Genre of Banshee

Question

Does Banshee have a genre?

To list some of the more wide and loose:

• Wikipedia: Action Drama, Crime Thriller
• IMDb: Action, Crime, Drama
• Rotten Tomatoes: Drama
• …

For some reason it reminds me of a feel from some comic books like Agent X9, Punisher etc. that I regularly read growing up. Likely more to some of the side additions in series within the magazines. (And a touch of No country for old men (Scenery, perhaps in particular), Pulp Fiction (Mood perhaps) etc. in a somewhat loose mix. – These are personal floating connections ;P if you get what I mean.)

It is kind of a modern Wild-West with (anti)heroes, drama, action, sex, violence, etc.

I like the consistent feel one get with old Ford's, dust, shacks, raw ext–/interior and even though one have a super hacker the digitized world is kept at a arms length. One have a character unwrapping for some, (rather static personas), in line with character development with others – giving a interesting mix of the two.

My question is however if there is a more specific sub-genre on the series. (Beside the ones mentioned above.)

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Edit:

From comment and answer I realize my intention was lost. “Genre” was wrong word. I was more thinking of style, theme, (visual and otherwise), or something in that direction. Examples of “styles” in that regard is e.g. Dark City, Tron, Pi or Saving Private Ryan, Braveheart for that matter.

Anyhow; as it was asked as is I'll leave it.

Answer 1

There is no hard and fast rule what genre a show/movie falls into. "Genre" is a highly subjective and elusive topic and there is neither any agreed on definition what genres there are nor where one ends and the next begins (mostly because each genre usually has elements of other genres).

Genres are a man-made concept trying to categorize movies and shows into similar(ish) groups, not something that exists inherently in the nature of the movie/show and is then "discovered" by examining it. See Who decides the genre of a movie? on more information how the genre is usually decided upon.

In the light of this, it is kind of futile to try to determine the exact subgenre of a show, especially if it is as diverse as Banshee. As you said yourself, it has elements that one could attribute to many different genres and happily mixes different settings, styles and plot elements even within the same episode.

Finding a specific sub-genre for exactly that show would not be of much use to anyone, so the best you will probably get that most people will agree on is that it falls within the broad drama genre. From there on you are free to make up your own mind, because whoever you ask, you will get a different answer.