ABSTRACT
The horror genre is an anomaly when compared to other popular Hollywood classifications such as the Western, screwball comedy, and the gangster film. Gerald C. Wood notes, “The major genres traditionally give the audience a peek at discomforting images, but then quickly draw a curtain over the troubling sights” (211). The Western often depicts a man alone on a friendless landscape and then reassures the audience that solitude fosters an integrity and moral purity not available in groups. In addition, the whimsical behavior depicted in screwball comedies is potentially disruptive to society, but it “becomes normative as long as appropriate mates are found and the screwballs discover room to be themselves in a surprisingly open and expansive landscape” (Wood 211). In short, the Western and screwball comedy as well as the majority of other genres function to reaffirm cultural values. In the Western, the loner destroys the villain, and love conquers all in the screwball comedy.
