Archived Discussion Main / ShowGenres

This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.

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Fast Eddie: More like developmental notes than anything else:

Clearly...

• Comedy
• Drama
• Dramedy

...are genres. It is almost like it wants a different word, though, because most of the other entries on Show Genres could be in more than one of these three. Genre is such a murky concept. Anyway, putting that aside for a moment and thinking about tropes... a given trope may fall into one and only one of these three; it might be used in more than one; and it might be universal. In terms of shortening up the "general" tropes list, then, it might be useful to divide the list in that way. Leaving the universal tropes on the general list, moving comedy- and drama-only items out. Dramedy may not help much, as it is a mixture of tropes, by definition.

Robert: Tragedy is on a par with comedy, though less common. There's also melodrama, and maybe horror. They're all genres defined, roughly speaking, by the mood or tone of the story. Other genres are about the story plot, or sometimes the setting, one of the things that makes genre a murky concept.

Dramedy is indeed a transition region between genres, so doesn't help much. Pulling out the comedy tropes will be a good start. After that, it might get a little complicated.

Fast Eddie: Yup. We already have Comedy Tropes, so that all that needs doing there is to move a few items out. Ditto Horror. Next, then would be to change the Categories menu structure so that it has a break between the tone items (Comedy, Horror, Drama, possibly Adventure) and the media.

"Judge" Shows?

I sort of figure that "judge" shows (of which The People's Court is the ur-example) warrants a listing here - they have their own tropes (snarky judge, idiot defendants, etc.) and they seem to have supplanted the "shock talk" shows of the Jerry Springer template as daytime viewing. I figure this is entirely because they offer all the trainwreck drama of a Springer, but you get to see a sort of closure at the end - someone is punished and has to pay money and somebody is vindicated. All the cheese, plus a justification of your loathing!