Intertextuality

February 2, 2023

Intertextuality is a reference made to another work of media. For example, in my photo, I am holding my stuffed animal in the sky in reference to the Lion King movies. In the Lion King, Rafiki holds up Simba to the rest of the animals on top of a cliff. In my photo, it may be easy to recognize I am imitating this scene from the movie. In film, intertextuality is usually put into the film on purpose, and the audience usually picks up on this. Filmmakers use intertextuality to create a universal cinematic language and communicate themes that they don't want to convey directly. Intertextuality can help create larger conversations about a piece of media while also emphasizing the relationship between their movie and another text. A popular movie that uses a large amount of intertextuality is Shrek. In this series of movies, Disney princesses, Puss and Boots, and the Gingerbread Man all show up and reference their original films. In the beginning of the second movie, Prince Charming goes to rescue Sleeping Beauty from her tall, dragon guarded tower. Instead, he pulls back the curtains from her bed and finds the Big Bad Wolf in her place. DreamWorks cleverly references past Disney and animated movies with their own twist. Later on in the movie, Little Red Riding Hood, the Three Bears, the Three Blind Mice, Tinkerbell, Pinocchio, and even Snow White had taken over his swamp when their town got taken by Lord Farquad. Even though Lord Farquad is not a character separate from Shrek, he references villains that want the princess such as Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.