Intertextuality – The Invaders, X-files and others
What is it?
Intertextuality is the use of material from one text in another, newer text. The purpose is to make the second text denser with the use of the earlier material. Texts which love to use intertextuality generally include novels, games, films and television series.
Some of the material used can include:
· Plots
· Names of characters, places or objects
· Camera shots
· Similar actors for similar characters
· Similar sets
What it’s not:
Intertextuality is a form of homage, it doesn’t want to undermine or satirise the original material it uses. There is no intention to steal material, or to defame or insult the original work.
Intertextuality is not the use of the name ‘John’ or ‘Zack’ , or the location of a film in New York or Sydney, unless there is other data to indicate that the use of these names and locations is intentionally referring to another text. It is also not the use of a particular street where filming is allowed in a city, and so is used in a lots of films and TV series.
Is it Intentional?
It’s not always possible to tell if a borrowing is intentional. Obviously some writers love intertextual references of all kinds (think Russell T. Davies and Doctor Who). But it is equally possible that a writer brought up on series like Star Trek could unconsciously use names or riffs from that series. In fact older writers should check their work to make sure they haven’t done this if they don’t want such references appearing in their texts: It’s not likely that they would use the name ‘Spock’, but they might use names of lesser characters they have identified with.
Why is it used?
Intertextuality gives a piece of text greater depth. If I’m watching a film about alien invasion and the Golden Gate Bridge appears, other incarnations of the Bridge pop into my mind, giving me a whole range of possibilities to wait for in the new film. In some cases the intertextual reference will fill in plot holes and cover over what the text could not achieve. Having a character called Mr. Klaatu will give a reader a good idea of who the person is and what their agenda might be, without saying anything. Playing with these meanings can lead to satire, but that is another essay.
How do you tell if it’s intertextual?
This is a bit of a problem, and an area where you could make a mistake quite easily.
Some clues include:
· Use of unique names not used in other texts.
· The regular use of names from one series in another, in slightly different contexts.
· The use of names that seem original, but slightly out of place.
· The occurrence of names from one old series in several other newer series.
· Odd references made by characters that seem to be completely left field.
· Characters appearing in the same street, building, room etc. that has been ‘seen’ in another text.
· Use of repeat locations such as hotels, cafes, hospitals
· The aliens are horribly familiar.
Give me some examples!
An example of a television series where Intertextuality is common is season two of The Invaders. As an older series about the imminent destruction of humanity by aliens, it has close links to X-files and other links to Roswell, Stargate, Sliders, Smallville and Quantum Leap.
The Plot
The Invaders is a 1960’s examination of what would happen to someone if they discovered aliens were planning to attack Earth.
X-files borrowed the plot, but made the central character, Mulder, a little crazier than David Vincent but with support from other people.
| The Invaders – David Vincent | X-files – Fox Mulder |
| Sees a spaceship land, sees the Invaders. | Sees his sister abducted, believes it was aliens. |
| Works as an architect. Spends free time investigating UFO sightings. | FBI officer. Spends time investigating UFO’s. Given a unique office to investigate the paranormal. |
| Eventually supported by Edgar Scoville. | Reluctantly supported by the FBI |
| Helped by a number of beautiful women. | Working partner with Dana Scully. |
| Forms a group of Believers who are regularly killed by the Invaders. | Works with the Lone Gunmen who are eventually killed. |
| Finds it difficult to be believed. | Hardly ever believed. |
| The Invaders are aliens. Any attempts at co-operation with them fail. A few are on our side. | The aliens never appear, members of the Plan have contacted them and buy time to organize by co-operating with them. There are two sets of aliens. |
| Invaders try to kill Vincent when they find he is tracking them and wrecking their plans. | Both Scully and Mulder are used in experiments by the Plan. |
Main Characters
David Vincent. Good looking, tall enough and usually dressed in a suit, but a loner who never found a full time partner and gradually trusted no one. He spoke the truth to people who didn’t want to hear it, and who often judged him a fool until they learned otherwise, but gradually his moral vision became quite different to that of the rest of the community. He lost the ability to see Invaders as life forms, and killed them with an easy conscience.
