Pride - Genre

Genre

The genre of Pride could be seen as a hybrid between the comedy and drama genre, however it is hard to say if the film is a comedy, with a serious message, or a dramatic film with comedic bits. Some audience members would feel that the film is more of a comedy due to the series of one liners in the film, every dramatic scene seems to be ‘less-dramatic’ due to the comedy, such as when Mark stands up for the speech, to which Gwen says ‘Get your feet off them seats’! If the film was truly a drama, then the comedic scenes possibly wouldn’t be mixed into the drama scenes. Also, when Jonathan is dancing, the main comedic scene is the that Jon is active, he’s up dancing, which is juxtaposed by the stillness of the miners as they look on, shocked and horrified. The scene is exciting and captivated some miners as a few of the miners start to move to the beat of the song, and some miners start to take notice when they realise that Jonathan is getting up close and personal with the ladies. They soon realise that if they do the same, that could happen to them, so despite being the polar opposite in terms of sexuality, they can still give tips to each other. Jonathan also reinforces that typical ‘dad’, dancing poorly with the other people embarrassingly! That’s exactly how the other gays react, looking on embarrassed about being associated with Jonathan due to his dancing. 

Another reason why the film could be considered a comedy is due to the characters, specifically Gwen and Reggie. These two characters have very little development to them and are only in the film due to their comedy, they aren’t in the film for any other reason. They don’t advance the plot in any way, and if they weren’t in the film, it would still start and end in the exact same way, but the film would be a little less ‘comedic’. 

However, the film could be seen by audience members are being a serious film with some comedic elements, and more likely to be in the drama genre. The film is saturated with several dramatic scenes with funny, one liners mixed in to the film, and going back to the earlier scene of the speech, when Mark stands up, his speech is very patriotic, but again a one liner joke is mixed in, so this scene could actually be interpreted in different ways. When Mark delivers the speech and they all stay to sing, this reinforced the theme of unity, they all stand up together and start singing. One originally starts the song on her own, and as soon as others start, non-diegetic music comes over it emphasising how loud and strong they are when they come together. The ending of the film, with a close up of the raised fiat is significant as it is similar to a humanitarian salute, famously done by John Carlos and Tommie Smith in the 1968 Olympics, and despite that being for human rights for their ethnicity, similarities can be drawn, African-Americans suffered years of persecution, and LGBT and Miners suffered persecution, although not on the same level as African-Americans. In this Bread and Roses scene, it shows the miners at their lowest, struggling to get basic goods and raffling off tinned foods, showing how badly things have gone in Wales, and this reinforces a sense of drama, nothing comedic can be taken from seeing a group of people struggling so much, they haven’t got good food, or electricity. After this speech, when Maureen’s sons barge in, two themes are reinforced, openness, and heartless/homophobia. Openness is reinforced by Sians husband, who rejected the idea of gays coming to the village, but is now defending them from the two homophobic sons, who show that homophobia, no matter who open minded the village is, homophobia will still exist one way or another.

However, Pride has many influences from the Social Realism genre, dealing with social issues present during the time, such as homosexuality and work. But Pride is much more of a light hearted film, combining many conventions of the Social Realism and Comedy Drama genre together, to create a positive, uplifting film. 

Overall, the film displays typical conventions of both a comedy and a drama, but it’s clear to see that the film is definitely a drama, with some comedic scenes. The film is saturated in comedic scenes, sporadically put about throughout the film but the entire film is a drama, it’s very serious and gives the audience an impression about how poorly homosexuals were treated in the 1980’s. The film is definitely a comedy drama, but it’s more likely that it’s more of a drama due to the serious themes and messages the film tries to reinforce. 

Overall this film displays typical genre conventions of both comedy and drama but it is clear to see the film is more of a drama with funny elements than just a simple comedy as if the film was stripped of the funny parts it would still have a story line where as if the issues and themes were taken away them film would have nothing left. The humour used in the film adds to the realism but the film does not rely on funny it uses humour to attract an audience and make the story more enjoyable and relatable.