Genres

We like to categorize things – food, animals, clothes, planets, even people. Each of these have even more little categories. Food for example: meat, fruits, vegetables etc. – this is common, a first thought, when I ask how do you categorize food. Then it goes: healthy food, fast food, home food, GMO etc. But wait! There’s more: green food, red food, yellow food etc.

We just like to know things, to name things, to have the feeling, that these things are our domain, that we conquer them (yeah, I know, it sounds a little brutal), to give them right place in our world.

BUT!

Sometimes we can’t decide. The thin line between one category and the other confused already a hella lot of us.

One time tomato is a vegetable, another time is a fruit. Pluto one time is a planet another time isn’t.

Yeah, but I’m not a scientist, neither a doctor, but I’m a freak, when it goes about books, movies, games. And it drives me crazy, when I hear: “I like horror movies”, and when I show these people my favourite ones, they scream: “OMG, are you normal?! You need a psychiatrist!”. Why react they like that? Because behind the word “horror” they understand thriller, crime, mystery, psychological. NO! Horror genre mostly have something paranormal in it and must be horrifying.

“Oh, you like fantasy, so why don’t you like Star Wars?”. I mean, really?! Maybe because I don’t like science-fiction? Where’s the problem, you ask? This person thinks, I like all genres of speculative fiction, because when she/he see word “fantasy”, she/he understands sci-fi, fantasy, horror, futuristic, post-apocaliptic etc. And it’s sometimes easier to say: “I like knights, not robots. I like mages, not aliens.”, than to explain the big world of fiction genre.

And all I want to say, that it isn’t our fault, that we don’t know that. We should learn about world in school and the genres should be the priority on the literature lessons. Why teach we our kids about old stuff, when they don’t even understand the today world? They can use Facebook, but the Internet is still a mystery. They can play a video game, but a computer is still a mystery. They can read books, but they often don’t understand, what they’re reading.

And what do you think about genres? Did you ever had similar misunderstanding situations, like me?

If you’re a teacher/student you can read about my idea to teach about genres – Genres – what’s the difference?