This paper summarizes and analyzes Leo Braudy's essay "Genre: The Conventions of Connection," drawn from his book The World in a Frame. Braudy challenges the widespread critical dismissal of genre films — westerns, musicals, and thrillers — as formulaic and artistically inferior. The paper traces Braudy's argument that genre films, freed from the pressure to be wholly original, can explore the human condition more courageously than so-called "high art." It also examines Braudy's critique of Romantic aesthetic theory as the root of anti-genre bias and his close reading of Hitchcock's films and the musical Shall We Dance as evidence of genre cinema's depth and moral complexity.
Leo Braudy's article Genre: The Conventions of Connection is a bold and well-written defense of an often-maligned category of cinema. Braudy acknowledges how too often in film theory and criticism, genre films are dismissed as fluff and altogether one-dimensional pieces of art. He makes a strong case for genre films, explaining how they actually represent intricate subversions or indictments of reality, and he uses specific examples from westerns and musicals to support his argument.
Braudy acknowledges that one of the reasons genre films are so staunchly criticized is because they appeal to a pre-existing audience, whereas classic films have no such audience (435). But the basis of their criticism does not stop there: "Genre films offend our most common definition of artistic excellence: the uniqueness of the art object, whose value can in part be defined by its desire to be uncaused and unfamiliar, as much as possible unindebted to any tradition, popular or otherwise. The pure image, the clear personal style, the intellectually responsible content are contrasted with the impurities of convention, the repetitions of character and plot" (435).
Braudy uses this and other oft-cited objections to explain why genre films are so often dismissed and relegated as inconsequential to the artistic experience. Many critics consider them not to be art at all, because of their inherent lack of originality and the particular predictability these films appear to possess. There is a formulaic quality that genre films are frequently accused of having, and this sense of formula gets them criticized as falling outside the realm of serious art.
As Braudy explains, critics harp on genre films for lacking a certain level of uniqueness; however, he makes a strong case that such a contention is not actually a valid reason for dismissing a film. "But why should art be restricted only to works of self-contained intensity, while many other kinds of artistic experience are relegated to the closet of aesthetic pleasure, unfit for the daylight? Genre films, in fact, arouse and complicate feelings about the self and society that more serious films, because of their bias toward the unique, may rarely touch" (436).
Here Braudy makes a truly crucial argument in defense of genre films: they do not constrict themselves toward or away from certain subjects. In that regard, genre films are less restrictive than other more "serious" types of art. A genre film does not fear proposing its relationship to certain subjects; it therefore enjoys a greater level of liberty in what it creates and how it is able to interact with the world and the human condition.
Later in his essay, Braudy explores the origins of the bias against genre films and the heightened distaste for them that persists in critical circles. He cites the aesthetic theories of the Romantic period as being largely responsible for this contemporary prejudice (436). Within these aesthetic theories, as Braudy explains, the true artist was considered to be one who was unconventional, who struggled on the edges of society and existence, trying to make his or her work unique so that it escaped "the dead hand of traditional form" (437).
Braudy explains how such modes of thinking are ultimately fraudulent, because art cannot help but have some sort of relationship with the past, either through "contrast or continuation" (437). In this sense, Braudy shatters a commonly held illusion about art and time: he is essentially arguing that all art is a product of its time and simply cannot help being so. To allege that "real art" or "high art" has no relationship with the past is not only misguided — it is impossible.
"Genre films' courageous exploration and craftsmanship"
"Hitchcock's moral commentary within genre conventions"
Braudy concludes his article with a thorough deconstruction of the musical Shall We Dance. In this close reading, he demonstrates that the film — often dismissed by critics — encapsulates intricate artistic forces that elevate it to loftier forms of art. There is a push and pull inherent within the film: an exploding vibrancy justified by periods of stasis, and an individualized energy that absolves the piece from being formulaic.
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