Inter-text-uality

Some more critical thinking on "intertextuality":

1) Yes, intertextuality exists whether or not it is detected by the reader and whether or not it was intended by the author of the text, and the degree of awareness of intertextuality largely depends on the perceiver's sensitiveness and ability to reflect on his/her own cultural/discursive experience. Well, I have a belief, perhaps rather narrow and biased, that the spontaneity in this process (i.e., the reader's strong tendency to establish an intertextual relationship between the other text(s) and the target text) can reveal the explicitness (or sometimes the effectiveness, if it is intended by the author) of the intertextuality. Therefore, I would forget for a moment the other relatively implicit traces of intertextuality, which may demand search engines like Google and Wikipedia as reference finders in the hypertext age (well, an as-thorough-as-possible bibliographic search in academic paper writing is inevitable and excusable, but reading literature actively is another case), when I want to focus on the essential nature of intertextuality in the designated text. That's why I emphasized a few times, as you may have noticed and been annoyed, the instantness of my personal responses to Atwood's poem "Pig Song" in my presentation today, so as to legitimate myself in finding instances for intertextuality.

2) I mentioned possibilities to intertextualize between texts (on various levels ranging from verbal utterances to literary genres like the novel), and between texts and other art forms, which can be accepted because there is at least one text (in the conventional sense: language) in the chain of inter-text-uality. However, I am not sure if the following typical (trans-)artistic interactions can also live well under the umbrella of inter-text-uality (random picks from my memory):
A. In Painting: Pollock's painting reproduced as an observer's object in Norman Rockwell's famous painting "Connoisseur".
B. In Opera: Chinese folk song "Jasmine" re-rendered in Puccini's well-known "Turandot";
C. In Architecture: the glass Pyramide du Louvre designed by I. M. Pei, a Chinese American architect;
D. In Music/Song: the hymns rapped and jazzed by crazy nuns in Whoopi Goldberg's "Sister Act" (movie);
E. In Film/Theater: "Ran", the best ever modern version of Shakespeare's "King Lear", by the Japanese master director Akira Kurosawa;
F. In TV Productions (plays, commercials, etc.): images from the Eden appear in the intro footage of the American TV series "Desperate Housewives" (and what I admired was a lot of other known and lesser known art works were intertwined into this intro);
etc.
It may be easy to argue for those akin to literature, e.g., film, TV productions, but how about others? Are we allowed to broaden the meaning of "text" just to fit everything into "inter-text-uality"? I do hear people call such re-creations "visual" or "audio" "intertextualities". Or is it just a temporary/situational analogy? Some musicians, as I read musical journals like "Gramophone", did use "our" terms like "cultural fields" and "discursive distance".

3) Pragmatics of intertextuality. It seems intertextuality, either its formality or ideology, can be applied widely today, in both entertainment and academia. Below is something for fun in terms of an extreme case of intertextuality.

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A History Class

It was the first day of school and a new student, Yamamoto, son of a Japanese businessman, entered the fifth grade class. The teacher said, “Let’s begin by reviewing some American history. “Who said, ‘Give me Liberty or give me Death’?” She saw a sea of blank faces, except for that of Yamamoto, who had his hand up. “Patrick Henry, 1775,” the boy said.

“Very good! Who said ‘...government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth’?”
Again, no response, except from Yamamoto. “Abraham Lincoln, 1863.”

The teacher snapped, “Class, you should be ashamed. Yamamoto, who is new to our country, knows more about its history than you do.”

She heard a loud whisper, “Damn the Japs.”
“Who said that?” she demanded.
“President Truman.” John stood up.

“What the f*** do you think you’re doing?!” the teacher got mad.
“Madonna said that!” (i) a voice yelled from the back.

“I’m gonna throw up!” The teacher glared and asked, “All right! Who said that?”
Steve said, “George Bush to the Japanese Prime Minister, 1991.”

Some boys were stirred up, “Oh yeah? Suck this!”
Yamamoto jumped up waving his hand and shouted, “Bill Clinton, to Monica Lewinsky, 1997!”

With near mob hysteria, someone screamed, “You little sh*t. If you say anything else, I’ll kill you.”
Mary said numbly, “Gary Condit said to Chandra Levy, 2001.” (ii)

The teacher was dumbfounded. Silence. She walked out of the classroom, and suddenly turned back with a cold glance, “I will be back!”
“Arnold Schwarzenegger!” Bob finally got a chance.

The kids gathered, and Tom said, “Oh sh*t, we’re in BIG trouble!”
“Said Arthur Andersen, 2002.” (iii) Jane continued.

Wright sighed, “It’s gonna be a significant day in the history.”
“By Bin Laden.” Chris giggled.

The schoolmaster entered with the teacher, and hammered the words in fury, “You will pay for this!”
“Stalin said!” the whole class replied in a unanimous voice.

Notes:
(i) In April 2003, Madonna said this to condemn the online piracy of her new album “American Life”.
(ii) US senator Gary Condit was suspected to have murdered the White House intern Chandra Levy in 2001.
(iii) Arthur Anderson, once one of the biggest consulting firms, went bankrupt after the infamous Enron scandal.