The Benefits of Genre: Feel-Good Films as a Path to Health and Well-Being

This chapter builds a case for seeing moving images as a vehicle for the realization of health and well-being, a public value according to Daniel M. Hausman. It offers an account of why feel-good films have a poor reputation and to consider the defining features of two sub-categories belonging to the genre—the standard feel-good film and the ethical feel-good film. The sense of well-being or happiness derived from a standard feel-good film is typically experienced on an immediate, first-order basis, without a second-order affirmation of the experience in question. The chapter explores the connections between positive emotions and health. Positive emotions are a feature of both sub-categories of the feel-good film, albeit in different ways that do ultimately make a difference. The chapter draws on positive psychology to make conceptual sense of the claim that the ethical feel-good film deserves special attention in the context of the cinema's contributions to the public value of health.