He was physically very fit, an able fighter and a straight shooter with a pistol.
Women adored him, but he generally kept his distance and women never repeated in the episodes.
Fox Mulder. A progression from Vincent. Also good looking and tall, dressing in a suit. A loner who learned to work with Dana Scully and later with Walter Skinner. Off beat, he told people the truth and was considered a nut case, even when he was proven correct. His moral vision stayed true to the American standard, never killing easily.
*
Edgar Scoville
The wealthy owner of Scoville Electronics, flush with government contracts. Convinced of the reality of the Invaders he supported Vincent financially and with his attempts to get government co-operation in driving out the Invaders. Gathered a group of Believers to help Vincent and regularly intervened himself to protect Vincent. Threatened by the government with having his contracts withdrawn, he was shot several times.
Walter Skinner
Assistant director at the FBI, originally a disbeliever who gave Mulder and Scully a bad time. Saved by them when his marriage fell apart, he repaid them with loyalty, becoming a believer. Helped Scully when Mulder disappeared.
*
The Believers
A group of people who gathered around Scoville and Vincent, helping out on missions. A list was given in Inquisition, but bore no resemblance to the characters in earlier episodes who had been convinced about the Invaders. They were a mixture of males and females with no careers given. Earlier believers were generally electronics experts. Nearly all the people on the list were dead by the end of the episode, even Scoville had been shot.
The Lone Gunmen
Three reporters running an underground press publishing anti-government data, with help from Yves Adele Harlow (Lois Runtz) and Jimmy Bond. Helped Mulder and Scully with hacking and skill at tracking people down. Eventually killed when Yves made mistakes on a mission.
Sets
When David Vincent joined forces with Scoville the locations they worked in were often basements of Scoville Electronics. Mulder was assigned an office in the basement of the FBI building, where Scully joined him.
Posters
The Invaders occasionally features a poster on the wall of a building in the scene, a detail copied in X-files.
Bunker Hill The Invaders: The Pursued
Niagara Falls The Invaders: The Watchers
Spring Flowering - The Invaders: The Watchers
Fiji XF Trust No-One (reference to Red Dwarf)
Independence Day - The X-files Movie
I Want to Believe – X-files
The Flukeman – character from X-files The Host shown on Mulder’s wall in Small Potatoes
Newspapers, Taxis, Hotels and Hospitals
How do you get information to the reader/viewer – through the newspaper of course. And now, the Internet is not nearly as evocative as a big headline!
Where do you locate characters who either have no home or stray from it regularly? Hotels of course.
And how do you get them around without stealing too many cars – taxis.
All these bits of set repeat from The Invaders to X-files and Sliders.
No, I haven’t done anything about Vincent’s cars – its on the Net.
The Roswell Rock
There is a particular rock used in Roswell as the setting for the spaceship the children arrived in. This rock appeared in the episode of The Invaders called Dark Outpost which seems to have been an inspiration for a lot of Roswell.
Suspected References in The Invaders
Please note that The Invaders is divided differently by various sources: on the DVD set all the following episodes are in series two, but elsewhere they are divided into series two and three.
Analysing what appear to be intertextual references in this series shows how difficult it is to categorically assert that any piece of text has been used deliberately in another. The references I have picked up may not all have been intended as homage, they may be coincidences. But to the best of my ability I have selected only those that I think have a high chance of being intertextual.
The Invaders Season Two:
Condition: Red Winters/ XF Blood Larry Winter
The Saucer Plot similar to one in BG
The Watchers N4178T/XF Synchrony N 4170;
Valley of the Shadow Carterville/OL I Hear You Calling Carter. Common surname.
