Intertextual Referencing

Intertextuality is text that alludes to or references to another text. In 1969, Julia Kristeva, who is a literary critic and sociologist stated that an intertextual reference is: "the shaping of a texts meaning by another text". By another text, Kristeva means a variety of different media ranging from Film to TV and even a Photograph. Kristeva also said: "the use of an intertextual reference in any text is the absorption and transformation of another".

Some referencing is iconic (very famous or popular) and the audience can easily recognise and remember the style. Referencing can also reinforce nostalgia (bringing things from the past into the present) and familiarity.

There are an array of different music videos that have been created which have many different intertexual references that may have either been used to entice the audience or to make the video seem more interesting. An example of a music video that uses a variety of intertexual references is 'Telephone' by Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce. Here is the music video for 'Telephone':

The music video for 'Telephone' by Lady Gaga which also featured Beyonce was created in 2010. The genre of this music video is Pop and has a range of intertexual references which can be seen throughout the music video, some of them are;

• Bettie Page,1950s - Glamour Model and Pin-up

• Divine - US actor and Drag Queen 

• Pierre and Gilles - French fashion and art photographers

• Typography from the Blacksploitation film 'Jackie Brown'

• Russ Meyer films - where there was sexploitation in films which featured camp humour 

• Roy Lichtenstein art - US pop artist in the 1960s 

• Thelma and Louise - a 1991 feminist road movie

• Batman - includes up beat theme music and is relatively simplistic 

• Iconic US super heroes including Marvel and DC comic characters

Below are just a few images to show how some of the intertexual factors have been used throughout this music video:  

  

After looking at these pictures you can distinctly see that there are a wide range of different intertextual references that have been used. These different intertextual references would have been used to again reinforce nostalgia and bring back things from the past to make them more interesting again by putting them in to modern Media. Even though some people nowadays may not understand these references, it still makes the music video more fascinating for them as it is something different to them and will be eye catching because they are not used to the type of things they are seeing.

I decided to create a presentation to show different genre music videos and how intertextual references have been used. Here is my presentation: