Genre ( French for 'kind, sort') is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature , music , or other forms of art or entertainment, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. Stand-alone texts, works, or pieces of communication may have individual styles, but genres are amalgams of these texts based on agreed-upon or socially inferred conventions. Some genres may have rigid, strictly adhered-to guidelines, while others may show great flexibility. The proper use of a specific genre is important for important for a successful transfer of information ( media-adequacy ).
99-458: Indian Matchmaking is a 2020 Indian reality television series produced by Smriti Mundhra that premiered on Netflix on 16 July 2020. In August 2021, Netflix renewed the series for a second season. In March 2022, Netflix renewed the series for a third season, which premiered in April 2023. Indian Matchmaking first aired on 16 July 2020, on Netflix . Series director Smriti Mundhra pitched
198-522: A Mormon splinter group), Breaking Amish and Amish Mafia (the Amish ), and Big Fat Gypsy Weddings and its spinoffs ( Romani people ). The Real Housewives franchise offers a window into the lives of social-striving urban and suburban housewives. Many shows focus on wealth and conspicuous consumption , including Platinum Weddings , and My Super Sweet 16 , which documented huge coming of age celebrations thrown by wealthy parents. Conversely,
297-580: A nuclear family (filmed in 1971) going through a divorce; unlike many later reality shows, it was more or less documentary in purpose and style. In 1974 a counterpart program, The Family , was made in the UK, following the working-class Wilkins family of Reading . Other forerunners of modern reality television were the 1970s productions of Chuck Barris : The Dating Game , The Newlywed Game , and The Gong Show , all of which featured participants who were eager to sacrifice some of their privacy and dignity in
396-477: A 2003 paper, theorists Elisabeth Klaus and Stephanie Lücke referred to the former category as "docusoaps", which consist of "narrative reality", and the latter category as "reality soaps", which consist of "performative reality". Since 2014, the Primetime Emmy Awards have used a similar classification, with separate awards for " unstructured reality " and " structured reality " programs, as well as
495-454: A Reality or Reality-Competition Program , was added. In 2007, the web series The Next Internet Millionaire appeared; it was a competition show based in part on The Apprentice , and was billed as the world's first Internet reality show. In 2010 the Dutch singing competition show The Voice of Holland , created by John de Mol Jr. , premiered; it added to the singing competition template
594-443: A camera crew on an outdoor adventure , such as hunting , fishing , hiking, scuba diving , rock climbing, wildlife photography, horseback riding, race car driving, and the like, with most of the resulting action and dialogue being unscripted, except for the narration. In the 1966 Direct Cinema film Chelsea Girls , Andy Warhol filmed various acquaintances with no direction given. The Radio Times Guide to Film 2007 said that
693-501: A cast member who wrote a personal piece for the Huffington Post about his appearance on episode 2 of the show, criticized the producers for misrepresenting his appearance and failing to "discuss and explore casteism, homophobia and ethnocentrism." The Los Angeles Times followed up with the couples appearing on the show and reported that they are not together anymore. Reality television series Reality television
792-584: A celebrity going about their everyday life: notable examples include The Anna Nicole Show , The Osbournes , Gene Simmons Family Jewels , Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica , Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Hogan Knows Best . VH1 in the mid-2000s had an entire block of such shows, known as "Celebreality". Shows such as these are often created with the idea of promoting a celebrity product or upcoming project. Some documentary-style shows shed light on rarely seen cultures and lifestyles. One example
891-455: A classification system for ancient Greek literature , as set out in Aristotle's Poetics . For Aristotle, poetry ( odes , epics , etc.), prose , and performance each had specific features that supported appropriate content of each genre. Speech patterns for comedy would not be appropriate for tragedy, for example, and even actors were restricted to their genre under the assumption that
990-645: A number of subgenres, for example by setting or subject, or a distinctive national style, for example in the Indian Bollywood musical. A music genre is a conventional category that identifies pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style , although in practice these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. There are numerous genres in Western classical music and popular music , as well as musical theatre and
1089-411: A particular culture or community. The work of Georg Lukács also touches on the nature of literary genres , appearing separately but around the same time (1920s–1930s) as Bakhtin. Norman Fairclough has a similar concept of genre that emphasizes the social context of the text: Genres are "different ways of (inter)acting discoursally" (Fairclough, 2003: 26). A text's genre may be determined by its: In
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#17327901486771188-481: A story, or allegorical personifications. They usually deal with subjects drawn from "everyday life". These are distinguished from staffage : incidental figures in what is primarily a landscape or architectural painting. "Genre" is also be used to refer to specialized types of art such as still-life , landscapes, marine paintings and animal paintings, or groups of artworks with other particular features in terms of subject-matter, style or iconography . The concept of