The Enemy Frazer/R Into the Woods Frazier Woods; Sawyer/FS Plan B Sawyers Mill;
The Trial Fred Wilk/variations in QL/S’s/XF’s; Jackson City/XF Trevor Jackson Memorial Hospital;
The Spores Highway 94/ highway riff in Roswell; Ernie /Ernie QL Rebel Without a Clue
Dark Outpost Characters resemble Roswell characters physically as well as personality. Vern Corbin/ R Max Evans; Eileen/Liz Parker/Eileen Burrows Roswell;Nicole/R ; Hal/R Michael Guerin; Maria deLuca; Cavanaugh/Threshhold; Devin/ S’s Desert Storm;
Summit Meeting Pts. 1&2 Wolfgang/D? Bad Wolf; Circle/BG The Circle; Halvorsen/XF Dod Kalm; Blaine/XF 2Shy;
The Prophet
Labyrinth Argyle/XF Fight Club; Monroe University /Monroe Mutual Insurance Company XF The Rain King/Shadows/ Major Monroe SG1Wormhole Extreme! ; Hammond Hotel/SG1 General Hammond?
The Captive Point Pleasant/XF Detour; Langley/ XF EBE etc/R Control/QL Her Charm
The Believers Phone Booth/ XF/ The Matrix; Hellman/Hellman’s SmV X-ray;
The Ransom Walden Ski Lodge/ Dr. Walden SmV ;
Task Force Pleasant town/Pleasant Meadows SmV Pilot;
The Invaders Season Three:
The Possessed Alien implants placed in patient’s necks/XF/ S’s Lipschitz Live; Burt/Mr Burt XF Via Negativa; Willis XF Lazarus/ QL 8 ½ Months; Garner/ Smallville
Counterattack Kramer/ XF Squeeze; Leeds/ XF Via Negativa
The Pit The Pit/SG Jolinar’s Memories; S’s Common Ground.
The Organization The organization/The Plan XF various; Railway carriage/XF Nisei and 731 carriage 82517; Golden Gate Bridge/S’sPost Traumatic Slide Syndrome; QL Starlight, Star Bright; SGA McKay and Mrs Miller;
Fergus Museum/ Father Fergus S’s The Luck of the Drawer; Amos Foster/Deputy Foster XF Rush.
The Peacemaker Jacobs/B5 Hunter, Prey/XF 3/SG In the Line of Duty; Doomsday Device (B5 A Day in the Strife); Willard – reference back to a film by this series.
The Vise Situation in which Vincent is trapped in an inner city bar/ XF Release;
Arnold/ AD Arnold XF Monday; Arnold Potts Sliders Lipschitz Live; Casey/Casey’s Bar XF The Movie; 54/ Deputy’s car number XF Agua Mala
The Miracle
The Life Seekers The police captain brought up Joe/ Sheriff took in Tess, Roswell ;
Rawlings/ SG Out of Mind/Rawlings Mill DA Haven.
The Pursued Fairfax/Fairfax Hospital XF Pusher
Inquisition Benita Morrow/BJ Morrow XF Aubrey; Frederickson/Frederick County Morgue, Frederick County Psychiatric Hospital XF Wetwired.
What can you learn about Intertextuality from this study?
1. Obvious characters are not usually copied in Intertextuality. Minor characters names get used.
2. Character names are recycled for the names of hospitals, towns etc, as well as new characters.
3. Locations are often recycled, giving them depth e.g. The Golden Gate Bridge.
4. Sub plots reappear e.g. alien implants.
5. Numbers can be re-used, especially in X-files.
6. You have to look for similarities in the characters or situations as well as the similarity of name e.g. Keller is a name used in The Invaders that crops up in a lot of other series, but there are no similarities in their situations.
7. Try not to groan about Grover’s Mill, Miller’s Grove, The Old Mill Road, Sawyer’s Grove……………………
8. There are occasional similarities between Doctor Who names and Invader ones, but usually I think these are coincidences.
So go and have a look at……………………………
Battlestar Galactica
And see what you can find!
PS: In case you think I’m being mean to X-files:
John Shiban admitted that he got his plot ideas for X-files “from anywhere and everywhere.’ He suggested his sources were old films, magazines, news reports etc. [ The Official Third Season Guide to The X-files, by Brian Lowry, Harper Collins, 1996].
NE Genge discussed plot source, saying that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, citing Stephen King and Fydor Dostoyevsky as plot sources for X-files among many others, with camera work and action being original to the series. [ The New Unofficial X-files Companion, N.E. Genge, Macmillan 1966]
