Intertextuality In Music Videos

Intertextuality is defined as a relation between one text and another text especially those of literature. For example, a certain text may represent love and compassion; this can be reflected by using music videos or even films to portray this in order to get your point across in a visual format.

For example Katy Perry’s song ‘Last Friday Night’, tells a story for the audience to understand which links with the text formed, emphasising this in a lyrical and visual way to catch the audience’s attention. The music video creates a film like effect to it, to make sure the video is intriguing for the spectators from the beginning till the end. In Katy’s lyrics she says ‘this hickie or a bruise’, which she shows on camera to refer to the lyrics being sung. This shows intertextuality is constantly in use in the music video.

Another example of intertextuality is Beyoncé ‘Single ladies’, although this music video is very basic and there is only the artist and backing dancers; there is still intertextuality involved. When Beyoncé says ‘All the single ladies (All the single ladies)’ she performs this in action by pointing at her ring-finger to show that she is single along with the backing dancers to emphasise this. This tells the audience (mainly females) that if you’re single it’s ok; there are plenty of others who can relate to this. This allows the females to share something in common with the artist.

A last example of intertextuality is in Sam Smith’s song ‘Im not the only one’. This is a very different form of intertextuality from the other two examples given. The song is about heartbreak; Sam portrays this through his lyrics and follows this through into his music video, telling his story of the heartbreak. This allows the audience be able to connect with the artist as they may have also experienced this, which makes them see that they are not alone in this, and that there are famous icons who go through situations like this.

Intertextuality is used to emphasise an artist’s emotions and experiences and being able to interconnect with the audience. For artists intertextuality is usually used in one way for them to express their feelings and this is by interpreting their experience into music videos, for the audience not to only hear the lyrics but to visually see this as well. This can appeal to the audience as this is interesting and intriguing when this is adapted into a storytelling format, as they can visualise the story. For some audiences this is a way they are able to connect and understand what the artist is trying to put across to the public, also making the story itself stand out by showing this through a video format.