Film Trends

Yesterday I was reading in my World Cinema textbook about film genres. I thought the author had some pretty interesting things to say, so I thought I'd reflect about them here, since film is media and this is a media blog.

The book talked a lot about how genre popularity occurs in cycles...for example, the success of "The Godfather" caused a ton of other gangster movies to become popular after it was released. That made me think--what genres are popular today? Looking at movie previews, it seems that Hollywood is obsessed by cheesy horror/slasher movies and comic book adaptations. The romantic comedy is of course still in a cycle of popularity that doesn't seem to be even close to ending. But how many more horror movies can this country stomach? Unless horror writers learn some new plotlines, I can see this genre starting to decline in popularity sometime soon...I mean, there's only so many times we can see the same story before it gets old..right? Lets hope so. It's time for something new.

My book also talked about how film genres function in society...we talked about this in class a few times, I think. According to the book, the secret of the success of war movies and romantic comedies is the predictability--we go in knowing that the good side is going to win, that the guy is going to get the girl, and that inevitably, no matter what happens, everyone is going to live happily ever after. These kinds of movies reinforce what we believe.

But here's what I'm really interested in--the book talked a lot about musicals. They were insanely popular during the early era of American cinema, but I never really thought about why. The book talked about how, during the tumultuous times of the popularity of the movie musical, social commentary was often incorporated into the films. It even talked about one of my favorites, "Meet Me In St. Louis," expressing concern for the American homefront during WWII. Crazy! So, even as audiences were enjoying themselves and getting to forget their problems via the happy world of the Musical, they were being force fed commentary on how they should be reacting to the changing world around them. Very cool. Maybe a little creepy if you think about it too much, but still kind of cool.

Personally, I think that Hollywood should go back to making movie musicals. Things are pretty crazy in this world, and filmgoers deserve a fun way to escape. Maybe they could even through in a little social commentary while they're at it. Its definitely time for the return of the movie musical.