1287-536: A structured classification system of genre, as opposed to a more contemporary rhetorical model of genre. The basic genres of film can be regarded as drama, in the feature film and most cartoons , and documentary . Most dramatic feature films, especially from Hollywood fall fairly comfortably into one of a long list of film genres such as the Western , war film , horror film , romantic comedy film , musical , crime film , and many others. Many of these genres have
1386-440: A televised competition. The 1976–1980 BBC series The Big Time featured a different amateur in some field (cooking, comedy, football, etc.) trying to succeed professionally in that field, with help from notable experts. The 15-episode series is credited with starting the career of Sheena Easton , who was selected to appear in the episode showing an aspiring pop singer trying to enter the music business. In 1978, Living in
1485-466: A third award for " reality-competition " programs. In many reality television programs, camera shooting and footage editing give the viewer the impression that they are passive observers following people going about their daily personal and professional activities; this style of filming is sometimes referred to as fly on the wall , observational documentary or factual television . Story "plots" are often constructed via editing or planned situations, with
1584-687: A top athlete and celebrity, the brutal nature of the murders, and issues of race and class in Los Angeles celebrity culture, the sensational case dominated ratings and the public conversation. Many reality television stars of the 2000s and 2010s have direct or indirect connections to people involved in the case, most notably Kim Kardashian , daughter of defense attorney Robert Kardashian , and several of her relatives and associates. The series Expedition Robinson , created by television producer Charlie Parsons, which first aired in 1997 in Sweden (and
1683-436: A type of person could tell one type of story best. Genres proliferate and develop beyond Aristotle's classifications— in response to changes in audiences and creators. Genre has become a dynamic tool to help the public make sense out of unpredictability through artistic expression. Given that art is often a response to a social state, in that people write, paint, sing, dance, and otherwise produce art about what they know about,
1782-510: A viable mode. He then uses two additional criteria to distinguish the system. The first of the criteria is the object to be imitated, whether superior or inferior. The second criterion is the medium of presentation: words, gestures, or verse. Essentially, the three categories of mode , object , and medium can be visualized along an XYZ axis. Excluding the criteria of medium, Aristotle's system distinguished four types of classical genres: tragedy , epic , comedy , and parody . Genette explained
1881-585: Is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1990s with shows such as The Real World , then achieved prominence in the early 2000s with the success of the series Survivor , Idol , and Big Brother , all of which became global franchises. Reality television shows tend to be interspersed with "confessionals", short interview segments in which cast members reflect on or provide context for
1980-446: Is further subdivided into epic , lyric , and drama . The divisions are recognized as being set by Aristotle and Plato ; however, they were not the only ones. Many genre theorists added to these accepted forms of poetry . The earliest recorded systems of genre in Western history can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle . Gérard Genette explains his interpretation of the history of genre in "The Architext". He described Plato as
2079-542: Is meant to resemble scripted soap operas – in this case, the television series Desperate Housewives and Peyton Place . A notable subset of such series focus on a group of women who are romantically connected to male celebrities; these include Basketball Wives (2010), Love & Hip Hop (2011), Hollywood Exes (2012), Ex-Wives of Rock (2012) and WAGS (2015). Most of these shows have had spin-offs in multiple locations. There are also fly-on-the-wall-style shows directly involving celebrities. Often these show
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#17327901486772178-521: Is met or not. Many genres have built-in audiences and corresponding publications that support them, such as magazines and websites. Inversely, audiences may call out for change in an antecedent genre and create an entirely new genre. The term may be used in categorizing web pages , like "news page" and "fan page", with both very different layout, audience, and intention (Rosso, 2008). Some search engines like Vivísimo try to group found web pages into automated categories in an attempt to show various genres
2277-407: Is often applied, sometimes rather loosely, to other media with an artistic element, such as video game genres . Genre, and numerous minutely divided subgenres, affect popular culture very significantly, not least as they are used to classify it for publicity purposes. The vastly increased output of popular culture in the age of electronic media encourages dividing cultural products by genre to simplify
2376-653: Is shows about people with disabilities or people who have unusual physical circumstances, such as the American series Push Girls and Little People, Big World , and the British programmes Beyond Boundaries , Britain's Missing Top Model , The Undateables and Seven Dwarves . Another example is shows that portray the lives of ethnic or religious minorities. Examples include All-American Muslim ( Lebanese-American Muslims ), Shahs of Sunset (affluent Persian-Americans ), Sister Wives (polygamists from
2475-525: Is still ongoing. The program was structured as a series of interviews with no element of the plot. By virtue of the attention paid to the participants, it effectively turned ordinary people into a type of celebrity, especially after they became adults. The series The American Sportsman , which ran from 1965 to 1986 on ABC in the United States, would typically feature one or more celebrities, and sometimes their family members, being accompanied by
