You’ve Become Part of a Bigger Universe. You Just Don’t Know it Yet: Adaptation, Intertextuality and the Case of Total Branded Entertainment

Abstract

Storytelling in the 21st century demonstrates a blurring of boundaries, fluid texts, intertextual relations, media convergence, and transmedia storytelling. Power dynamics between producers/consumers are becoming more prominent due to higher audience interaction and engagement. More importantly, as this paper argues, there is an overwhelming presence of texts in Pop Culture whose stature is influenced and affected by branded entertainment in the context of total branded entertainment. Adopting a cultural studies approach, this paper attempts to theoretically combine concepts, such as chronotope (Bakhtin 1981), intertextuality (Fiske 2001), paratexts (Mittell 2014), fluid texts (Bryant 2013), and adaptation (Hutcheon 2006) in order to examine the dynamics of the branded text/context, in the origin stories of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Phase One, and consider how total branded entertainment is achieved. The reason why it is important to consider the intersection of brand entertainment, adaptation, and intertextuality, is that, although they primarily demonstrate a power struggle between producers and consumers, in which the former appear to dictate the way the latter consume and interpret, alternative ways of experiencing a text are revealed in total branded entertainment. Ultimately, it is not just a narrative experience but a brand experience.