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A melodrama is a dramatic or literary work in which the plot, which is typically sensational and designed to appeal strongly to the emotions, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Characters are often simply drawn, and may appear stereotyped.

In scholarly and historical musical contexts, melodramas are Victorian dramas in which orchestral music or song was used to accompany the action. The term is now also applied to stage performances without incidental music, novels, movies, and television and radio broadcasts. In modern contexts, the term "melodrama" is generally pejorative, as it suggests that the work in question lacks subtlety, character development, or both. By extension, language or behavior which resembles melodrama is often called melodramatic; this use is nearly always pejorative.

The term originated from the early 19th-century French word mélodrame. It is derived from Greek melos, μέλι, honey, melody, μελωδία, sweet song, music, and French drame, drama (from Late Latin drāma, eventually deriving from classical Greek δράμα, theatrical plot, usually of a Greek tragedy).

Ben Singer, assistant professor of film studies at University of Wisconsin–Madison, argues in Melodrama and Modernity: Early Sensational Cinema and Its Contexts that melodrama consistently displays "key constitutive factors": pathos, overwrought or heightened emotion, moral polarization (good vs. evil), non-classical narrative structure (e.g., use of extreme coincidence and deus ex machine), and sensationalism (emphasis on action, violence, and thrills). This applies to both Victorian stage melodrama and 20th-century film melodrama. Singer uses as examples Stella Dallas or Imitation of Life from the studio era in Hollywood: the former generally features all five factors, while the latter focuses primarily on pathos and emotional intensification.

Movie director Sidney Lumet stressed the primacy of plot, saying in 2007 "In a well-written drama, the story comes out of the characters. The characters in a well-written melodrama come out of the story."

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