2574-522: The Renaissance period. According to Green, "Beethoven's Op. 61 and Mendelssohn's Op. 64 are identical in genre – both are violin concertos – but different in form. However, Mozart's Rondo for Piano, K. 511 , and the Agnus Dei from his Mass, K. 317 are quite different in genre but happen to be similar in form." Some, like Peter van der Merwe , treat the terms genre and style as
2673-618: The United Kingdom in 1964, the Granada Television documentary Seven Up! broadcast interviews with a dozen ordinary 7-year-olds from a broad cross-section of society and inquired about their reactions to everyday life. Every seven years, the filmmaker created a new film documenting the lives of the same individuals during the intervening period. Titled the Up Series , episodes included "7 Plus Seven", "21 Up", etc.; it
2772-536: The " hierarchy of genres " was a powerful one in artistic theory, especially between the 17th and 19th centuries. It was strongest in France, where it was associated with the Académie française which held a central role in academic art . The genres, which were mainly applied to painting, in hierarchical order are: The hierarchy was based on a distinction between art that made an intellectual effort to "render visible
2871-650: The 1950s, game shows Beat the Clock and Truth or Consequences involved contestants in wacky competitions, stunts, and practical jokes. Confession was a crime and police show that aired from June 1958 to January 1959, with interviewer Jack Wyatt questioning criminals from assorted backgrounds. The radio series Nightwatch (1951–1955) tape-recorded the daily activities of Culver City, California police officers. The series You Asked for It (1950–1959) incorporated audience involvement by basing episodes around requests sent in by postcard from viewers. First broadcast in
2970-662: The 2018–19 and 2019–20 television seasons. The success of the two franchises has led to other globally-syndicated franchises of reality competitions based around guesswork, such as Game of Talents (which began in Spain in 2019) and The Masked Dancer (which began in the United States in 2020). Specialist skill-based TV competitions became popular during this decade with such programs like The Great British Bake-Off , Lego Masters , The Great British Sewing Bee and Forged in Fire shown. Television development across all genres
3069-469: The 21st century, the series is often considered a prototype of reality television programming. In the early 1940s the young German television station, named after Paul Nipkow had staged a show in which a young couple acted as model Aryans and presented their everyday lives without a script to the camera ( Familienchroniken - Ein Abend mit Hans und Gelli ). Even though it was clearly Nazi propaganda and
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3168-496: The Bounty Hunter , Police Stop! , Traffic Cops , Border Security and Motorway Patrol . Shows set at a specific place of business include American Chopper , Miami Ink and its spinoffs, Bikini Barbershop and Lizard Lick Towing . Shows that show people working in the same non-business location include Airport and Bondi Rescue . Genre Critical discussion of genre perhaps began with
3267-635: The Dutch production company Endemol . Although Dragons' Den originated in Japan , most of its adaptations are based on the British version.) In India, the competition show Indian Idol was the most popular television program for its first six seasons. During the 2000s, several cable networks, including Bravo , A&E , E! , TLC , History , VH1 , and MTV , changed their programming to feature mostly reality television series. In addition, three cable channels were started around that time that were devoted exclusively to reality television: Fox Reality in
3366-475: The Past had amateurs participating in a re-enactment of life in an Iron Age English village. Producer George Schlatter capitalized on the advent of videotape to create Real People , a surprise hit for NBC, and it ran from 1979 to 1984. The success of Real People was quickly copied by ABC with That's Incredible , a stunt show produced by Alan Landsburg and co-hosted by Fran Tarkenton ; CBS's entry into
3465-476: The Stars , and the investment franchise Dragons' Den . Several " reality game shows " from the same period have had even greater success, including Deal or No Deal , Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? , and Weakest Link , with over 50 international adaptions each. (All but four of these franchises, Top Model , Project Runway , The Biggest Loser and Dragons' Den , were created by either British producers or
3564-533: The U.S. and is syndicated in over 100 countries worldwide. In 2001, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences added the reality genre to the Emmy Awards in the category of Outstanding Reality Program . In 2003, to better differentiate between competition and informational reality programs, a second category, Outstanding Reality-Competition Program , was added. In 2008, a third category, Outstanding Host for
3663-473: The U.S. networks used reality series and other unscripted content (including those delayed from their summer lineups) to fill gaps in their schedules while the production of scripted programming resumed. There have been various attempts to classify reality television shows into different subgenres: Another categorization divides reality television into two types: shows that purport to document real life, and shows that place participants in new circumstances. In
3762-491: The U.S. states of Alaska , Louisiana and Texas , shows about cakes, weddings and pawnbrokers , and shows, usually competition-based, whose title includes the word "Wars". Duck Dynasty (2012–2017), which focused on the Robertson family that founded Duck Commander , in 2013 became the most popular reality series in U.S. cable television history. Its fourth-season premiere was viewed by nearly 12 million viewers in
3861-459: The U.S., which they attributed to "The diminishing returns of cable TV's sea of reality sameness". They noted that a number of networks that featured reality programming, including Bravo and E!, were launching their first scripted shows, and others, including AMC , were abandoning plans to launch further reality programs; though they clarified that the genre as a whole "isn't going anywhere." Ratings and profits from reality TV continued to decline in
