What makes melodrama

In this movie we see the dramatic story of George Bailey who feels as though his loved ones would be better off without him. By including these exaggerated situations, the audience feels the heartbreak and passion that are a result of the situations the characters find themselves in throughout the course of the story. In this novel, the protagonist is wrongly accused and imprisoned.

Once he is released, a determination of revenge fills him and leads to many dramatic situations. Another example of a melodrama is Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. In this young adult series, a teen girl moves to a new town and falls in love with a teen vampire. The characters find themselves in dramatic situations such as teen love and battles against evil, and the readers are left in emotional suspense throughout the series. Just then, she heard a rustle behind her.

She turned around and her dog came running out of the bushes, followed by her husband, holding their son in his arms. Then, against all odds, nearly all of the tragedy is reversed and the best possible outcome occurs, bringing on a whole new set of emotions for the reader. Melodrama is important because of its deep effect on its audience--viewers love drama, and melodrama delivers an abundance of it. Today, however, melodrama is sometimes criticized because of its unrealistic and sometimes laughable levels of drama.

In fact, many would say that modern day soap operas and reality TV—less respected genres of television that rely heavily on over-the-top drama—evolved from the traditional genre of melodrama. In A Series of Unfortunate Events three children are faced with great misfortune and bad luck time after time.

After the death of their parents, the orphan Baudelaire children are repeatedly and unwillingly put into dangerous, unstable situations that they barely escape. In the introduction to the first book of the series, The Bad Beginning , the narrator Snicket gives the readers a warning:. It is an adaptation of the classic Greek myth, which tells of the sculpture Pygmalion who falls in love with his own statue, which eventually comes to life. The times that the doctors and interns are faced with life-and-death circumstances and heart-wrenching losses is unrealistically frequent.

Unlike most examples of the genre, Louie sometimes uses melodrama to create humor. He over-dramatizes common, everyday situations to make the audience laugh. In Season 4 Episode 1 shows Louie being woken up by the sound of the garbage trucks:. It shows how things seem to Louie, rather than how things actually are; a common scheme in the show.

The next clip shows Louie on a bad date:. We see Louie try to kiss his date, she pulls away and suddenly a helicopter appears and she runs to it and flies away. Again we are shown a melodramatic depiction of how Louie perceives his date. Drama is a popular genre of literature, theater, film and television that focuses on serious human emotions and conflict.

A common mistake people make when categorizing melodramas vs dramas is mistaking emotional stories for melodrama. Melodramas are emotional, but not all emotional movies are melodramas. For example, The Pursuit of Happyness is often described as a melodrama. The film is undoubtedly emotional. However, it is not a melodrama because the story of the film is based on a true story and unfolds with a realistic plot with realistic characters. Melodrama has evolved since its origin into something new while retaining its core characteristics.

It was wildly popular during the Victorian Era for the same reason it is wildly popular on television today. Melodrama appeals to the emotions audiences turn to the story to feel. And it does it in the most direct way possible.

Melodrama is only a drop in a bucket of subgenres that exist in theatre and cinema. To learn more about the various genres and subgenres that exist, check out our next article. We take a look at general genres and the more niche subgenres that fall under them.

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Skip to content. Characteristics of a melodrama: Stereotypical characters Exaggerated conflicts Sensationalized plots Highly emotional.