Richard Dyer and Andrew Goodwin - Star Theory and Paradox

 

In Twice's "What is Love?" music video, many many examples of intertextuality can be found. The video opens with the group at a sleepover, then depicts each member as a popular and/or iconic piece of media. Some examples of intertextuality included are The Princess Diaries, Lapland, Pulp Fiction, Ghost, Romeo and Juliet, etc. 

Richard Dyer's Star Theory can be seen in Twice as the group are very carefully styled and done up, showing how carefully manufactured they are as stars - this is point one. Point two concerns stars as a commodity: these girls are selling themselves as commodities, dancing, and overall serving as entertainment value rather than selling themselves with their singing talent alone. For point three, we could say that Twice represents the ideology of teenage hood, especially for young girls, which can be seen in the whole sleepover thing. And the intertextuality in itself also helps to feed the idea of the ideology of teenage hood as the films they have chosen to reference are films that typically, young girls would watch.

The paradox of the star by Andrew Goodwin can also be seen in the music video as Twice are simultaneously being represented as teenagers having a sleepover, as well as main characters in films and celebrities dancing to promote their music. What this does is create a sense of relatability and the idea that they are ordinary, while also positioning them far away as idols to be looked up to as figures of entertainment. Twice, in this music video, are also very present in their fan base as they regularly do interviews and game shows, but are also absent in their higher nature of being an idol. This generates fandom very effectively as fans are likely to be hooked onto the fact that these girls have charming personalities despite the fact that these personalities are carefully engineered and crafted specially for the camera.

So, in short, Richard Dyer's star theory is: stardom is a construction, manufactured purposefully with a specific persona extremely different to how the person may be in their private lives; stars are a commodity, a product, whose purpose is to make money with their existence; and that the star is an ideology, and promotes a certain perspective on life.

Music Videos

 

In 'It's A Malcolm Todd Christmas', there is an iconic example of intertextuality 17 seconds in of the artist and his band on a crossroad - a clear reference to the Beatles' album 'Abbey Road'. I think this is humorous as the artist, Malcolm Todd, is American and just used whatever he associated with England in his music video as it was filmed there.

'Chest Pain' by Malcolm Todd largely makes reference to the film 'The Notebook', wherein the male protagonist sends 365 letters to his ex-partner. The iconic quote from the film, "I wrote you 365 letters. I wrote you everyday with a year" is intertextualised in this music video with the voiceline, "I dm'ed you 365 times. I dm'ed you everyday for a year!". Malcolm Todd turns the 2004 film into a charming 2025 rom-com all condensed into 3 minutes and 54 seconds, aligning perfectly with a Gen Z audience. The entire music video is a reference to The Notebook.

In 'Take A Bite' by Beabadoobee, there is a lyric "wanna do it all over again" followed by the same clip of her replaying again. Although this isn't some sophisticated film technique, I do really like it and think it serves a purpose enhancing the meaning of the song too, with lyrics like "moving backwards", and "stuck in reverse".

History of Music Infographic

 

Big Issue Cover

In my cover, I tried to capture the pop culture side of the Big Issue. I chose a story that was controversial, and that had been appearing on my social media feeds most prevalently during the past week.

Following the release of the Netflix show, 'Simon Cowell: The Next Act', questions were raised about the boy band that Cowell had formed in the show - in particular, his choice of name. At the end of the show, it is revealed that he had named the band "December 10".

When considering boy bands, one that comes to mind after One Direction is BTS - that is why Cowell's boy band has recently gained traction for "shading" BTS, saying, "If BTS can sell flipping Wembley stadium, we can sell the flipping Pluto in five minutes".

The Big Issue often focuses on issues like power imbalances in society. Simon Cowell represents Western, mainstream music power, whereas BTS are an untraditional, fan-driven phenomenon. This is not just pop drama — it’s a comment on Western media arrogance, cultural bias, and a resistance to globalisation in music. I think this is quite on brand for The Big Issue, as it frequently critiques mainstream institutions. 

My cover brings about the big question: why is a big, globally successful group being talked down to? Well, BTS are often framed as outsiders, and are not taken seriously compared to Western acts. The Big Issue is known to champion those dismissed or misrepresented by powerful industries.

So, what I aimed to achieve in creating this cover (although the execution… is questionable!) is to align with The Big Issue’s socially aware, critical tone by using celebrity conflict to expose the deeper issues of power and inequality. However, next time I’d improve my execution as it just looks kind of tacky.

SHSG Advert

 

This was my first time working with Photoshop, and this project was mostly to familiarise myself with the program and experiment with the tools that it offers. As a result, the completed poster is quite scrappy, not to mention that I've had to use a screenshot of the image because the jpg file was too large to put here. However, I chose to doodle on the advert, playing with the various pen features on Photoshop, and I put drop shadows on the images and the text. I think my main concern was the composition - everything is a little bit all over the place, but the photographs that my group and I took came out great, and I'm proud of our first attempt. If I could change anything about this advert, I'd change the font of "Choose SHSG"; I wasn't aware that we could go beyond the default system fonts already included with Photoshop.

Beauty Product Advert

This is an advertisement for a perfume called Scandal, wherein we had to take photos of the products ourselves and then use Photoshop to edit it. I chose to cut the perfume out of the picture and copy it on top of the words to give the picture more dimension, and the repetition of Scandal really solidifies the brand name, effective for brand memorability. I also created some fake shadows underneath the copy of the perfume bottle for realism, as it lacked depth without it, and some subtle highlights too.