Intertextuality in Music Videos

Intertextuality by Jack Barrell

Types of Intertextuality




Parody


With an Intertextual reference of parody, the conventions and general aspects of the original text are used in a ridiculous, absurd or disrespectful way, often intended to make fun of the original by creating humour. Overall, the use of an Intertextual reference of Parody can affect the intended audience in various ways. For example, most commonly this Intertextuality would create humour, especially if the parody is based off of an original text that is relatively serious and not naturally humorous, examples of this can also be seen in films in the 'Scary Movie' franchise as the films are all about creating parodies of very serious films of the horror genre and converting them to be full of comedy and humour. However, this mocking that can be apparent in Intertextual references of Parody can often be seen as very offensive  by audiences and cause controversy, yet this controversy would as a result lead to the video becoming viral and this in turn would evoke attention and the video would then get more noticed and could increase in YouTube views and possibly downloads which would benefit the artist/producers of the video.




Pastiche




An Intertextual reference of Pastiche, is similar to a Parody yet the recreation is a lot more light hearted and mocks the original text a lot less. There is often a lot more respect involved in a Pastiche and the comedy is not designed to directly mock the original but the form humour with the aspects of the original text. Overall, the intended audience will react to this relatively similarly to a Parody yet less or no controversy will be formed at all due to the lack of direct mocking of the original text.




Homage


Finally, an Intertextual reference of Homage is the Intertextual reference that stays as true to the original text as possible with little humour revolving around the original text. The Homage overall aims to show how worthy the original text is and almost advertises it. A Homage is essentially a remake will all aspects being as exact and as similar to the original text. More often than not, the intended audience of this Intertextual reference will feel a sense of nostalgia as the Intertextual reference would visually spark the pragmatic recognition from the audience'[s memory, this is an example of synaesthesia which is where a sound, or visual aspect of something that stimulates a feeling or emotion. In the example of the music video for Eminem - Without Me, this synaesthesia would be the sight of the Robin Costume thus stimulating the memory of possibly reading a Batman and Robin comic or watching a film or TV series.