Blog four -

What is it?

It refers to the over laying relationships among texts/media that can shape a creators work. Sometimes being seen as an 'echo' by the audience and overall it adds new layers of meaning.

Why is it important in media?

By understanding what intertextuality is and recognising it in other media pieces, we as students learn how these discoveries encourage new interpretation and can bring aboard another context, idea or story to the text at hand. Overall, creating something more complex and everlasting in the minds of the consumer.

Gravity Falls

with the help of google and wikipedia i have created a summery of what the show is; Gravity Falls is a Disney Channel animated series. Twin siblings Dipper and Mabel Pines are in for an unexpected adventure when they spend the summer with their great uncle (Gruncle Stan) in the mysterious town of Gravity Falls, Oregon. The twins end up working at the Mystery Shack, a tourist trap filled with fake exhibits that overcharges unsuspecting

customers. Although Dipper and Mabel quickly discover that the Mystery Shack itself is a hoax, they sense there is something strange about their new town and together they begin to unlock the secrets of Gravity Falls. Now that I've briefly explained the plot I can now explain why the intertextuality in this disney media is relevant and important for audiences to be aware of.

Gravity falls uses Gothic intertextuality. it is seen as drawing several key aspects from other media into its own story, which is the driving nature behind the interest and enrichment of its own piece.

'Gothic intertextuality stands apart from the usual usage of intertextuality that commonly exists in all media; as gothic both subverts and perverts the meanings and intentions of the original text, in a bid to overturn, question and invert its significance.'

This lot of fancy wording is from [marquette university: Glossary of the gothic] that says gothic intertextuality is used as a means to draw concepts from pre-existing media and re-invent the significance of these people/events/creatures. which can also sound like plagiarism... so the problem with this form of intertextuality is that there was no such thing as interlectual probity and ownership was very different in the eighteenth century England.

So keeping that in mind it can be seen that Gravity Falls prevents this plagiarism problem with gothic intertextuality by using the commonality of a mystery/adventure genre to their media; From here the consumers are already altered to the state of mind to be more accepting to the intertextual references to mythical creatures and conspiracy theories such as the illuminati.

The connection between these elements and the animation is fundamental in the construction for the gothic intertextuality in gravity falls.

In episode One, “Tourist Trapped”, Mabel is kidnapped by a tribe of gnomes, who are determined on making her their queen. These gnomes are odd creatures as on one hand, they are vengeful and spiteful, recalling the horror monsters found in movies such as the questionable Blood Gnome (2004). while, On the other; they wear red pointy hats and white beards. Their friendly smiles recall the harmless appearance of actual garden gnomes. which also brings thoughts on other movies such as Gnomeo and Juliet. When the gnomes grow upset, they throw up rainbows; this strange fact destroys their potential as a Gothic horror icon, and makes them amusing and questioning on how they fit into this world of supernatural.

This subversion of iconography takes place with a number of other “creatures” in Gravity Falls. When the gnomes are attempting to woe Mabel, they do not appear to her in their real form: they camouflage themselves into a teenage boy; one who is moody, brooding, and mysterious in order to become Mabel’s boyfriend. but because of the suspicious actions of the boy; Dipper who is heavily reliant on what the journal has, he suspects the boy to be a member of the undead. key factors that lead him to this conclusion is the 'pale skin' and 'odd' attitudes that are often associated with rebellious teenagers.

With Dipper's suspicion confirmed seeing the boys hand fall off—it would seem that the boy is obviously a decaying, zombie corpse. The intertextual connection to several horror visual narratives where limbs “fall off” the undead and the monstrous is clear here, with apt film examples being Dawn of the Dead (1978) and, more recently, television’s The Walking Dead (2010).  These references to well-known horror films are scattered throughout the series, and comprise the majority of the cultural context in which the creatures appear.

By incoporating these elements, gravity falls becomes effective and both entertaining to an audience in terms of an animation that invites consideration of the value of a pre existing text with references that can be traced back to original sources and continue to exapand the complexity of the piece of media. As the gothic intertextuality often is portrayed in a way for these pre conceptions towards pre exiting terms such as gnomes and zombies to be reconsidered.

Thanks for reading!

References --

Glossary of the Gothic: Intertextuality | Glossary of the Gothic | Marquette University. (2018). Epublications.marquette.edu. Retrieved 16 March 2018, from https://epublications.marquette.edu/gothic_intertextuality/

Gravity Falls. (2018). En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 16 March 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Falls