Genre Analysis

     Jason Mittell explores genre analysis in American television culture in his text Genre and Television. Within his examples he touches on four specific elements in genre analysis: Defintional, Interpretive, Historical, and Psychological. These are four distinct lenses one can use when analyzing a text of media. Since media and art have blurred boundaries there is always room for an artistic approach in classifying genre. In another class I am taking on the Performing arts in Western Civilization we are focusing on an eclectic method of analysis where when approaching any art piece (visual, musical, or otherwise) one must employ an arsenal of gazes to really determine the art. In this same way I think Mittell’s four prongs of genre analysis are best served to work together.

        I have chosen to examine the film Grey Gardens in an Eclectic/Mittell style. Historically, this film was made in 1975. It has since been distributed by the Criterion Collection which prides itself on distributing select “important classic and contermporary films” and in 2010 the film was selected by the Library of Congress to be entered into the National Film Registry for being “culturally, historicall, or aesthetically significant.”

        Through an Interpretive lens, this film examines several topics. Obviously, there is the enigmatic relationship between the mother and daughter where Little Edie remains at the home to take care of her mother even though her mother is the main source of her psychosis. Additionally the relationship the women have with men and marriage opens up an entire discussion on “old-school” society in an era when family defined social status and marriage defined women. Their fall from high-soceity American royalty to neighborhood nuisance is extremely thought provoking as well potentially a comment on the loss of respect for the nuclear families of the American 50’s.

     Definitionally this piece is a documentary. It was self pro-claimed and was screened at film festivals as documentary. While it has a film crew and direction, the film is considered in the style of direct cinema or cinéma vérité which uses objectivity to let the subject of the film dictate the content, aside from editing the physical film has virtually no distortion and the meaning is open to interpretation.

       Psychologically this film has extremely varied affects on it’s audiences.  It began with a cult following in the film industry and throughout the past forty years has been referenced in media for those “in-the-know” who are savvy enough to know the text. It has also gained a large following in the homosexual community. One theory is that the resilience of Little Edie to live her life no matter the condition of it appealed to the community, another explores the idea that it is simply the outlandish nature of the piece that made it a gay-cult hit. Either way, the piece has an audience and has continued to have an audience for forty years.