A Study on the Construction of the Mother Figure in the Chinese Comedy Film “Hi, Mom”

Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, 50603, Malaysia

^* Corresponding author: s2142861@siswa365.um.edu.my

Abstract

After entering the 21st century, the scale and technology of China’s film industry have developed rapidly. In the meantime, Chinese comedy films as an important part of China’s film industry have also received more and more attention. The Chinese comedy film “Hi, Mom” released in 2021 has won numerous awards and reputations for its humorous style and tribute to maternal love. This study takes “Hi, Mom” as a typical case to deeply investigate how the film constructs the image of the mother from multiple dimensions. In addition, under the guidance of Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) theory, this study focuses on five main aspects: plot design, facial expressions, background music, iconic symbols and clothing style of the mother in the film for in-depth analysis and discussion. The main findings of this study provided several new perspectives and findings for other case studies on “Hi, Mom”, and further provided more references for other studies on the theme of “mother image”. The discussion of this study shows the multi-dimensional construction of specific character images by different elements in this film, which settled an important platform for the filming of related theme films in the future.