Genre Study (Discussion)

Jane Feuer, in the Channels chapter on genre, specifies three approaches to genre:

1. the aesthetic,
2. the ritual, and
3. the ideological.

She then summarizes the approaches to the sitcom of David Grote, Horace Newcomb and David Marc -- followed by her own genre analysis. And Television presents the work of Geoffrey Hurd.

Each group will explore the approach of one of these four authors.

Group 2: Grote

Group 3: Newcomb

Group 4: Marc

Group 1: Hurd

1. Using your author's approach, explain which of Feuer's groups it falls into.
2. Apply his approach to the episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, The Cosby Show and How I Met Your Mother we've viewed. What sort of questions would you ask about these eps? What conclusions might your analysis draw? How is How I Met Your Mother altering the genre's conventions (if, indeed, your author would think it is)? (Group 1: Do you see any of Hurd's narrative functions in these eps?)
3. How does Feuer's own approach to genre and The Mary Tyler Moore Show differ from your author's?

All groups

1. How does Feuer feel the genre changed in the 1970s?
2. List two strength(s) of genre analysis. List two weaknesses of this approach.

Bibliography

1. Butler, Jeremy G. Television: Critical Methods and Applications. Mahweh, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007.
2. Robert C. Allen, Channels of Discourse, Reassembled, second edition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992).

External links

• Chapter 13 illustrations