Definition of Intertextuality

Definition-The term Intertextuality refers to the process of creating references to any kind of media text via another media text. In other words Intertextuality essentially means for a type of media(film,television,music etc) to pay homage to another media text.

Intertextuality in Television

These two images below are an example of Intertexuality of a film being presented through a television programme.
The picture on the top shows an image of the animated character Bart Simpson from 'The Simpsons' television programme in which his appearance has appeared to be altered so that his face and attire mirrors the appearance of the person in the right picture. The image on the bottom shows a fictional film character called Alex DeLarge, who is the protagonist from the 1971 film 'A Clockwork Orange'.
As the film 'A Clockwork Orange' was released in the early 1970's and 'The Simpsons was created in the lated 1980's , it is very clear that this television programme is paying homage to this past film by presenting the character of Bart in the same manner of Alex.
A possibile reason for this Intertextuality in between these two characters could be to show the main similiarites that these two fictional characters both have, in terms of their character traits.
In each of their respective media texts both of these characters are portrayed as adolescent, male protagonists who both have very negative characteristics as both are shown to be rebellious, mischievousness and rarely show any respect for their peers. In addition these two both appear to have very sadistic senses of humor as Bart finds pleasure in being rebellious to others, and Alex' main hobbies  include  assaulting ,robbing and raping  innocent people.
  

Intertextuality in film

Parody films such as 'Scary Movie' and 'Superhero movie' were created almost completely out of Intertextuality.
For example to 2008 spoof film 'Superhero movie' pays homage to other films which had been released before this film, which all belong to the same genre of superhero films(hence the film's title). In particular, this film uses the superhero film 'Spider-man(2002) as its main template , since Superhero movie contains as similar storyline with similar characters.
In further detail the film Spider-man's story centres around an american teenager called Peter Parker who   gains superhuman abilities after he is bitten by a radioactive spider and then becomes a superhero known as Spider-man.
This is very identical to the main plot of the parody film Superhero movie, in which a high school teenager named Rick Riker  also gains superhuman abilities from after being bitten by a radioactive dragonfly and the becomes a superhero called the Dragonfly.


The 2006 comedy film 'She's the man' and the 1998 romance film 'Shakespeare in Love' were both inspired by William Shakespeare's comedy play 'Twelth Night'. This play centres around a woman named Viola who disguises herself as a man , so that she can gain a job serving the Duke of Illyria, which is a job that only a man could get in the play's time period.
This plot theme is reflected in the films 'She's the man' and 'Shakespeare in Love'. This is shown as in these two films, the protagonists(which are both female) disguise themselves as members of the opposite sex so that they can both gain something, which would be unavailable to them as women.

                           


Intertextuality in music videos

This two images below are an example of intertexuality being presented through media texts such as music. The image on the left is a clip from the 2009 Pop music video 'She-wolf' in which the singer Shakira preforms an anti-gravity lean dance move.This can be seen as a use of intertextuality in the music industry as this maneuver, is very identical to the anti-gravity lean which was famously preformed by Michael Jackson in his 1987 Pop single 'Smooth Criminal'.
 In Smooth Criminal this anti gravity lean was achieved through the use of a hitching mechanism in the floor of the music video's set that would latch on to Jackson's shoes attaching him to the floor and therefore allowing him to preform this feat.
 Shakira herself had stated in an interview on the american television programme 'Good morning America', that the purpose of her preforming this dance move that was made famous by Michael Jackson in 1987 was so that she could pay tribute to him, in her music video as claimed that 'He was the king of artistic magic'.