FASCIST ASSHOLES! En multimodal diskursanalys av representation och politiska domäner i filmen “The Grand Budapest Hotel”

Sammanfattning

This analysis researches how multimodal resources are being used in the film The GrandBudapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014) to mediate and create representations of politics andpower, focusing on visual political communication and the portrayal of fascism. This analysisis based on Stuart Hall's “Representation” (1997) and Sam Browse “Cognitive Rhetoric”(2018) and Browse summary of The domains of politics from Van Dijk (1997).The study is based on a constructivist and mimetic perspective on representation, inaccordance with Stuart Hall (1997). In Hall's work, meaning is understood as sociallyconstructed through cultural and linguistic systems rather than as something inherent inmaterial objects. Linguistic systems are not just the written or verbal language, it can also beclothes and other things, and the importance lies in what they do, not what they are (Hall,1997:5). Methodologically this analysis/study uses a qualitative multimodal discourseanalysis.The analysis analyses chosen scenes from the film to focus on details and to really be able tocapture the interplay between the visual and the auditory (colour, clothing, text, bodylanguage and conversation). This analysis shows that meaning is not created by the elementsthemselves, it is created through their function as signs in larger representational systems.Clothes may not be the only thing that creates symbols or signs, but the cultural interpretationenables the audience to understand what specific characters or body language togetheractually symbolises.This study also shows how characters are positioned within power structures throughmultimodal and audiovisual resources. Some characters are designed to portray thesubordinates and that shows representations of exclusion because of some choices such ashow they act and how they move their body. The opposite of subordinate characters alsoexists to show these power structures, this with more privileged characters who can use thisprivilege to show more power. One result from this analysis highlights how this film, TheGrand Budapest Hotel (2014), works as a representational system where audiovisual elementsare being used to create and communicate some political ideas. Analysing this film from aconstructivist and mimetic perspective, makes it clear how meaning actually arises in theinteraction between material elements and cultural elements. It also makes it clear howpopular culture can act as a base for creating and communicating ideologies and politics.Finally, this analysis/study shows that multimodal analyses are important to show howpolitics are communicated and created in films because this enables interpretation ofrepresentations. Since this study shows how politics are communicated and created in films, itis significant to the media- and communication science in the area of political communicationthrough popular culture and the media in that field.