Genre scripts and appreciation of negative emotion in the reception of film

Abstract

The Distancing-Embracing model reserves a role for genre scripts in the hedonic valuation of negative emotion in art. Genre scripts, as defined in the target article, leave higher-level recipient intuitions out of scope. We argue that, in film genre scripts, lower-level stylistic features lend access to more complex conceptual knowledge, including pragmatic principles. The argument implies a consideration of the communicative dimension of aesthetic works, which could strengthen both factors of the Distancing-Embracing model.