نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی
نویسندگان
1 دانشجوی کارشناسی ارشد فلسفه هنر، دانشکده هنر، دانشگاه نیشابور، نیشابور،ایران
2 استادیار گروه آموزشی فلسفه هنر، دانشکده هنر، دانشگاه دولتی نیشابور، نیشابور، ایران .
3 دانشیار گروه آموزشی پژوهش هنر، دانشکده هنر، دانشگاه نیشابور، نیشابور، ایران.
4 استاد تمام. گروه آموزشی پژوهش هنر، دانشکده هنر، دانشگاه الزهرا، تهران، ایران.
5 استاد تمام. گروه آموزشی زیباییشناسی، دانشکده فلسفه، دانشگاه لومونوسف، مسکو، روسیه.
چکیده
کلیدواژهها
موضوعات
عنوان مقاله [English]
نویسندگان [English]
Background: In contemporary film studies, comedy is commonly understood either as a mode of entertainment or as a cinematic form capable of social criticism through satire, irony, and exaggeration. Within Iranian cinema, the films of Abdolreza Kahani have frequently been analyzed from sociological and realist perspectives, especially regarding representations of the urban middle class, economic instability, family fragmentation, and everyday crises. Nevertheless, these approaches often overlook the ideological mechanisms operating beneath comic situations. The present study is grounded in the assumption that comedy in Kahani’s cinema cannot be reduced merely to social satire or realism; rather, it functions as a space in which ideological contradictions become visible through repetition, absurdity, failed communication, and laughter itself. Drawing upon the psychoanalytic and ideological theories of Slavoj Žižek, this article examines how comedy in Kahani’s films reproduces fantasy, organizes desire, and sustains ideological enjoyment (jouissance). Žižek conceptualizes ideology not simply as a system of false consciousness, but as a structure of fantasy that allows subjects to continue participating in social reality despite recognizing its inconsistencies and instabilities. From this perspective, comedy becomes especially significant because it simultaneously exposes the fragility of symbolic authority and enables subjects to endure that fragility through enjoyment. The films Asb Heyvan-e Najibi Ast (2010) and Bikhod va Bijehat (2011) offer particularly rich material for such analysis because both films depict unstable social relations, failed communication, and crises of symbolic order through comic and absurd situations rather than tragic resolution.
Objectives: The primary objective of this research is to provide a Žižekian interpretation of comedy in the cinema of Abdolreza Kahani by focusing on the interrelation between ideology, fantasy, desire, and symbolic authority. More specifically, the study aims to demonstrate that comedy in Kahani’s films does not function primarily as a liberating critique of social contradictions, but rather as a mechanism through which such contradictions become manageable and tolerable. Another objective is to analyze how laughter emerges from the collapse or instability of authority, the failure of language, and the persistence of fantasy within fragmented social conditions. Through a comparative reading of Asb Heyvan-e Najibi Ast and Bikhod va Bijehat, the article seeks to identify two distinct but interconnected forms of ideological operation. In the first film, ideology functions through the performative reproduction of authority despite its lack of real institutional foundation; in the second, ideology survives through postponement, repetition, exhaustion, and the management of unresolved crisis in the absence of a stable symbolic center. The research also intends to contribute to philosophical film studies in Iran by applying Žižekian concepts such as the Big Other, fantasy, jouissance, symbolic lack, and the Real to close cinematic analysis. In doing so, the article challenges dominant assumptions that comedy necessarily possesses emancipatory or critical functions and instead argues that comic enjoyment may itself participate in the reproduction of ideological structures.
Method: This study adopts a qualitative, interpretive, and philosophical-analytical methodology grounded in psychoanalytic film theory and Žižekian ideology critique. The research is based on close formal and textual analysis of two films by Abdolreza Kahani: Asb Heyvan-e Najibi Ast (2010) and Bikhod va Bijehat (2011). Rather than treating the films merely as sociological reflections of Iranian society, the article approaches them as cinematic structures through which ideological fantasy becomes visible. The theoretical framework combines Žižek’s reinterpretation of Lacanian psychoanalysis with concepts related to desire, fantasy, ideology, jouissance, symbolic order, and the Real. The analysis focuses on cinematic elements such as fragmented dialogue, bodily gestures, repetition, pauses, spatial congestion, comic timing, sound overlap, and narrative suspension. Particular attention is paid to moments in which language fails, authority becomes performative, or characters continue participating in unstable social relations despite recognizing their incoherence. In Asb Heyvan-e Najibi Ast, scenes involving fake police authority, extortion, and symbolic intimidation are interpreted through Žižek’s theory of ideological fantasy. In Bikhod va Bijehat, the analysis centers on failed communication, domestic exhaustion, repetitive arguments, and suspended decision-making, all of which reveal the collapse of symbolic coherence and the weakening of the Big Other.
Result: The findings demonstrate that comedy in Kahani’s cinema functions as a complex ideological mechanism rather than merely a critical or entertaining genre. In Asb Heyvan-e Najibi Ast, symbolic authority persists despite lacking institutional legitimacy because subjects continue acting “as if” authority were real. The protagonist produces obedience not through legal power, but through gestures, performance, tone of voice, and symbolic signs associated with authority. The comic effect emerges from the gap between the emptiness of authority and the persistence of belief in its performance. The film therefore illustrates a specifically Žižekian logic of ideology: subjects are aware of the falseness of authority, yet continue reproducing it because such participation sustains fantasy and prevents confrontation with instability. In Bikhod va Bijehat, by contrast, even performative authority has weakened. Language becomes fragmented and ineffective, communication turns repetitive and circular, and characters remain trapped within unresolved crises. Here, comedy arises not from exaggerated authority but from the absurd continuation of social interaction despite the collapse of symbolic coherence. The findings further suggest that laughter in Kahani’s cinema does not necessarily create critical distance; instead, it often becomes part of the mechanism through which subjects tolerate contradiction, lack, and symbolic failure.
Conclusion: This study concludes that comedy in the cinema of Abdolreza Kahani operates as a privileged site for the manifestation of ideology, fantasy, and symbolic instability in contemporary Iranian society. Through a Žižekian framework, the research demonstrates that laughter in Kahani’s films is deeply connected to the maintenance of ideological structures rather than functioning solely as critique or resistance. In Asb Heyvan-e Najibi Ast, comedy emerges through the performative circulation of fake authority, while in Bikhod va Bijehat, it emerges through exhaustion, failed communication, and the suspension of meaningful action. In both films, subjects continue participating in unstable symbolic structures despite recognizing their emptiness and inconsistency. The article therefore argues that Kahani’s cinema reveals ideology not as external deception, but as a structure of enjoyment embedded within ordinary interactions, comic repetitions, and everyday forms of crisis management. Ultimately, the study proposes that comedy in Kahani’s films represents one of the clearest manifestations of political truth in contemporary cinema: a condition in which subjects know the instability of the system, yet continue participating in it nonetheless.
کلیدواژهها [English]
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