The Truman Show

When watching The Truman Show it was hard to define what category of genre it would come under, I would say that it is a film which is focused around a variety of genre's and not just one in particular which is most popular in other films. I would say that this films most obvious genre would be a comedy-drama, as when I first began watching it I thought that it was a comedy but as the film went on the realisation of Truman's fake life and his reactions when he realised this could give the film a sub-genre of a drama. The dramatic side of this films allows us as the audience to sympathise with Trumans character, but the comical values also gives it a light hearted atmosphere.
Throughout this film it breaks the conventions from the theorists Vladmir Propp who believed that every film contained stock character, I believe that The Truman Show breaks this theory, although Truman would appear to be the hero and his real lover from his teenage years would be the princess and all of the other characters throughout the film would appear to be villains as they are all lying to Truman and do not want him to find out about his real life. Christof may appear to be the main villain in this film as he would go as far as killing Truman to prevent him from leaving his fake life in a 'bubble world', even though Christof see's Truman as a child to him, and loves him as he feels as though he has raised him and has been protecting him.
Roland Barthes theory is that every film contains signs is that be establish understanding through signs, I believe that this is true within this films as there is a darkened faded edge in some shots of Truman's life, this shows us that someone is watching him and that he is getting filmed on another camera.
Claude Levi-Strauss had a theory of binary oppositions and there are some obvious ones in the Truman Show, a clear one being good vs evil with Chrisof and the rest of the characters against Truman, reality vs fantasy which would be the real world against Truman's fantasy 'perfect' world.
In conclusion I believe that The Truman Show is good way of showing and agreeing with some theorists, I still also believe that it is a hard film to define which genre it would come under.