{"id":1811,"date":"2023-01-21T20:44:58","date_gmt":"2023-01-21T19:44:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/radishthegreat.com\/blog\/?p=1811"},"modified":"2026-01-10T12:21:01","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T11:21:01","slug":"radishflix-2022-genres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radishthegreat.com\/blog\/2023\/01\/21\/radishflix-2022-genres\/","title":{"rendered":"RadishFlix 2022: Genres"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After my overview of time and place<\/a> was published, my boss called me into a meeting, told me that calling “sitting with my ass on the couch” “sad” was rude and defamatory, and invited me to offer a clarification: Sitting with my ass on the couch, where I provide a warm squishy cushion for my cat, is my highest purpose in life. I cherish every minute of it, and I should be doing it more.

Thank you, and please don’t bite my face.<\/p>\n\n\n

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“More bird videos. Or else.”
January 2023<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Now that that’s out the way, a look at genre. Obviously, films can have multiple genres–an animation can also be a comedy and a mystery and a family film–but the IMDB lists them alphabetically, and I find this approach unhelpful because it is difficult to determine the main category without looking at each film individually.

My 207 films had a total of 602 listed genres. The good news: they were comma-delineated. The bad news: I am really bad at parsing strings in LibreOffice Calc<\/a>. Further, the colors on the pie graph repeat; it is not obvious if “Thriller” or “Drama” is the bigger green slice, so I had to make a table. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Colorful. Some movies are represented in six different slices.
January 2023<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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…but how many comedies were actually funny?<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The most interesting thing, I think, is that every genre had four or more entries. I don’t think of myself as liking “musical films” but films about musicians<\/a> are most decidedly non-bogus.

Also unhelpful is the seemingly arbitrary definitions employed by the IMBD, and how those definitions changed over time. I can watch 1930s horror, where the bodies are dismembered off-screen, but 21st-century explicit-torture-and-gore make me physically ill. And I wouldn’t have called the German film about the Satanist sacrificing teenage boys in exchange for immortality “Fantasy” (I don’t always get to pick the films); that genre needs unicorns or talking cats.

So, because there are a hundred better things I should be doing instead, I tried to give each film a descriptor.

It’s impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next I tried to organize them by “theme” or “distinguishing feature”–vampires, mobsters, cowboys, Commies–and that is taking a very long time. Off-hand, there are five Batmans and two Godzillas; one Kung Fu and one Shakespeare.

I would like to start a new spreadsheet with actors and directors, but I would also like to spend those seventeen hours watching movies, or maybe stitching something. Hrm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s impossible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[262],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-1811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","tag-fuzz"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t