Telephone by Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce - Postmodernism

Eliza Chapman-Smith

Intertextuality

Lady Gaga’s video for the song Telephone uses intertextuality to show postmodernism. She references another of her videos, called Paparazzi. She does this in multiple instances.The first instance is when she has Beyonce wear some sunglasses that she wore in the Paparazzi video. She also incorporates poison and displays it in a similar way in each video. The fact that the narratives blur and link together in this way suggests postmodernism as a key feature is mixing up space, time and narratives.

Telephone Paparazzi

Pastiche

There is an element of pastiche in the Telephone video. This is in the overall choice of colour scheme throughout the video; she has mimicked the bright primary colours that Andy Warhol used in his artwork. This is pastiche as Warhol was most prevalent in the 60s whereas the Telephone video was released in 2010, therefore she was imitating a style from another period.

Homage

The opening credits of Telephone are in a very stylized yellow and red font, that is similar to the colours and fonts that Quentin Tarantino used in the title cards for his films Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. This shows that she is paying homage as she is not mocking it, but referencing it from a respectful standpoint. She is using these elements and incorporating it into her video, and this shows postmodernism.