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Aesthetics or Ideology? Critical Discourse Analysis and Multimodal Discourse Analysis as New Models for Studying Luxury in Film Studies
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Meysam Yazdi   |
| Department, School of Arts, Central Tehran Branch of Islamic Azad University |
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Abstract: (9 Views) |
| There is a glaring methodological blind spot in contemporary film studies: we lack systematic and replicable frameworks to understand exactly how cinema constructs, visualizes, and weaponizes luxury. We see luxury everywhere on screen—from the sprawling, digitally enhanced estates of modern Hollywood blockbusters to the quiet, curated minimalism of independent art-house cinema. Yet, despite its overwhelming presence as both a thematic driver and an aesthetic spectacle, scholarly engagement with cinematic luxury has remained surprisingly impressionistic. Too often, researchers rely on descriptive critiques that fail to unpack the dense web of semiotic cues, hidden power dynamics, and cognitive frameworks that actually build our perception of luxury on screen. To solve this issue, the current paper bridges the gap between Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA). By deeply integrating the socio-political frameworks of Norman Fairclough and Teun A. van Dijk with the visual and systemic-functional grammars developed by Gunther Kress, Theo van Leeuwen, and Kay O’Halloran, I propose three entirely original analytical toolkits: The Luxury Discourse Stratification Model (LDSM), The Multimodal Luxury Articulation Model (MLAM), and The Cinematic Luxury Ideology-Aesthetics Model (CLIAM). Through detailed procedural workflows, diagrams, and a hypothetical sequence analysis, this study breaks down exactly how these models function. Ultimately, I argue that these integrated frameworks offer cultural theorists and media scholars a transparent, rigorous method to decode cinema’s role in shaping the concept of luxury—not merely as an aesthetic pleasure, but as a powerful ideological force. |
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| Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis, Multimodal Discourse Analysis, film studies, aesthetics, visual culture. |
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Type of Study: Research |
Subject:
Special
Received: 2026/06/30 | Accepted: 2025/12/31
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