Stranger Things: Genre

 Genre = a style, type or category of art, music, literature etc - Typically with a shared audience and established codes and conventions (eg: horror = blood, monsters, dark).

Genres evolve and change overtime, eg: romance and comedy have evolved into the sub genre of romcom.

Stranger Things Genre

Stranger things demonstrates genre hybridity (operating across multiple genres)

Genres and codes and conventions:

1. Sci-Fi - extra-terrestrial, supernatural, spacecraft, lasers, 

2. Horror - Blood and gore, dark and light, temperature ranges, monsters, violence, anonymity, suspense, paranormal, fear of unknown, use of sound and lack of.

3. Comedy - forth wall breaks, irony

4. Coming of Age - Emotional growth, self-discovery, change, school setting.

7. Crime/ Buddy Cop - donut eating dumb cop (stereotype), kidnapping, murder, red herrings, mystery

8. Romance - love between characters, LGBTQ themes, sex, slow burn.

9. Thriller - Suspense, ticking clocks + time, dramatic music, intense action.

Applied to Stranger Things: 

1st shot - Benny and Eleven 

 - Two shot; benny attempting to comfort eleven, interrogation, power imbalance and gentle

- Coming of age genres typically features an adult mentor figure often a teacher, who guides them of self-discovery. Stranger things however subverts genre expectations by executing Benny in a gory, gnarly way.

2nd shot - 

- Master shot; main boys playing dungeons and dragons around a lightly lit table,

- Coming of age, however sci--fi horror foreshadowed in the poster in back of scene.

Steve Neale and Hybrid Genres:

Genre's are made up of repetition and difference. Repeated characters, archetypes and plots - Eg: horror; typically teenagers misbehave → then are killed by monster → final girl. 

Neale would argue that elements which are repeated are engaging and comforting - however, some producers challenge genre conventions such as in Titanic, the couple does not end with a happy ever after. Genres are continuously evolving and hybridising

Intertextuality is the secret source to encoding genre (whether by a line of dialogue, a shot choice etc)

Intertextual Relay:

The idea there is a passing on or several replicas leading.

Midsommar is unique due to it straying away from typical stereotypes of horror - for example the plot being almost entirely set during daytime, using a bright colour palette, . It's however unoriginal due to the main character being vulnerable, mourning the loss of her family, cult (intertextual Wickerman), isolated area,

Stranger things: Intertextual references:

Alien - Sci-Fi horror about a monster let lose

Stand By Me - Steven King novel adapted into a coming of age masterpiece about kids getting messed up in things.

Firestarter - Steven King Novel about a young girl with psychic powers

Nightmare on Elm Street

E.T

The Goonies

The Shining

tasteful homage - recreated shots are alien, E.T and firestarter

 or nostalgia - they appeal to older audiences because nostalgia sells, nieche references appeal to media savvy audiences - ABC1.