Research - Intertexuality

The word ‘Intertextuality’ means to merge two things together. Intertextuality is when something in a music video refers to ideology, past events and known people. Goodwin mentioned Intertextual reference in his music video as it creates an atmosphere on audiences depending on what reference is made in a music video. Whether it creates a negative or positive atmosphere for audiences, it still has an impact on audiences which makes the music video more interesting for audiences. This can be expressed visually or lyrically and must be recognizable for an audience. Almost anything can be referenced in a music video other than a soundtrack. For example, in Nicki Minaj, M.I.A and Madonna’s music video to ‘Gimme All Your Luvin’, the three artists dress up as Marilyn Monroe (Blonde curly hair, lipstick, etc.)

As a class, we analysed George Michael’s music video to ‘shoot the dog’ we found several different intertextual references throughout the whole video. It was very interesting to see how many we could see by watching the music video once through. This is what we came up with:

·         The white house.

·         The Simpsons.

·         Middle East Terror War.

·         Different times that George Michael reinvented himself.

·         Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

·         The Queen.

·         David Beckham and Paul Scholes.

·         Current international relationships.

·         Ginger Spice.

·         Sadam Hussein.

Throughout the whole music video he is mocking all of these intertextual references, which he found quite entertaining, but offended many people such as; British society, celebrities, football fans and war civilians. This video gained a lot of publicity due to the mockery and its strong meaning. George Michael's intertexual references were offensive as it not only just referred to these many different people, the music video made fun of all these people and made a mockery out of them.

My own example is that I researched a music video called ‘La La’ by naughty boy. The whole narrative is based on the same narrative as the old time classic ‘The Wizard of Oz’. A boy travels through streets and meets different characters before he gets to his destination (in the music video). Similar to the wizard of Oz, Dorothy travels down the yellow brick road meeting a scarecrow, tin man, lion and wicked witch of the west who tries stopping their journey to the emerald city to meet the wizard of Oz. This is all very similar and due to this, it’s known as an intertextual reference in the music industry.

My other example that I researched is that one direction also made an intertextual reference to the Beatles. In one directions music video they walked across the famous Abbey Road just like The Beatles famously did in their music video. This was easily recognizable due to The Beatles making that road extremely famous, then, one direction’s success was being compared to The Beatles so the walk across Abbey Road in the music video made sense to the audience and was recognized straight away.

Intertextual reference is used by artists in their music videos for many reasons, which are;

·         Personal views.

·         Own entertainment.

·         Clearer understanding.

·         Strengthen fan base.

·         New and original.

·         Tells the artists story.

Criticism:

·         Too controversial for audiences eyes.

·         Offensive to audiences or other artists.

·         Influencing other people’s opinions on political or social views.

·         Spreads negativity publicly.

·         An artist can lose a fan base.

Personally, I think that an intertextual reference in a music video is very clever and is interesting to point out as a spectator. However, I can also understand how some intertextual references may be offensive to people. For example, when George Michael mocks the Royal family/parliament, they are very important for Britain so many British citizens, as well as the royal family and parliament themselves, may have been offended by the mockery.

I would like to use intertextual reference in my music videos because it’s never been done before and I would love to try it out in an interesting/clever way. If possible, I would like to refer to a celebrity or maybe a past event in a part of the music video, just to represent a something significant. My ideas of using a trap song and maybe using the idea of crime in my final product, a past event in the crime industry could be referenced, this would be interesting to add to the music video. Also, I would possibly like to reference a celebrity if that can possibly be linked with my narrative. Overall, an intertextual reference is a very clever piece of input for a music video.