Melodrama (film genre)

In film studies and criticism, melodrama may variously refer to a genre, mode, style or sensibility characterized by its emphasis on intense and exaggerated emotions and heightened dramatic situations.^[1] There is no fixed definition of the term and it may be used to refer to a wide and diverse range of films of other genres including romantic dramas, historical dramas, psychological thrillers or crime thrillers, among others.^[2] Although it has been present in cinema since its inception, melodrama was not recognized as a distinct film genre until the 1970s and 1980s when critics and scholars identified its formal and thematic characteristics.^[3][4]

Unlike industry-defined genres, such as Westerns, melodrama was defined retrospectively, much like film noir.^[5] Its recognition as a genre stemmed from a critical reevaluation of Douglas Sirk's films (considered the greatest exponent of melodrama), particularly his 1950s works alongside those of Vincente Minnelli, which shaped the idea of the Hollywood "family melodrama".^[6] This genre centers on middle-class family conflicts, often generational, within contexts of social mobility and emotional trauma.^[7] The "family melodrama" category, originally centered on 1950s Hollywood, evolved to be regarded as the definitive form of melodrama, from which a basic model for understanding the genre as a whole emerged.^[6]

Melodrama has since been a key focus for discussions on gender, sexuality, and cultural reinterpretation.^[8] While traditionally associated with female audiences (with some scholars equating it with the category of "woman's films"),^[3] melodramas have garnered particular interest among gay men, largely due to their unintended camp elements.^[9][10] Camp, a subversive aesthetic that revels in exaggeration and artifice, had already drawn gay audiences to Sirk's films as works of camp before their academic rediscovery in the 1970s.^[9][10] Much of what has come to be called "gay cinema" shows a great affinity with the expressive modes of melodrama, and several of its main exponents have acknowledged its influence, such as John Waters, Pedro Almodóvar, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Todd Haynes.^[11]