier. And where the
signicance or meaning of the Western formula is usually thought to lie in its exploration of the themes of
nature vs. civilisation, the code of the West, or law and order vs. outlawry (Cawelti 1976, p.6), episodes of Star
Trek invariably feature men (predominantly) boldly going where no man has gone before, establishing peace
(law and order) by ghting those who resist Star Fleets mission to bring democracy (civilisation) to the far
reaches of outer-space (in the face of the perils of nature), and by ghting especially the bloodthirsty Klingons
(the Indians), all the while adhering to the masculinist, romantic code of the West, embodied in the heroic gure
of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner). Put that way, it seems that about the only thing that does qualify Star
Trek as science ction is the fact that its set in space! More signicantly, such an account of Star Trek perhaps opens
contrasting questions about the processes and effects of civilisation (as the spread of democracy) to those which
might be broached within the traditional limits of the Western genre. The spread of civilisation has to face up to a
very different set of consequences and responsibilities, that is, when such civilisation is established not in the face of
the perils of nature but in the name of seeking out strange, new life-forms, and when the civilised explorers
are charged with the task of opening their community to difference and otherness in the form of the most unheard-of
peoples. But in order to see Star Trek in those terms one would effectively (if only implicitly) have to place the
show alongside a number of texts that were thought to constitute the Western genre and go on to stress their
potential similarities as well as their potential differences. In other words, if Star Trek can be seen as a Western (or
as a science ction, for that matter), this is so by virtue of the fact that the show can be compared to one (arbitrary)
set of texts as much as to another.
Likewise, although The Shootist seems undeniably to qualify as a Western, its quite possible to see that lm as
exploring the science ctional theme of the human costs of a world that is becoming increasingly technological.
Niall Lucy, for instance, has argued in an earlier issue of Senses of Cinema that the lm is a perfect (albeit, perhaps,
unexpected) example of the narrative explored in many science ction lms, including 2001: A Space Odyssey
(Stanley Kubrick, 1968) the story of technology as representing an inevitable future that forgets a better past:
In the opening few minutes of this lm the John Wayne character, a metonym of dozens of other performances
that semiotise his performance in this lm, rides in from the cinematic West (America past, represented by the
wide open landscape and the threat of death) into a glimpse of future America in the form of a becoming-
technological town (electricity poles feature prominently at this point), a town and a future that must forget its
past (2000, n.p.).
The metonym of performances to which Lucy refers takes the form of a montage of clips from a number of John
Waynes earlier Westerns. This series of images not only sets up the John Wayne character (in this lm, John
Bernard Books) as representing all the romantic gures of the West but also stresses the becoming-technological of
the lm medium itself, insofar as the image quality during the series of clips gradually improves from the black and
white of Waynes rst lms to the highest quality, colour images that the lm technology of 1976 could produce.
And for Lucy the fact that the lm was made in the 1970s (a time of growing hostility between the US and the
Soviet Union) allows us to read the lm as a kind of fable of our times with respect to its position on the alleged
memory loss that technology brings about, a position taken up in the nuclear age (Lucy 2000). Thus in the ctional
world of the lm the automobiles and the electricity poles indicate a technological present that is disconnected
from its past, except for the embarrassing reminder of the John Wayne character who in turn represents the history
that made the town possible an authentic, human history of life-and-death struggle to build a better world, but a
history which must be forgotten, and indeed killed off, for the town to embrace its technological future (Lucy 2000).
