What does Melodrama mean?

The word “melodrama” comes from the Greek word for song “melody”, combined with “drama”. Music is used to increase the emotional response or to suggest characters. There is a tidy structure or formula to melodrama: a villain poses a threat, the hero escapes the threat (or rescues the heroine) and there is a happy ending. In melodrama there is constructed a world of heightened emotion, stock characters and a hero who rights the disturbance to the balance of good and evil in a universe with a clear moral division. In recent decades the term has taken on pejorative connotations.

A melodrama in a more neutral and technical sense of the term is a play, film, or other work in which plot and action are emphasized in comparison to the more character-driven emphasis within a drama. Melodramas can be distinguished from tragedy by the fact that they are open to having a happy ending.

the adjective form of melodrama, melodramatic, simply means overly dramatic.