3960-545: The United States, most of which were in rural markets. Its rural audience share ranked in the 30s, an extremely high number for any series, broadcast or cable. Following from the 1900 House format, the BBC produced a series called Back in Time for Tea in which a family would experience tea time for various decades. In 2014, Entertainment Weekly and Variety again noted a stagnation in reality television programs' ratings in
4059-420: The United States, reality television programs suffered a temporary decline in viewership in 2001, leading some entertainment industry columnists to speculate that the genre was a temporary fad that had run its course. Reality shows that suffered from low ratings included The Amazing Race (although the show has since recovered and is in its 32nd edition), Lost (unrelated to the better-known serial drama of
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4158-791: The United States, which operated from 2005 to 2010; Global Reality Channel in Canada , which lasted two years from 2010 to 2012; and CBS Reality (formerly known as Reality TV and then Zone Reality) in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which has run from 1999 to the present. During the early part of the 2000s, network executives expressed concern that reality-television programming was limited in its appeal for DVD reissue and syndication . But DVDs for reality shows sold briskly; Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County , The Amazing Race , Project Runway , and America's Next Top Model all ranked in
4257-471: The appearance and structure of soap operas. Such shows often focus on a close-knit group of people and their shifting friendships and romantic relationships. One highly influential such series was the American 2004–2006 series Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County , which attempted to specifically mimic the primetime soap opera The O.C. , which had begun airing in 2003. Laguna Beach had a more drama-like feel than any previous reality television show, through
4356-540: The caste, we have to see the height..." which Yashica Dutt of The Atlantic describes as "lump[ing] an entire social system, which assigns people to a fixed place in a hierarchy from birth, together with anodyne physical preferences." Per Dutt, in the show, caste preference is coded into harmless phrases such as "similar backgrounds," "shared communities," and "respectable families," and "the show does exactly what many upper-caste Indian families tend to do when discussing this fraught subject: It makes caste invisible." The show
4455-433: The closely related concept of "genre ecologies". Reiff and Bawarshi define genre analysis as a critical reading of people's patterns of communication in different situations. This tradition has had implications for the teaching of writing in American colleges and universities. Combining rhetorical genre theory with activity theory , David Russell has proposed that standard English composition courses are ill-suited to teach
4554-449: The concept of putting strangers together in a limited environment for an extended period of time and recording the drama that ensued. Nummer 28 also pioneered many of the stylistic conventions that have since become standard in reality television shows, including extensive use of soundtrack music and the interspersing of events on screen with after-the-fact "confessionals" recorded by cast members, which serve as narration. Nummer 28 became
4653-418: The creator of three imitational, mimetic genres distinguished by mode of imitation rather than content. These three imitational genres include dramatic dialogue, the drama ; pure narrative, the dithyramb ; and a mixture of the two, the epic . Plato excluded lyric poetry as a non-mimetic, imitational mode. Genette further discussed how Aristotle revised Plato's system by first eliminating the pure narrative as
4752-809: The episodes were certainly affected by censorship , in recent years the show has been presented more frequently as the oldest reality TV show in the world. Precedents for television that portrayed people in unscripted situations began in the late 1940s. Queen for a Day (1945–1964) was an early example of reality-based television. The 1946 television game show Cash and Carry sometimes featured contestants performing stunts. Debuting in 1948, Allen Funt 's hidden camera show Candid Camera (based on his previous 1947 radio show, The Candid Microphone ) broadcast unsuspecting ordinary people reacting to pranks. In 1948, talent search shows, such as Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour and Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts , featured amateur competitors and audience voting. In
4851-485: The events being depicted on-screen; this is most commonly seen in American reality television. Competition-based reality shows typically feature the gradual elimination of participants, either by a panel of judges, by the viewership of the show, or by the contestants themselves. Documentaries , television news , sports television , talk shows , and traditional game shows are generally not classified as reality television. Some genres of television programming that predate
4950-576: The favorite or underdog to win. Other criticisms of reality television shows include that they are intended to humiliate or exploit participants; that they make stars out of untalented people unworthy of fame, infamous figures, or both; and that they glamorize vulgarity. Television formats portraying ordinary people in unscripted situations are almost as old as the television medium itself. Producer-host Allen Funt 's Candid Camera , in which unsuspecting people were confronted with funny, unusual situations and filmed with hidden cameras, first aired in 1948. In
