Research suggests that society is facing continued increasing economic inequalities where structural forces such as neoliberalism and globalisation are behind the emergence of a new group of globally super-rich. Since media is a place where social class is expressed, depicted and represented, it can have a particularly important role regarding what discourses about the global upper class are generated. The purpose of this study is to critically examine how the portrayal and re-contextualisation of the global upper class can produce discourses, by specifically analysing semiotic elements in the film Triangle of Sadness by Ruben Östlund. The following research question was formed: What discourses are produced about the globally super-rich in the film Triangle of Sadness? The theoretical framework of this study has a critical point of departure, according to which media is not a neutral means of communication, and through various expressions media can produce discourses that serve certain groups and interests. This framework also includes contrasting the concept of culture industry to other perspectives such as Bourdieu’s field theory, which serves the study as reflective perspectives that can provide generalising arguments about the role that the film industry plays in a society. The method used in this study is a multimodal critical discourse analysis, which permits a rather detailed analysis of a choice of semiotic resources in the chosen film. The selection of empirical material was made by first watching the film as a whole, then identifying relevant parts for analysis. The sequences were chosen based on where the super-rich are in focus and portrayed in the film. The analysis is structured by the identified discourses in regard to the representation of the super-rich. The result of the study is that Triangle of Sadness produces five discourses about the globally super-rich: The extreme wealth of the global super-rich, the global super-rich as wicked, the fall of the global super-rich, the super-rich as vulnerable and the super-rich as powerless. Overall, the film is a mockery of the super-rich. An explanation for why Östlund produces this discourse, according to Bourdieu, could have to do with his position as a consecrated avant-garde in the production field.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-521878 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Gröttheim, Emma, Eriksson, Sanna |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för informatik och media |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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