It has come to my attention that there are competing views on combining genres in screenwriting: some find it refreshing, and a sign of changing tastes in a landscape of the familiar; others consider it jarring, too often confusing, and borderline blasphemy.
Where do you land?
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I always blend genres so I love it. That being said I like a straight genre too. Depends on my mood, really, and no matter what I feel it’s fair play.
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I love combining genres, Monte Albers de Leon, and I see A LOT of movies, shows, etc. that have two or more genres. The thing is to balance the genres, which can be tricky.
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Yee-Haw Erick!
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I am writing a suspense/thriller during which characters tell stories from their past that have different genres contained within those stories…the challenge is to not lose the building suspense in the process.
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I write sci-fi BUT sci-fi is always combined with other genres. "Star Wars" is sci-fi/drama, "Alien" is sci-fi/horror, "Galaxy Quest" is sci-fi/comedy. Most movies have a mix or smattering of other genre. Even the most hardcore western, can have a touch of romance or a thriller aspect. It's not unheard of and if you look hard enough at any film, you will almost always find something taken from another genre.
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Genre blending is very cool, in my opinion. Even if I don't write sci-fi/action, I found myself adding something slightly sci-fi in there. I probably got that from watching James Bond as a kid, a secret Spectre base in Japan launching and stealing US and USSR satellites is absurd, but so darn cool. That movie is You Only Live Twice by the way and comes recommended.
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I find that most films end up mixing genres to some degree, and most of my favorites are a blending of elements from at least 3 or 4. Me, I have found myself combining genres in my feature scripts and short stories more and more as I get older. I've had one knocking around my skull for several years, which is legitimately a blend of Epic, Halted-Apocalypse, Sci-fi, Adult feature film. It's effectively a heroes journey story, and it wouldn't work if it weren't shot and conceived as an epic. And because the character's sexual evolution (physical and psychological) is the part of a biological mechanism which averts an extension level climate disaster taking place on Earth, so the sex scenes must be realistic and unsanitized, while not being porn-framed like you're trying to get the most graphic shot.
It would be jarring to tell that kind of story without really adhering to the tropes and styles relevant to each genre present in the story. And all of those elements really do serve the story - which is always queen for me.
And honestly, if I were to film it, I'd almost definitely fill the support cast with a handful of older and widely recognizable porn stars (like Nina Hartley and Evan Stone). Just to hang a lantern on the fact that we treat the porn and mainstream film industries as if they were acids and bases, that can never really be blended aside from the odd Star Wars Franchise porn spoof of. We choose to put a chasm between them, and pretend neither is relevant to the other - thank the Puritan spirit for that - but we miss out on a lot of potentially entertaining and enlightening stories by doing so.
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Flavors from other genres do not constitute a true genre blend. It all comes down to the story engine.
For example: Mr & Mrs Smith. if you remove either genre element, the story collapses. It is fully romance and fully thriller. They cannot be separated from each other. Genre blend.
But. thriller who happens to have a love interest as a small subplot. If we remove that romantic subplot, the thriller story still stands. Story flavor. There were romantic flavors in Harry Potter, but it wasn't a blend.
A story only containing other genre elements is not a blended genre. It really depends on how integral to the story and whether the story still stands without that element.
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Combined a Scientific and Fantasy genre with new freshing blow of our time. Found most joy in writing it.
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Cool discussion starter! Personally I love when a story takes risks such as genre blending. As long as it adheres to the “rules” or constructs it sets for itself. (It astonishes and frustrates me when a film breaks its own rules.) As we all know, every story has been told, and blending genres can give the same ol’ story a fresh take.