5049-948: The field of rhetoric , genre theorists usually understand genres as types of actions rather than types or forms of texts. On this perspective, texts are channels through which genres are enacted. Carolyn Miller's work has been especially important for this perspective. Drawing on Lloyd Bitzer 's concept of rhetorical situation, Miller reasons that recurring rhetorical problems tend to elicit recurring responses; drawing on Alfred Schütz , she reasons that these recurring responses become "typified" – that is, socially constructed as recognizable types. Miller argues that these "typified rhetorical actions" (p. 151) are properly understood as genres. Building off of Miller, Charles Bazerman and Clay Spinuzzi have argued that genres understood as actions derive their meaning from other genres – that is, other actions. Bazerman therefore proposes that we analyze genres in terms of "genre systems", while Spinuzzi prefers
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#17327901486775148-493: The film was "to blame for reality television". In 1969, the British rock group the Beatles were filmed for a month during the recording sessions which would become their album Let It Be and released the homonymous film the following year. In 2021, director Peter Jackson created an eight-hour, three-episode television series entitled The Beatles: Get Back . The 12-part 1973 PBS series An American Family showed
5247-593: The fourth and final type of Greek literature , was excluded by Plato as a non-mimetic mode. Aristotle later revised Plato's system by eliminating the pure narrative as a viable mode and distinguishing by two additional criteria: the object to be imitated, as objects could be either superior or inferior, and the medium of presentation such as words, gestures or verse. Essentially, the three categories of mode, object, and medium dialogue, epic (superior-mixed narrative), comedy (inferior-dramatic dialogue), and parody (inferior-mixed narrative). Genette continues by explaining
5346-490: The genre was That's My Line , a series hosted by Bob Barker . The Canadian series Thrill of a Lifetime , a fantasies-fulfilled reality show, originally ran from 1982 to 1988. It was revived from 2001 to 2003. In 1985, underwater cinematographer Al Giddings teamed with former Miss Universe Shawn Weatherly on the NBC series Oceanquest , which chronicled Weatherly's adventures scuba diving in various exotic locales. Weatherly
5445-401: The genres prose or poetry , which shows best how loosely genres are defined. Additionally, a genre such as satire might appear in any of the above, not only as a subgenre but as a mixture of genres. Finally, they are defined by the general cultural movement of the historical period in which they were composed. In popular fiction , which is especially divided by genres, genre fiction is
5544-492: The genres that students will write in other contexts across the university and beyond. Elizabeth Wardle contends that standard composition courses do teach genres, but that these are inauthentic "mutt genres" that are often of little use outside composition courses. Genre is effective as a tool in rhetoric because it allows a speaker to set the context for a rhetorical discussion. Devitt, Reiff, and Bawarshi suggest that rhetorical genres may be assigned based on careful analysis of
5643-558: The highly successful Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty are set in poorer rural areas of the Southern United States . Some documentary-style shows portray professionals either going about day-to-day business or performing an entire project over the course of a series. One early example (and the longest running reality show of any genre) is Cops , which debuted in 1989. Other such shows specifically relating to law enforcement include The First 48 , Dog
5742-497: The idea of the show to a TV producer in 2009/2010, but the show was rejected for "essentially not being white enough." She pitched the show to Netflix by showing Taparia, who "were super excited about it." She had met Taparia three years before Indian Matchmaking premiered on Netflix, when she documented the lives of other three women going through the Indian marriage process in the 2017 documentary, A Suitable Girl. Taparia's daughter
5841-573: The integration of lyric poetry into the classical system by replacing the removed pure narrative mode. Lyric poetry , once considered non-mimetic, was deemed to imitate feelings, becoming the third "Architext", a term coined by Gennette, of a new long-enduring tripartite system: lyrical; epical, the mixed narrative; and dramatic, the dialogue. This new system that came to "dominate all the literary theory of German romanticism " (Genette 38) has seen numerous attempts at expansion and revision. Such attempts include Friedrich Schlegel 's triad of subjective form,
5940-430: The late 2010s. The South Korean competition show I Can See Your Voice , which premiered in 2015, showed guest judges attempting to guess which of a group of contestants could sing, and which could not, without hearing them sing. The show was successful, and spawned several imitators, most notably King of Mask Singer several months later. King of Mask Singer was a more traditional singing competition show, but with
6039-520: The later integration of lyric poetry into the classical system during the romantic period , replacing the now removed pure narrative mode. Lyric poetry, once considered non-mimetic, was deemed to imitate feelings, becoming the third leg of a new tripartite system: lyrical, epical, and dramatic dialogue. This system, which came to "dominate all the literary theory of German romanticism (and therefore well beyond)…" (38), has seen numerous attempts at expansion or revision. However, more ambitious efforts to expand
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#17327901486776138-470: The long-running reality television show franchises in the United States, such as American Idol , Dancing with the Stars and The Bachelor , had begun to see declining ratings. However, reality television as a whole remained durable in the U.S., with hundreds of shows across many channels. In 2012, New York Magazine's Vulture blog published a humorous Venn diagram showing popular themes across American reality shows then running, including shows set in