Once again, this isnt to argue that The Shootist, on account of
its arguably science ctional theme, is being misplaced when
video store proprietors place copies of that movie on the shelf
marked Western. By the same token, Lucys reading of The
Shootist is unlikely to occur to someone who insists on seeing
that lm merely as an instance of a genre, because to read a
text as an instance of a genre, as an expression of a formula or
of generic conventions, is to read a text as just another
example of what one already knows. And there are at least
three points that can be made here. First of all, it is quite
obvious in this instance that the generic (con)fusion evident in
Lucys account of The Shootist is not a product of what might be seen as that particular texts apparent hybridity, of
the fact that the lm evidently draws from more than one genre, since The Shootist features no high-tech
weaponry or devices, no alien life-forms or radical scientic theories which could be taken as evidence of its use of
science ctional conventions. Thus, if the above discussion of Star Trek seems to characterise that show as
generically hybrid, as constituting a deliberate (but otherwise inessential) mixture of the Western and the science
ction genres, Lucys account of The Shootist shows that the problem of genre the fact that genre is not a steadfast
and substantive feature of texts but rather an ostensible relation between them is not related to a texts intentional
generic impurity, to its ad hoc incorporation of diverse generic traits. While there are certainly texts that deliberately
(or even unwittingly) mix genres Wild, Wild West (Barry Sonneneld, 1999), for instance, depicts (following the
original TV series) the landscapes of nineteenth-century, Western America as dotted equally with heroic town
sheriffs and giant, mechanical monsters, with Western outlaws and science ctional technologies such generic
hybridity doesnt radically challenge the idea of genre, because the generic impurity of such texts is always
understood as deriving from the texts manifest incorporation of different generic traits. This notion of textual
hybridity assumes, in other words, that the mixture of genres is to be found in the text. What might appear as a
challenge to the standards of a genre, therefore, amounts ultimately to a conrmation of the idea of genre in the form
of an identication a new, hybrid genre the sci- Western (5)
Consequently, the discussion of Star Trek as a Western or of The Shootist as exploring typically science ctional
themes does not challenge the idea of genre simply by stressing the relative hybridity of these texts, by
demonstrating the inherent quality of some texts to confound categorisation by genre. Rather, if these texts can be
interpreted in such unconventional ways, this is because hybridity is an essential feature of all cultural texts. While a
text like The Shootist seems, manifestly, to owe its identity or its meaning to the conventions of the Western, in other
words, that text nevertheless remains essentially open to being read in other ways, as an instance of some other
genre or question altogether. Cultural texts are fundamentally hybrid, therefore, such that they can be interpreted in
terms of any number of contrasting genres, since generic issues (and this is the second point) are generated not only
from relations between texts but also within specic acts of reading those texts: genre is also a mode of reading.
After all, relations between texts can only be established in the event of reading those texts, irrespective of how
intensive or comprehensive the reading may or may not be. If those readings dont need to be intensive or
comprehensive, moreover, this is because ideas about genre are culturally pervasive. One doesnt need to have
actually seen The Shootist in order to identify (that is, to read) it as a Western, in other words. All that is really
required to recognise its status as a Western is for someone to say that it stars John Wayne and is about a cowboy. In
fact, it would probably have been enough to say merely that it stars John Wayne.
And this brings us to the third and, for me, most important point: if theres nothing very difcult or technical about
reading The Shootist as a Western or Star Trek as science ction, if to read them in such a way is to do little more
than the obvious, then what is the point in the academic study of popular ction doing the same? It is often thought
that the task of literary criticism, when it turns to the great works of literature, is to reveal the aesthetic signicance
of the text, the works insightful observations on some aspect of the world or ourselves. Put bluntly, the point of
literary criticism, on this account, is to show that the signicance of Shakespeares Hamlet, say, lies in its
demonstration of the fatal consequences of procrastination. But this certainly isnt all there is to say about Hamlet,
which is one of the reasons why literary criticism is a never-ending task. Indeed, it might even be suggested that it is
the literary critics professional responsibility to ensure that the signicance of a literary text is continually renewed
over a series of re-readings and re-appraisals. And theres no reason why this same professional perhaps even
political responsibility shouldnt or couldnt be brought to bear upon the study of popular ction and lm too.
The problem, however, and as we have seen, is that the understanding of popular lm as generic necessarily
presumes popular lms lack of aesthetic signicance on account of its supposedly formulaic nature, and this
presumption radically limits the chances of popular texts being subject to the same processes of re-reading and
re-appraisal that might be applied to serious literature. An approach to popular lm that considers its rst task to be
the establishing of a texts genre, therefore, risks dispelling or denying a texts specicity in the name of
demonstrating how that text says very similar things to any number of other texts. But the solution to the problem
does not lie in the abandonment of genre, since questions of genre unavoidably pervade our engagements with
popular ction. If we can see that there is no genre which a text might be said to belong to, it remains the case
nonetheless that there is no text outside genre, no text that would be free from all relations to other texts or free from
any participation in the processes of identifying generic traits. The reading of The Shootist in terms of science
ctions apparent preoccupation with the technologisation of the world, for example, still presumes certain
conceptions about the genre of science ction. Insofar as genre analysis the reading of a text in terms of the genre
in which that text seems most obviously to participate might offer interesting and innovative readings of texts,
such analysis remains useful and important work. But while genre readings have their place, the question of genre
need not be the rst and most certainly neednt be the last question to ask of a (popular) text. For to leave it at that
would be to ignore a great variety of possible (and productive) engagements with narrative texts, especially those
engagements that sought after a texts potential to offer insight into questions unrelated to the putative concerns of
the genre to which that text is thought to belong.
