ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the intersections between gender and media genres, both performative concepts that imply a series of rules of inclusion and exclusion. Their convergence can disrupt these rules, a potential heightened by the development of Digital Media practices and platforms, which foster increasingly niche audiences and subgenres across all media. Focused on gender’s link with genre across media production, distribution, and consumption, the chapter explores how gender identities and sexual orientations manifest through genre characteristics and ontologies, such as ‘chick flicks’ or queerbaiting practices. How do gendered expectations linked to media production and consumption reinforce or subvert conventional gender roles? In which ways do the new labels emerging from video-on-demand platforms challenge or reinforce traditional gender assumptions associated with media genres? How are algorithms furthering gendered expectations regarding the types of media that audiences consume? Following a chronological logic, the chapter starts by covering genre and gender literature in Film and TV Studies; it then examines the genres emerging in relation to postfeminist and feminist discourses. Lastly, the chapter explores gender and genre in digital media, addressing streaming platforms and algorithmic logics. The chapter is followed by Mala Mathew’s critical essay on gender representation in shōnen, a subgenre of anime aimed primarily at young boys.