6237-496: The lyric; objective form, the dramatic; and subjective-objective form, the epic. However, more ambitious efforts to expand the tripartite system resulted in new taxonomic systems of increasing complexity. Gennette reflected upon these various systems, comparing them to the original tripartite arrangement: "its structure is somewhat superior to most of those that have come after, fundamentally flawed as they are by their inclusive and hierarchical taxonomy, which each time immediately brings
6336-547: The mix, and there’s a much better chance that the matches that are made at the end of the season will last." Archi Sengupta of Techquila rated the show 4 stars out of 5, calling it "sweet and entertaining." Though the show is called Indian Matchmaking , it portrays no couples who identify as Muslim , Christian , or Dalit — communities that represent close to 40 percent of India's population. The show has also been criticised for normalizing caste based discrimination such as when matchmaker Taparia declares "In India, we have to see
6435-507: The model for many later series of Big Brother and its clones, and Peter Weir's full-length film The Truman Show . One year later, the same concept was used by MTV in its new series The Real World . Nummer 28 creator Erik Latour has long claimed that The Real World was directly inspired by his show. But the producers of The Real World have said that their direct inspiration was An American Family . According to television commentator Charlie Brooker , this type of reality television
6534-510: The more usual term. In literature , genre has been known as an intangible taxonomy . This taxonomy implies a concept of containment or that an idea will be stable forever. The earliest recorded systems of genre in Western history can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle. Gérard Genette , a French literary theorist and author of The Architext , describes Plato as creating three Imitational genres: dramatic dialogue, pure narrative, and epic (a mixture of dialogue and narrative). Lyric poetry ,
6633-847: The music of non-Western cultures. The term is now perhaps over-used to describe relatively small differences in musical style in modern rock music , that also may reflect sociological differences in their audiences. Timothy Laurie suggests that in the context of rock and pop music studies, the "appeal of genre criticism is that it makes narratives out of musical worlds that often seem to lack them". Music can be divided into different genres in several ways. The artistic nature of music means that these classifications are often arbitrary and controversial, and some genres may overlap. There are several academic approaches to genres. In his book Form in Tonal Music , Douglass M. Green lists madrigal , motet , canzona , ricercar , and dance as examples of genres from
6732-402: The necessary viewers to make it worthwhile. (Even in these cases, it is not always successful: the first ten seasons of Dancing with the Stars were picked up by GSN in 2012 and was run in marathon format, but attracted low viewership and had very poor ratings). Another option is to create documentaries around series, including extended interviews with the participants and outtakes not seen in
6831-406: The original airings; the syndicated series American Idol Rewind is an example of this strategy. COPS has had huge success in syndication, direct response sales, and DVD. A Fox staple since 1989, COPS has, as of 2013 (when it moved to cable channel Spike ), outlasted all competing scripted police shows. Another series that had wide success is Cheaters , which has been running since 2000 in
6930-408: The overall viewership tallies for eight consecutive years, from the 2003–2004 to the 2010–2011 television seasons. Another trend was to combine reality TV with a social history angle usually by having contestants taken back to various time periods primarily to see how millennials would cope without modern technology. Examples included The 1900 House , and Bad Lad's Army . In addition to those
7029-699: The reality television boom have been retroactively classified as reality television, including hidden camera shows, talent-search shows, documentary series about ordinary people, high-concept game shows, home improvement shows, and court shows featuring real-life cases and issues. Reality television has faced significant criticism since its rise in popularity. Critics argue that reality television shows do not accurately reflect reality, in ways both implicit (participants being placed in artificial situations), and deceptive (misleading editing, participants being coached on behavior, storylines generated ahead of time, scenes being staged). Some shows have been accused of rigging
7128-416: The results resembling soap operas – hence the terms docusoap and docudrama . Documentary-style programs give viewers a private look into the lives of the subjects. Within documentary-style reality television are several subcategories or variants: Although the term "docusoap" has been used for many documentary-style reality television shows, there have been shows that have deliberately tried to mimic
7227-499: The revamped MasterChef , among others. The 1980s and 1990s were also a time when tabloid talk shows became more popular. Many of these featured the same types of unusual or dysfunctional guests who would later become popular as cast members of reality shows. Reality television became globally popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with the successes of the Big Brother and Survivor / Expedition Robinson franchises. In
7326-528: The same name ) and The Mole (which was successful in other countries). But stronghold shows Survivor and American Idol continued to thrive: both topped the U.S. season-average television ratings in the 2000s. Survivor led the ratings in 2001–02 , and Idol has the longest hold on the No. 1 rank in the American television ratings , dominating over all other primetime programs and other television series in
7425-431: The same, saying that genre should be defined as pieces of music that share a certain style or "basic musical language". Others, such as Allan F. Moore, state that genre and style are two separate terms, and that secondary characteristics such as subject matter can also differentiate between genres. A music genre or subgenre may be defined by the musical techniques , the styles, the context, and content and spirit of