Perhaps more disconcerting is the possibility that, on the basis of an assumed priority of genre issues, innovative
readings of popular lm readings, for instance, which sought to read beyond genre issues could well end up
being marginalised either as aberrant or simply as perverse, such that a celebratory review of a formulaic text, for
example, is seen as a sign of the reviewers feeble critical faculties. Indeed, if genre is assumed as the natural or
normal order of things, then a reading that fails to identify and to foreground the texts generic traits, and hence its
exploration of generic issues, can easily be judged as mistaken, wrong, deviant and, by implication, improper.
Certainly it is more often than not in the name of popular lms supposedly generic nature that such lms are
dismissed as not worthy of legitimate study. When genre is taken as authoritative, in other words, a reading that goes
beyond genre risks effectively being outlawed, as does an attempt to undertake serious, afrmative readings of
popular lms. Yet when alls said and done, what is really wrong with reading Star Trek as a Western, especially if it
enables us to explore, say, a new set of issues regarding the processes and effects of civilisation (as democracy)?
And it is perhaps in the name precisely of democracy, in the name of allowing differences to freely exist, that such a
reading of Star Trek, beyond the concerns of the science ction genre, could be pursued (6). In this respect even the
journalistic work of lm reviewing might yet benet from reconsidering the very idea of genre, since an appeal to
genre (as formula) in the review of Hollywood lms can lead to a sort of professional double-bind whilst also
reproducing a potentially anti-democratic sentiment. By dismissing a vast array of popular lms as so many
Hollywood cliches, that is, one risks not only devaluing the experiences of pleasure many people take from such
lms (turning the enjoyment of commercial lms into a guilty pleasure, which one ought properly to feel
embarrassed about) but also reproducing the ultimate critical cliche that such and such a lm is so formulaic!
Still, thats not to suggest that reading beyond genre produces completely original observations. As much as a texts
originality is relative to the extent that it must always be determined on the basis of a presumed comparative study,
so too are readings or reviews never essentially unique but only ever relatively so. The implication of this, however,
is that at the very least there is always more than one way to read a popular narrative: the potential meanings of a
text cannot be limited by, nor even decided by, an appeal to a prior conception of genre as the source of a texts
signicance. And so it remains possible (although perhaps not entirely fair) to read Unforgiven as yet another
example of the Western genres stereotypical portrayal of masculine heroes and prostituted women and of its
glorication of violence and bloodshed as the best means for settling conict. Conversely, those same elements of
the narrative might be approached in terms of their ironic inversion of the conventions of the genre: thus
Unforgiven might be read instead as a critique of the genres romantic indifference to the brutal realities of its
masculinist, colonialist code of the West, and especially as a demonstration of the lawlessness and violence that
always sustains the law. Central to this reading is the gure of Little Bill, the sheriff of Big Whiskey. For Little Bills
judgements throughout the lm are unaccountable to any other authority, and they are made with agrant disregard
to anything remotely resembling due process (early in the story Little Bill decides to skip the fuss of a trial). The
punishments for various crimes never take the restrained form of a jail sentence, moreover, but are only ever meted
out in the physical manner of a savage bashing conducted personally by Little Bill. The law as depicted by
Unforgiven, therefore, is brutal, arbitrary and ultimately lawless, and the only thing that can come to the aid of those
downtrodden by the law is the violent character of an outlaw whose ruthlessness and destructiveness exceeds even
the laws.
Still another reading, however, might nd in Unforgiven (as its
title suggests) a sustained reection on the nature and possibility
of forgiveness (7). No one in the lm is ever able to be forgiven,
and the contrasting desires for forgiveness and for revenge
equally drive the entire narrative. Despite having realised the
error of his former ways as a whisky-drinking, son-of-
a-bitchin, cold-blooded assassin, and despite having reformed
himself, William Munnys reputation always precedes him. If his
unforgivable past can ever be forgiven, its only insofar as he
comes to seek retribution for some other unforgivable act. The
story starts when two cowboys cut up a whore for giv[ing] a
giggle when she saw one of them had a teensy little pecker.
When the brothels Madame is not satised with Little Bills relatively moderate (and misogynistic) punishment a
ne of seven horses, payable to the saloon proprietor she posts a bounty for anyone who kills the two culprits.
Each act of revenge that follows is more brutal than the last, with Little Bill punishing Munnys reluctant partner,
Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), by beating him to death for his involvement in the cowboys assassination, and with
Munny nally killing Little Bill and ve others, including the saloon proprietor, for showcasing Neds bloodied
corpse as a warning to would-be assassins. Every fatal gunshot is thus triggered by an inability to forgive. Thats not
to say that the lm afrms forgiveness as the answer to lawlessness, however, since the desire for revenge seems
only really to begin when the law proves all too forgiving of the cowboys crime. But if the very act of forgiveness is
in a sense unforgivable, what hope then for the end of bloodshed and violence?
