Genre Shift and Identity Maintenance – An Analysis of Iranian War Film Genres (1980-2013) with Niklas Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory

A close observation of IranIraq war films in the Iranian society reveals that their genres have shifted in the course of the society rsquo;s evolution. This questions the categorybased principles of genre we have known so far in literature concerning film theory and necessitates a new conceptualization of genre, which can be realized with the aid of Niklas Luhmann rsquo;s social systems theory. This theory abandons categorization in favor of functional differentiation and helps us observe Iranian war movies in their societal context. By taking a close look at the function of film in the society as one of the mass media, and through locating the concepts of memory, reality, identity and genre in Luhmann rsquo;s theory, I shall find a pattern in the mentioned genre shift which is in turn punctuated by the Iranian society rsquo;s different stages of evolution. To do so, I shall rely on a qualitative, analytical and critical method.