7524-619: The search for products by consumers, a trend the Internet has only intensified. In philosophy of language , genre figures prominently in the works of philosopher and literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin . Bakhtin's basic observations were of "speech genres" (the idea of heteroglossia ), modes of speaking or writing that people learn to mimic, weave together, and manipulate (such as "formal letter" and "grocery list", or "university lecture" and "personal anecdote"). In this sense, genres are socially specified: recognized and defined (often informally) by
7623-429: The search hits might fit. A subgenre is a subordinate within a genre, Two stories being the same genre can still sometimes differ in subgenre. For example, if a fantasy story has darker and more frightening elements of fantasy, it would belong in the subgenre of dark fantasy ; whereas another fantasy story that features magic swords and wizards would belong to the subgenre of sword and sorcery . A microgenre
7722-500: The show "insightful, humorous and heartwarming," praising how it showcases the preoccupation with height and caste , as well as Taparia's matchmaking tactics. Kristen Baldwin of Entertainment Weekly gave the show a B+, stating that the show as presented in a "glossy, cosmopolitan drama, without a hint of 'look at these crazy foreigners and their kooky customs!' condescension." Joel Keller of Decider called people to stream it, saying that it "brings thousands of years of tradition into
7821-555: The show a 2/5 on the Mash Meter, criticizing how the show is "problematic and cheesy in equal parts." In response to the criticisms, Smriti Mundhra stated that she hoped that "it will spark a lot of conversations that all of us need to be having in the South Asian community with our families – that it’ll be a jumping-off point for reflections about the things that we prioritize, and the things that we internalize.” Ravi Guru Singh,
7920-541: The subject matter and consideration of the audience. Genre is related to Ludwig Wittgenstein's theory of Family resemblance in which he describes how genres act like a family tree, where members of a family are related, but not exact copies of one another. This concept of genre originated from the classification systems created by Plato . Plato divided literature into the three classic genres accepted in Ancient Greece : poetry , drama , and prose . Poetry
8019-623: The themes. Geographical origin is sometimes used to identify a music genre, though a single geographical category will often include a wide variety of subgenres. Several music scholars have criticized the priority accorded to genre-based communities and listening practices. For example, Laurie argues that "music genres do not belong to isolated, self-sufficient communities. People constantly move between environments where diverse forms of music are heard, advertised and accessorised with distinctive iconographies, narratives and celebrity identities that also touch on non-musical worlds." The concept of genre
8118-634: The top DVDs sold on Amazon.com . In the mid-2000s, DVDs of The Simple Life outranked scripted shows such as The O.C. and Desperate Housewives . Syndication, however, has been problematic; shows such as Fear Factor , COPS , and Wife Swap , in which each episode is self-contained, can be rerun fairly easily, but usually only on cable television or during the daytime ( COPS and America's Funniest Home Videos being exceptions). Season-long competitions, such as The Amazing Race , Survivor , and America's Next Top Model generally perform more poorly and usually must be rerun in marathons to draw
8217-456: The tripartite system resulted in new taxonomic systems of increasing scope and complexity. Genette reflects upon these various systems, comparing them to the original tripartite arrangement: "its structure is somewhat superior to…those that have come after, fundamentally flawed as they are by their inclusive and hierarchical taxonomy, which each time immediately brings the whole game to a standstill and produces an impasse" (74). Taxonomy allows for
8316-401: The twist that judges could not see contestants during the initial audition round, and could judge them only by their voice. The show was an instant success, and spawned an entire franchise, The Voice , which has been highly successful, with almost 50 international adaptations. The Tester (2010–2012) was the first reality television show aired over a video game console. By 2012, many of
8415-504: The underlying stories are real. Another highly successful group of soap-opera-style shows is the Real Housewives franchise, which began with The Real Housewives of Orange County in 2006 and has since spawned nearly twenty other series, in the U.S. and internationally. The franchise has an older cast and different personal dynamics than that of Laguna Beach and its imitators, as well as lower production values, but similarly
8514-952: The universal essence of things" ( imitare in Italian) and that which merely consisted of "mechanical copying of particular appearances" ( ritrarre ). Idealism was privileged over realism in line with Renaissance Neo-Platonist philosophy. A literary genre is a category of literary composition. Genres may be determined by literary technique , tone , content , or even (as in the case of fiction) length. Genre should not be confused with age category, by which literature may be classified as either adult, young adult , or children's . They also must not be confused with format, such as graphic novel or picture book. The distinctions between genres and categories are flexible and loosely defined, often with subgroups. The most general genres in literature are (in loose chronological order) epic , tragedy , comedy , novel , and short story . They can all be in
8613-414: The use of genre as a tool must be able to adapt to changing meanings. The term genre is much used in the history and criticism of visual art, but in art history has meanings that overlap rather confusingly. Genre painting is a term for paintings where the main subject features human figures to whom no specific identity attaches – in other words, figures are not portraits, characters from