In the world of Unforgiven and beyond, therefore, the unforgivable can be forgiven only insofar as something
remains unforgiven, and so forgiveness as such remains impossible. If we might think that this notion of forgiveness
pertains to the world of the lm and beyond, though, this is because ultimately the point of analysing a text is often
(albeit not always) to consider what the text might have to say about the world. And thats one of the reasons why,
professionally at least, we look for some sort of signicance to the text, regardless of whether such signicance has
been authorised by the texts writers, directors or producers. Insofar as a concept of genre enables meanings to be
identied in (or perhaps attributed to) ctional texts, it remains a useful tool of analysis. But that doesnt change the
fact that genre is ultimately an idea of convenience, and not always a reliable one at that. Insofar as genre might,
along with other ideas about what supposedly denes a lms identity, be invested with such unquestionable
privilege and authority as to close off the meaning-potential of a text, moreover, the study of popular ction and lm
can only benet from an attempt to think against the notion of genre. Reading beyond genre thus marks just one way
to pursue a serious and passionate engagement with lm popular or otherwise.
Works Cited
Aristotle. Aristotles Art of Poetry: A Greek View of Poetry and Drama, intr. and ed. W. Hamilton Fyfe. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1940.
Attebery, Brian. Strategies of Fantasy. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992.
Cawelti, John G. Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture. Chicago and
London: The University of Chicago Press, 1976.
Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957.
Juddery, Mark. In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream, The Weekend Australian Review, 24-25 (August 2002),
pp.4-6.
Krapp, Peter. Unforgiven, plenary lecture, Deconstruction Reading Politics. Staffordshire University, 20-24 July,
1999 (unpublished).
Lucy, Niall. Total Eclipse of the Heart: Thinking through Technology, Senses of Cinema 7, June 2000.
Wilson, Simon. British Art: From Holbein to the Present Day. London: The Tate Gallery & The Bodley Head, 1979.
Zenner, M. C. What Are They Writing About?, Senses of Cinema 8 (July-August 2000), n.p..
Endnotes
Much has been made of Unforgivens anti-violence stance, and reviews of the lm at the time of its release
regularly described it as a revisionist Western . . . a Western to end all Westerns (Macleans, 17 Aug
1992), as question[ing] the rules of a macho genre (Time, 10 Aug 1992), and as turn[ing] the Western
tradition on its head (Rolling Stone, 20 Aug 1992).
1.
See for instance Northrop Fryes Anatomy of Criticism (1957), which uses Aristotles Poetics as a basis for
formulating the generic categories of epic, lyric, drama and prose (or ction) and the broader narrative
categories of romance, tragedy, comedy and irony (or satire).
2.
Interestingly, this shift in the usage of genre is not unique to criticisms of popular ction, but can be seen
as a kind of repetition of a similar shift in art criticism, where a style of painting classied as genre is
3.
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regularly derided for its relentless triviality of subject matter and its general visual dullness (Wilson 1979,
p.96). The critical assumption that genre lms are both trivial and dull, in other words, cant be passed off
as the result merely of a few literary or lm critics careless conjecturing, but seems rather to be inextricable
from the very ideas about culture that have been established over the course of centuries of thinking about
the nature of art. It is probably not incidental to this dismissive attitude, moreover, that British genre
painting was immensely popular during its time.
When asked about what makes the critically acclaimed TV series Farscape science ction, original producer
Matt Carroll said, its science ction because its set in space. . . . Its just not set on Earth. Its as simple as
that (cited in Juddery 2002, p.5).
4.
Once the sci- Western is admitted as a genre, moreover, all number of instances of that genre are able
to be recognised. In addition to those lms already discussed, there is Westworld (Michael Crichton, 1973),
starring Yul Brynner and depicting a future society, which establishes a Wild West theme park populated
by android cowboys, who eventually turn on their makers.
5.
Obviously, it is the authority not only of the concept of genre which might be responsible for the
delegitimation of and even hostility towards readings of lms which travel alternative paths to the
commonsensical ones. For an example of the sort of indignation that alternative or speculative approaches
to lm can arouse, see M.C. Zenners critique of academic criticisms use of lm for purposes other than
illustrating a lms theme in the way that the director wanted that theme to be identied (2000, n.p.).
6.
That is how Peter Krapp has suggested the lm might be read in his paper, Unforgiven, presented at the
Deconstruction Reading Politics conference held at Staffordshire University in 1999.
7.
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About the Author
Robert Briggs teaches in Communications & Writing at Monash University (Gippsland). He has published
numerous articles on post-structuralism and cultural criticism and is currently writing a book on popular ction and
lm.
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