Melodrama, how do you define it?

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brianluce

Carbonite Member
A lot of material has this charge levied against it. It seems to mean different things to different people. I'm not sure how I'd define it, but like pornography I know it when I see it.

How do you define it? Is it always a negative? How do you avoid it or recognize it? Is it possible to over dramatize a story? If so, where do you draw the line?
 
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A review is only negative if it betrays the intention of the author. You could argue that most Hollywood drama/comedy follows the Classical form (heroes and villains, right and wrong, good wins) and is a type of melodrama. Often if it's intentional and extreme, it's funny.

I would say that in modern use, melodrama comes from a character's unmotivated (or undermotivated) externalizations of emotions, or sometimes from a story's reliance on character archetypes. Both of these are tools a writer can use to accelerate the pace of a story, but there is a limit to how much each member of the audience may accept. Obviously, it's at a different place for different people.

Wikipedia - Melodrama
 
Melodrama is where the story is driven by external events, something happens to someone, someone gets killed, war happens... main character has to live up to situation.

Drama is when the story/conflict is driven by a internal need/motivation of the main character as in love, hate, insanity... main character has to come to terms with situation.

Most hollywood movies and TV shows are typically melodramas.
 
To me it's stock situations, characters, and resolutions, all blended to create a sort of featureless indistinct paste.
 
My understanding has been that drama is when there is conflict in a story, external or internal. And in any good story there will be an outer visible motivation (goal, the main goal of the story to achieve by the end) for the hero, countered by conflicts, and likewise with an inner emotional goal.

HVX2006 said:
...Drama is when the story/conflict is driven by a internal need/motivation of the main character as in love, hate, insanity... main character has to come to terms with situation.....
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Interesting - again melodrama is drama with musical emphasising the emotional power of the scene.

I don't think its necessarily that melodrama is bad drama... but certainly its designed to be more emotional.

Melodrama - music (melody) and drama, is used all the time to shore up some pretty shoddy drama's of course (think cheesy hallmark channel tv movie haha) but is that in the script? or the direction?

It may well be in the resemblance of scripts to films we have seen produced badly that can negatively influence a readers perspective too.

Melodrama can be effective, but i would go against seeing it as anything but a technique in film, and not really one a scriptwriter necessarily touches on. (It won't be them that decides to put music into a dramatic scene will it...)

Would Battleship Potemkin (forgive typo) be as effective without melodrama techniques, or what about the great confrontations in the Sergio Leonne films.

What about Opera - Madame Butterfly?! When it works i think it does as a sylistic tool and technique for expressing emotion, it is i think often misunderstood however as a result of those films / that use it to shore up rubbish (most of which do!)
 
lawriejaffa said:
Interesting - again melodrama is drama with musical emphasising the emotional power of the scene.
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Insisting upon melodrama as word that can only signify its original meaning - drama plus music - is about as sharp as insisting that manufacture must only be used in its original sense, as the production of items strictly by hand.
 
Yah but im not insisting am I lol

I'm just saying that as a technique, it is incorrectly referred to as a constant negative - at least it is most usually.

The films i mentioned or even opera has lots of good melodrama - and of course we're familiar with bad melodrama.

I think in its actual meaning there is more room for interpretation (ironically) than its stereotype!

So given that I didn't insist nor defined melodrama in any precise and limiting way then I don't get your point maxy ol' boy :)

Its actually a bit like me making an overarching statement about your comment like...

'Insisting that a word cannot signify its original meaning is about as vague as insisting a word can never be used in its original sense...'

:beer: hehe
 
ProfessorU said:
I would say that in modern use, melodrama comes from a character's unmotivated (or undermotivated) externalizations of emotions, or sometimes from a story's reliance on character archetypes.

Wikipedia - Melodrama
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I like this definition--seems accurate, only trouble is what looks like melodrama might really be overacting. You're talking about actions and emotions that aren't earned right? Not sure how I'd distinguish the two under this definition.
 
lawriejaffa said:
Yah but im not insisting am I lol
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Interesting - again melodrama is drama with musical emphasising the emotional power of the scene.

You wrote this, right?

and

Melodrama - music (melody) and drama, is used all the time to shore up some pretty shoddy drama's

and

What about Opera - Madame Butterfly?!

Since the examples you chose are music+drama examples, and since you opened with a definitive statement as to what melodrama "is" - drama with musical (sic) emphasising (sic) the emotional power of the scene - your meaning was pretty clear.

Although I guess it was not the meaning you actually intended to convey.

lawriejaffa said:
So given that I didn't insist nor defined melodrama in any precise and limiting way then I don't get your point maxy ol' boy :)
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You did. What you didn't do, was pay attention to the meaning of your own post. Which is pretty weird.


lawriejaffa said:
:beer: hehe
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Mmm hmm. You're very clever.
 
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Unearned emotion (i.e., emotional reactions from actors that are out of proportion to the story's weight/development). So when actors are crying, breaking down, angry, falling in love, jealous, but the story has never really earned this degree of emotional reaction, I say that's melodrama. It's an excuse to get "drama" without doing the work on the story and writing.
 
Look Sad Max, woopie woo, you said that sometimes words can have meaning beyond their specific definition.

I hate to break it to you, and i hate to spoil your revelation but... thats not a surprise to anyone, and I didn't say otherwise in my post. If i want to insist something i will SAY IT and guess what? I'll even use the word 'insist...'

What i did was point out, that within the definition of melodrama, are interpretations both good and bad, and that the common stereotype of melodrama is (wrongly) that of 'bad drama' full stop.

If you don't like it, take it out on the dictionary. Yes I am very clever, even when im bending over and wriggling my little bum at you in defiance!

Yep Sean that is the general perception. Melodrama though is a popular brand of fiction too however. I don't think its necessarily 'always' a poor quality product, it like all films has its best proponents and embarassing representatives.

From the Penny Dreadful novels... the melodramatic story has always been popular with the public. Take the TV series 24 for example... constant melodrama in your face! Then compare it to a really cheesy made for tv drama (at least its cheesy to us.) Then (and this is my taste) i love the melodrama in a sergio leonne confrontation, (his western scenes are operatic!) Yet melodramatic those are, they are really artistic.

So i think when someone says 'oh thats soooo melodramatic' they are being ignorant of its wide definition and meaning. Just as ignorant in fact as those directors who tell actors to be 'less theatrical...' hehe
 
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Max and Lawrie, your bickering is very cliche and stale and some of the outrage and anger doesn't really seem "earned". I also noticed some format issues. I think you both need to do some rewriting.
 
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Melodrama as a word stopped meaning one precise thing a long time ago, just like the word cinema, it can only be defined within a specific context. Melodrama as used for American movies of the 50's obviously means something quite different than "melodrama" in its original form (French mélodrame, from Greek melos ‘music’ + French drame ‘drama) or melodrama the tool or component in story telling.
Trying to find one definition means you have come full circle and are back where you started, with something like or close to the word "melodrama" that means nothing specific and everything at the same time.

The main reason melodrama has got a bad rap is because of its pedestrian definition in regards to often low quality Hollywood movies of the 40's and 50's, which where simply referred to as melodramas. The "function" as used in literature and writing in it self does not imply a quality of acting or emotion or a style of story telling, but rather a way/function of revealing the message of a given story.

In my mind a story like Rocky is a drama, driven by a internal need and where that internal need is the main propulsory force of the story.

Where a story like "Twister" is melodrama, an external event is the main force that drives the story.

Anyways its an interesting subject.
 
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