What I find impressive about the various forms of media (be it film, TV, books, radio, or comics) is that there's a wide variety of material out there, so much so that we have the term called genre. Of course while this gives birth to diversity, it also gives rise to prejudice (and prejudice, I think, is something we humans will always have).
In fiction for example, there's the "literary camp" who looks down upon genre fiction and genre fiction likewise might retaliate. Even various genres might war with each other, the science-fiction crowd looking down on the romance genre and vice versa. One solution brought up is to remove labels, to remove this so-called genres. After all, a good story is a good story, irregardless of what tropes it uses or what genre it belongs to. And this isn't limited to fiction. I mean I've heard several bands say that they don't want to be labeled as pop or rock or jazz or whatever music genre you can think of--they simply play music and hopefully that it's good.
That's well and good as far as the individual is concerned, especially lately when there's a trend to mix things up, to experiment, to diversify. I mean let's take author Neil Gaiman. In the bookstore, I've seen his books pop up in at least three different sections: under fiction, under fantasy/science-fiction, and in the children's section. Author China Mieville likewise blends science-fiction and fantasy in his novels. (On the opposite end of the spectrum, there's the likes of Anne McCaffrey who claims "I'm really science-fiction" even when I'm reading her novels as fantasy.) Then there's accepted authors like Haruki Murakami who are categorized as fiction yet as a reader, it has these surreal moments that puts most fantasy novels to shame.
Unfortunately, history can't be undone. Even if we were to remove these labels that we call genre, people will probably still assign them to books. "Oh, this book is fantasy. This book is horror. This book is slice-of-life." Maybe those designators will disappear eventually with time. But as of the moment, people will still continue to use those labels to describe most books. Is it fair to use genre as labels? Perhaps not but it does set the reader's expectations as to what the book is about.
Personally, I see labels as a tool. Perhaps not necessarily a tool as a writer, but definitely as a reader or consumer. I mean when I enter a bookstore, I don't want to spend all my time looking for a specific book. Books are organized in a specific manner and they're not just shelves filled with random novels. Genres at least help me sort those things out.
At yesterday's Lit Crit, Alex mentioned to Elyss and Miggy at how unfair the Filipiana section in most local bookstores can be. Every Filipino author is lumped in one shelf, irregardless of whether you're writing fiction, non-fiction, or cook books. The only assortment there is by the author's name and changing your family name isn't necessarily an option. As a fiction writer, your book might be lumped up in between the mobile phone text jokes and cook books or perhaps beside the more famous literary authors of our nation. This makes discovering new fiction writers a difficult task as they are simply camouflaged by the various books. (I also mentioned that this is not the case in Powerbooks as there is some segregation in the Filipiniana section.)
In certain ways, removing genre will end up with that result. Except instead of just Filipiniana books, think of it as all the books in the bookstore. So imagine the endless shelves of your bookstore filled with books that are arranged solely by the author's name. If you have time to browse the shelves, that's well and good (and in fact this is the case in secondhand bookstores). If not, well, sorting them out is tedious to say the least. So for me, having genres is as nice solution to organization of books. It's not perfect but it makes my job as a consumer easier with it than without.
Of course another observation I have with regards to genre is that it's full of sub-genres. Genres, I think, are the layman's basic guide to various media. As a non-romance fan, all I need to know about that book is whether it belongs to the romance genre or not. Fans of that particular genre, however, will notice the nuances of their genre. I believe genre is artificial and a good story really is a good story, irregardless of genre. There are some elements that you can't remove from stories (i.e. characters, setting, etc.) and similarly, there are themes that you can never remove from stories. I mean the theme of love will be told and retold in various stories, irregardless of genre. You could be science-fiction and talk about love. You can be realist fiction and talk about love. You can be writing nonfiction and talk about love. That's why I think genres will have their own sub-genres but only sensitive fans of those genres will be familiar with the sub-genres. For example, fantasy will have the sword and sorcery sub-genre, the Arthurian fantasy sub-genre, the epic fantasy sub-genre, the alternate history sub-genre, etc. I can only state fantasy because that's my forte but I'm sure other genres have their own sub-genres as well. Romance for example might have a historical sub-genre, a fantasy sub-genre, an urban sub-genre, etc. Genres lead to other genres and those sub-genres might similarly lead to other genres but people simply lack a general awareness of them.
So what's the point in all this you might ask. Why would I state the advantages of genre, only to debunk it with the sub-genre subculture? I think the important point to note is that while genre is helpful in classifying books (or any media for that matter), genre as a label doesn't necessarily sum up a body of work. Each text might indeed be bound by its genre, but there are works that transcend their genres and aren't limited by them. We as readers should bear this in mind and perhaps those aspiring to write should also take this into consideration.
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