Uncovering Genre: A journey through one film fans genre bias
M y passion is film. I am the person everyone knows who loves the movies. I don’t even know when it started, but I am the person who is associated with and people go to if you want to chat anything film. But I have a secret…I am a bad filmgoer. I have committed many sins within the film community. Currently, the place I watch the majority of my movies beyond any other medium is on my phone (which is a bit of a faux pas in the film community). I also have some seriously bad guilty pleasures. Like the fact I’ve have always had a soft spot for anything made by Don Bluth and I think I’ve seen every bad American rom-com in existence. I’ve checked…it’s pretty much everything.
But anyone who has made film their passion, or even their livelihood has their own little secrets, which ultimately don’t matter. You can still have thoughtful opinions about films and have these monstrosities in your most-watched lists. But what does matter and has ultimately gotten in the way is my aversion to some film genres. I think most people have times when they can’t watch a film because they aren’t in the right mood because they don’t ‘feel’ like it. But more and more, my aversion to trying new films has led to a blanket “no” if any film is suggested from these genres; The Western, Horror and Sci-fi. The dreaded three. My kryptonite. My ultimate shame.
So, to combat this I have decided to make a kind of belated ‘new year’s resolution’ for myself. The idea is that if I immerse myself into an unfamiliar genre that I will hopefully grow to love and appreciate it (or at the very least stand to watch it sometimes). This too with any luck functions as encouragement for anyone who reads this, that if they challenge themselves maybe they can also change. This could apply to anything, but for me, I want to improve my film horizons, and this could be the beginning of that.
I’ve decided for this project that baby steps are necessary, so I will begin with the genre I am most unfamiliar with and probably have seen the fewest films. The Western. In the future, I will explore horror and sci-fi, especially since I’ve received such a great public response to my project.
But for now, my focus rests with the cowboys.
