Research - Intertextuality

Intertextuality is when a texts meaning (story, book, article, song, video, movie) is influenced by another text or makes a reference to another form of media with the desired intention that the audience will recognize this reference. Intertextual reference can be subtle or obvious. The key idea is that these intertextual references allow for a deeper understanding of the text. John Stuarts description of the music video as incorporating, raiding and reconstructing is essentially the essence of intertextuailty and it is perhaps more explicitly evident in the music video than in any other form.

Intertextuailty is used in various aspects of the media from television to film and music videos. It is used in two ways:

-Parody – make fun of text that is represented.

- Pastiche – when the referenced text is honored and appreciated.

Katy perry’s roar uses intertextuality to reference survivors song eye of the tiger from the rocky soundtrack in both her song and music video as the themes are very similar.

The line eye of the tiger mean to be strong and to overcomes problems, Katy Perry directly quotes the line ‘ I have the eye of the tiger’ in order to reflect the same qualities and values that were represented by survivor.   

As the original song is from the 80’s it could be said that this intertextual reference is also attempt to attract an audience older that her genre target audience also people that enjoy the older version can also listen to the still powerful meaning of the song in a up to date version.

Another example of intertextuailty in a music video is Taylor swift ‘ love story’

In which she is portrayed as Juliet’ in one the most famous love story ‘Romeo and Juliet’ . The video is made to look like a modernized version of the story, relating more to the lyrics of the song. Also it reference various iconic moments from the book and film.