References to references to references....

Today we discussed Intertextuality, the idea that nothing is original and everything refers to something, whether intentional or not. A lot of people were opposed to the idea that no idea is completely original, but it seems perfectly plausible to me. Your ideas might be relatively original, but you still got the idea somewhere, due to something, whether consciously or not.

The part about references made me think of what is probably the most referenced bit of media in modern history: Star Wars. Family Guy did a few extra long Star Wars episodes, and referred to even more unrelated stuff in there. For example, a Doctor Who one in the video below.

Now of course what makes this so popular is that it's done so extremely well. Only an animation could achieve this extent of clever jokes I believe, simply because - as was said in the first seminar - it is a fake medium and this has practically no limits. Trying to replicate these references in a live action movie would cost ridiculous amounts of money for relatively little merit. This is most likely why these "parody" sort of programs like The Simpsons, South Park, Robot Chicken and Family Guy turn to animation. These shows have even been known to reference each other or even the writers personally. For example, the creator of Family Guy is Seth MacFarlane. He does the voices of several characters such as Brian, Peter and Stewie. Seth Green is the creator of Robot Chicken and also does the voice of Chris in Family Guy. Both series did a Star Wars parody, though Robot Chicken did it first. After the Family Guy one, the characters argued about which is better with each voice actor vouching for their own show. The video below shows this scene, though unfortunately it's very low quality.

Another interesting video on the topic of Intertextuality is "Everything is a Remix". This truly goes to show how we all are inspired by something or other, which can be seen especially clearly in the Star Wars examples. It's rather ironic, seeing as Lucasfilms is one of the most adamant filmmaking companies when it comes to copyright issues. The pot calling the kettle black indeed.

Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.