e356. Incidental Genre: Unpacking the Unexpected

A few weeks ago back on our Things you Missed episode, Mav recommended the movie My Old Ass with Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza. Since that time both Wayne and Mav’s wife Stephanie have watched it. In talking to them Mav noted a curious thing about the film. It’s technically a science fiction movie, sort of. At the very least the basic setup of the film involves time travel. However, beyond the setup, the science fiction genre is essentially ignored entirely and the film is simply a coming of age rom com about teenage exploration of sexuality. And it’s delightful.

On this episode Steph, Mav and Wayne unpack the idea of incidental genre. That is to say, what do we make of media wherein there is a very definite genre premise as a hook, but then that genre is all but ignored otherwise in the story. We talk about options in movies and comics and TV shows, but the idea probably persists in other areas as well. So, listen as we break down the premise and give us your thoughts for other things we should check out in the comments.

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