So does it matter whether we split fantasy off from science fiction off from horror?

Since I’ve just gotten through defining genres as interconnected families, the answer is obviously “no.” Even if we did, the stories wouldn’t pay any attention to us. They’d keep interbreeding and forming shocking mésalliances and running away together in the dead of night, as they’ve been doing for centuries.

There are some interesting comments as well, including one from, Fiction Theory, who writes:

…it seems like the film industry is far more comfortable with crossovers and genre-mixers than any other media.

I mean, how many people who wouldn’t touch sci-fi go see films which, in book form, are 100% sci fi – but because they’re “action”, they don’t mind the alien.

Such as Independence Day. A lot of people I know who wouldn’t go near the sf/f section of a bookstore adore that movie. It clearly *is* science fiction. It’s got aliens, spaceships. But the movie categorizes itself by what happens in the movie, not by WHY it happens.

Of course, as science fiction, Independence Day is a pretty lousy example. It is an effective action film, there’s no denying that. (I enjoyed it immensely the first time I saw it.) But as science fiction it falls pretty short. (Seeing it again, I’ve had to wonder, what the hell was I thinking?) I think it succeeded largely in spite of its science fiction elements, not because it couched those elements in the familiar and more box-office-friendly guise of an action movie. What’s at work in Hollywood, I think, is less crossovers of different genres than the occasional genre element sneaking its way into more conventional fare.