بازتاب و نقد مدرنیزاسیون پهلوی در سینمای کمدی عامه‌پسند پیش از انقلاب: نمونه موردی فیلم‌های صمد و قالیچه حضرت سلیمان (1350) و صمد آرتیست می‌شود (1353)

This article examines the two comedy films Samad and Solomon’s Magic Carpet (1971) and Samad Becomes an Artist (1974), directed by Parviz Sayyad, and analyzes them as metaphorical texts of the authoritarian modernization project of late Pahlavi Iran. The study asks through what mechanisms these two films reflect and challenge the authoritarian modernization of the second Pahlavi period. Using a descriptive-analytical method and drawing on the theoretical framework of authoritarian modernization, the article shows that, beyond their status as popular comedy, these works critique the social, cultural, and psychological contradictions of top-down modernization and represent the resistance of tradition and local knowledge. The first film, through symbols such as the magic carpet and the camera, criticizes the dominance of a Western-oriented discourse over cultural heritage and national identity, and positions Samad as a representative of practical wisdom and local lived experience in opposition to the gaze of power. The second film extends this critique to the sphere of the entertainment industry and consumer culture, presenting the arrival of a filmmaking group in the village as an allegory of cultural invasion and the commodification of culture. Through local improvisation, Samad neutralizes these mechanisms and exposes the failure of modernization projects lacking popular grounding. The findings show that Sayyad’s cinema, through the language of humor, offers a prophetic critique of the failure of authoritarian modernization and emphasizes the role of local knowledge, lived experience, and cultural resistance.