When I looked up the term "melodrama", I got the actual definition defined by Google: (1) A sensational dramatic piece with exaggerated characters and exciting events intended to appeal to the emotions (2) historical a play interspersed with songs and orchestral music accompanying the action. As decades have passed, each generation has put their own spin on films that resembled a melodrama. However the films are still melodramas when you get to the core. To make it easier on the average Joe, filmsite.org defines melodrama in a simple yet easy to understand way. As the author put it, "Melodrama plots with heart-tugging (literally tear-jerking), emotional plots (requiring multiple hankies) usually emphasize sensational situations or crises of human emotion, failed romance or friendship, strained familial situations, tragedy, illness, loss (the death of a child or spouse), neuroses, or emotional and physical hardships within everyday life...Often, film studies criticism used the term 'melodrama' pejoratively to connote an unrealistic, pathos-filled, campy tale of romance or domestic situations with stereotypical characters (often including a central female character) that would directly appeal to feminine audiences...There are many names for melodramatic films - 'women's pictures', 'weepies', tearjerkers, soap operas (or soapers), and more recently, 'chick flicks'".
http://www.filmsite.org/melodramafilms.html
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