8712-852: The use of higher-quality lighting and cameras, voice-over narration instead of on-screen "confessionals", and slower pacing. Laguna Beach led to several spinoff series, most notably the 2006–2010 series The Hills . It also inspired various other series, including the highly successful British series The Only Way Is Essex and Made in Chelsea , and the Australian series Freshwater Blue . Due to their dramatized feel, many of these shows have been accused of being pre-scripted, more so than other reality television shows have. The producers of The Only Way Is Essex and Made in Chelsea have admitted to coaching cast members on what to say in order to draw more emotion from each scene, although they insist that
8811-399: The whole game to a standstill and produces an impasse". Although genres are not always precisely definable, genre considerations are one of the most important factors in determining what a person will see or read. The classification properties of genre can attract or repel potential users depending on the individual's understanding of a genre. Genre creates an expectation in that expectation
8910-440: The wrinkle that the contestants were celebrities who remained masked until they were removed from the show, adding an element of guesswork to the competition. The two shows both spawned successful international franchises, I Can See Your Voice and Masked Singer , respectively. Masked Singer has been especially popular, with over 50 local adaptations; its American adaptation was the third highest-rated series overall of both
9009-659: Was a series consisting of archeologists and historians running a farm though various historical periods, most notably Victorian Farm . Internationally, a number of shows created in the late 1990s and 2000s have had massive global success. Reality-television franchises created during that time that have had more than 30 international adaptations each include the singing competition franchises Idols , Star Academy and The X Factor , other competition franchises Survivor/Expedition Robinson , Big Brother , The Biggest Loser , Come Dine with Me , Got Talent , Top Model , MasterChef , Project Runway and Dancing with
9108-463: Was also said to further endorse and promote gender stereotypes. In addition to showing " classist " and " casteist " stereotypes, the show was criticised for whitewashing the idea of arranged marriages. Kennith Rosario of The Hindu labeled the show as "The big fat desi stereotype," saying that the characters "believe in some of the most atavistic ideals of marriage, and the show, in its glossy demeanour, endorses it." Sushri Sahu of Mashable gave
9207-442: Was an Australian show that depicted a family, similar in concept to An American Family . The 1994–95 O. J. Simpson murder case , during which live network television followed suspect Simpson for 90 minutes being chased by police, has been described as a seminal moment in reality television. Networks interrupted their regular television programming for months for coverage of the trial and related events. Because of Simpson's status as
9306-401: Was enabled by the advent of computer-based non-linear editing systems for video (such as produced by Avid Technology ) in 1989. These systems made it easy to quickly edit hours of video footage into a usable form, something that had been very difficult to do before (film, which was easy to edit, was too expensive to use in shooting enough hours on a regular basis). Sylvania Waters (1992)
9405-464: Was impacted in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic , which forced many reality competition series to suspend production (and in some cases curtail a competition already in progress, such as Canadian and Malayalam versions of Big Brother ), until such time that production could recommence with appropriate health and safety protocols approved by local authorities. Due to their quicker turnaround times,
9504-501: Was later produced in a large number of other countries as Survivor ), added to the Nummer 28 / Real World template the idea of competition and elimination. Cast members or contestants battled against each other and were removed from the show until only one winner remained (these shows are now sometimes called elimination shows). Changing Rooms , a program that began in the UK in 1996, showed couples redecorating each other's houses, and
9603-756: Was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in informational programming. COPS , which first aired in the spring of 1989 on Fox and was developed due to the need for new programming during the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike , showed police officers on duty apprehending criminals. It introduced the camcorder look and cinéma vérité feel of much of later reality television. The 1991 television documentary on "typical American high schoolers", Yearbook , focused on seniors attending Glenbard West High School, in Glen Ellyn , Illinois and broadcast prime-time on Fox . The series Nummer 28 , which aired on Dutch television in 1991, originated
9702-447: Was one of the young women featured. Mundhra named the casting the biggest hurdle of the show, going through a client list of 500 families and calling to see if they were willing to be on camera. Mundhra also noted that the series initially started with about a dozen singles but some of those "fell off" during production. The show received mixed reviews between critics and social media users. Inkoo Kang of The Hollywood Reporter called
9801-471: Was the first reality show with a self-improvement or makeover theme. The dating reality show Streetmate premiered in the UK in 1998. Originally created by Gabe Sachs as Street Match , it was a flop in the United States. But the show was revamped in the UK by Tiger Aspect Productions and became a cult hit. The production team from the original series later created the popular reality shows Strictly Come Dancing , Location, Location, Location , and
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