Analysis of Scary Movie

1170 Words5 Pages
Intertextuality in Scary Movie In his article, “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community,” James Porter proclaims that writers are collectors who accumulate fragments of texts from the past and assemble them to create new meanings, a concept called intertextuality. Intertextuality allows the audience to create meaning. Therefore, learning to see texts and writers through the idea that the author is not only the creator of meaning requires one to rethink research, plagiarism, and the author in a new regard that goes against most reader’s definition of what authorship and writing are. Successful writing from authors “helps to redefine the matrix and in that way becomes creative” (Porter). Although the author for the trailer of Scary Movie uses mainly fragments of other texts, he brings them together in a unique way that “alters the text” of horror movies (Porter). Directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans in 2000, the trailer for Scary Movie is clearly intended for an audience interested in comedy, yet also uses numerous horror clichés. The trailer begins with a girl answering her phone, in which a guy with a deep toned voice starts talking to her. He asks her different questions, but before she can answer, the caller who looks exactly like Ghostface from Scream, jumps from behind the curtains with a knife in his hand. He chases her outside where he rips off her clothes, leaving her in only underwear. The comedy of the movie reveals itself when the girl begins to run through the sprinklers in slow motion like a girl on Baywatch would. The trailer moves on to the guy wearing the Ghostface mask inside another girl’s house where he calls her while he’s in the house. Then he chases her up the stairs, and fights her in a style taken from The Matrix while holding the same knife the entire time. The trailer then flashes between a girl running through the woods in the dark and
Open Document