Intertextuality Introduction

Intertextuality Introduction

Intertextuality is the concept of borrowing from, modifying and recycling other media texts to create a new text influencing people’s perceptions of performers or the subjects in the video.

One American show-host presenter John Stewart created the theory that modern media “incorporates, raids and reconstructs”. This theory suggests that all concepts in videos are taken from elsewhere and no new media is original. Another media theorist, Julia Kristeva, reinforces this point with her statement “any text is the absorption and transformation of another”.

Robbie Williams - Let Me Entertain You

I will be analysing a music promo by Robbie Williams for one of his most famous songs “Let Me Entertain You”. The video uses several intertextual references with the most obvious being reference to the band Kiss; as seen in the images below Robbie is dressed in black and white make-up wearing a spandex costume. This could have been done because the video was released shortly after he left “Take That”, a stereotypical boy band, and was trying to create a new “bad boy” image for himself. Interestingly also, the director has chosen to use the face-painting similar to ‘The Demon’ in Kiss who is the bassist for the band, this again is to reinforce his new image. In addition to this intertextual reference, Robbie is holding a dove up to his mouth implying he will decapitate it with his mouth. This is a reference to the Ozzy Osbourne incident in which he ate a live birds head on stage thinking it was fake. The director has chosen to include this to further emphasise the ‘rock and roll’ image that Robbie is trying to adapt. 

In this shot seen later on in the video Robbie is pictured thrashing his guitar down onto the stage. This is a practice introduced by the well known band ‘The Who’ who would sometimes do this at the end of their set. This has again been included to show Robbie’s new “I don’t care” attitude to music and life.

Although not a direct reference there are many interesting editing techniques used in the music promo also. In the image below a post-production film effect has been added so that the video frames lag behind each other. This could be reference to videos such as The Beatle’s’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” where the group at the time were experimenting with new-found drugs including LSD which inspired their video. The same technique could have been used here to show that Robbie is unstable and living the ‘rock and roll’ life taking drugs.