We are in danger

Abstract

Genre films are constructed out of narrative patterns and plot points that involve or are predicated on crisis, on danger. This is the logic of much if not all mainstream genre cinema: drama has to take place for there to be a story to be told, and for pleasure and identification to be arrested and enthused. Forms of threatening disequilibrium can be personal, domestic, familial, local, ex ternal, supernatural, and murderous; a way of life can be threatened as well as life itself. There are ideological dimensions at play; the crisis threatens to destabilize patriarchy, heterosexuality, social norms, and expectations. Feelings and modes of affect are set in dangerous motion as the crisis unfo..