[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-46513-en":3,"doc-seo-46513-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":90},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":21,"is_downloadable":21,"audit_status":21,"page_count":22,"language":23,"language_code":24,"site_id":25,"html_lang":24,"table_of_contents":26,"faqs":27,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},46513,1099513958762,"Logic","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/1000023916a998db790?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1782109480056885918",2,"Literature","Primed for Suffering: Gender, Subjectivity, and Spectatorship in Spanish Crisis Cinema","The global financial crisis beginning in 2007/8 is reflected across Spanish cultural production, with cinema particularly capturing both the boom of speculation and its later austerity-driven devastation. This essay examines how crisis cinema represents suffering through gendered bodies and subjectivities, focusing on films where female experience of crisis, debt, and austerity is central. It analyzes vulnerability and resilience in fictional portrayals, highlighting intersections of body, subjectivity, and culture, and contrasting women’s disposability with moments of ethical solidarity.","Primed for Suffering: Gender, Subjectivity, and Spectatorship in Spanish Crisis Cinema  \nSarah Thomas  \nThe multifaceted global financial crisis, initiated by the economic collapse of 2007/8, has indelibly marked Spanish life at all levels—political, social, collective, institutional, individual—and is reflected in a wide range of cultural production, including cinema. As Luis Moreno-Caballud has argued, it is perhaps audiovisual production, more than its literary counterpart, that best has captured not only the boom of real estate speculation but also its subsequent bust into the devastating consequences of crisis and austerity (2012: 549). In diverse genres such as documentary, comedy, police thriller, musical, and family drama, Spain’s filmmakers have held upa mirror to the new social realities of the nation: the devastating consequences of austerity, joblessness, and precarious employment; the daily struggles to make ends meet and avoid eviction or homelessness; the fall  \nI would like to thank the interlocutors at several talks and conferences where this material was presented for their suggestions, and especially Jon Snyder and Sonia García López for their insightful comments. I express sincere appreciation to Bécquer Seguín for his generosity and patience.  \nboundary 2 48:3 (2021) DOI 10.1215/01903659-9155817 © 2021 by Duke University Press  \nDownloaded from [http://read.dukeupress.edu/boundary-2/article-pdf/48/3/215/933567/215thomas.pdf](http://read.dukeupress.edu/boundary-2/article-pdf/48/3/215/933567/215thomas.pdf)[ ](http://read.dukeupress.edu/boundary-2/article-pdf/48/3/215/933567/215thomas.pdf)by Johns Hopkins University Libraries user  \n12 August 2021  \n216 boundary 2 / August 2021  \nout from years without stable employment or professional advancement; the relentless strain on relationships and affective bonds.1 Crisis cinema, as several critics have pointed out, need not necessarily focus directly on the crisis or its effects, but often touches them tangentially or metaphorically, imbued with the temporalities, subjectivities, and relational networks instantiated by the crisis mode. This emerging cinematic field is striking for its unifying emphasis on different kinds of suffering, which Dean Allbritton has detailed in his work on the “metaphors of physical vulnerability” (2014: 101) produced in these films. These can be read as a cinematic reflection of what Germán Labrador Méndez (2012) has termed “subprime life histories”(historias de vida subprime), which circulated in social and news media in the crisis’s wake. In this essay, I am interested in exploring the particular ways that these narratives of suffering are gendered in crisis cinema: that is, how mental and physical anguish, directly or obliquely related to economic crisis, are inscribed on female-gendered bodies and subjectivities.  \nIt is true that, anecdotally at least, men are more often than women the protagonists of crisis cinema across genres, due undoubtedly to the conventionally male gendering of both the universal political subject and the subject of capitalist modernity, not to mention much of the financial sector responsible for the crash itself. However, if we can already speak of a canon of crisis cinema that has emerged in the years since 2008, then this canon certainly includes within it a distinct strand of films that showcase female experience of crisis, austerity, and debt. It is these films that have caught my attention for how they center the pain of female subjects and highlight suffering that is particularly female, stressing the bodily dimension of the crisis’s impact as well as typically or frequently female-gendered experiences such as rape, domestic violence, childbirth and motherhood, or self-harm.2  \n1. The canon of “crisis cinema” (Allbritton 2014) is an ever-expanding list, including fictional films and documentaries, comedies and dramas, from a variety of genres. For comprehensive accounts, see Villarmea Álvarez, who pro","cbCaiiK9vxwQX3Nt","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiiK9vxwQX3Nt","pdf",515684,3,1,37,"English","en",105,"# Crisis, suffering, and crisis cinema\n## Gendered narratives of vulnerability and resilience\n## The crisis cinema canon and critical context","[{\"question\":\"What central issue does the essay address in Spanish crisis cinema?\",\"answer\":\"How narratives of suffering in crisis films are gendered, especially how mental and physical anguish related to economic crisis are inscribed on female bodies and subjectivities.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the author focus on female-centered crisis films?\",\"answer\":\"Because a strand of films showcases female experience of crisis, austerity, and debt, emphasizing bodily impact and experiences often gendered as female, such as violence, childbirth and motherhood, or self-harm.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the essay interpret the meaning of representation of female suffering?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that even sympathetic cinema can cast women as disposable “raw material,” while at times films also reveal hidden experiences and offer an ethical gesture of possible solidarity.\"}]",1783544902,57,{"code":4,"msg":31,"data":32},"ok",{"site_id":25,"language":24,"slug":33,"title":13,"keywords":34,"description":14,"schema_data":35,"social_meta":85,"head_meta":87,"extra_data":89,"updated_unix":28},"primed-for-suffering-gender-subjectivity-and-spectatorship-in-spanish-crisis-cinema","",{"@graph":36,"@context":84},[37,52,67],{"@type":38,"itemListElement":39},"BreadcrumbList",[40,44,47,49],{"item":41,"name":42,"@type":43,"position":21},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":45,"name":46,"@type":43,"position":11},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":43,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",{"item":50,"name":13,"@type":43,"position":51},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/primed-for-suffering-gender-subjectivity-and-spectatorship-in-spanish-crisis-cinema/46513/",4,{"url":50,"name":13,"@type":53,"author":54,"headline":13,"publisher":56,"fileFormat":59,"inLanguage":24,"description":14,"dateModified":60,"datePublished":61,"encodingFormat":59,"isAccessibleForFree":62,"interactionStatistic":63},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":55},"Person",{"url":41,"name":57,"@type":58},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-14","2026-07-08",true,{"@type":64,"interactionType":65,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":66},"ViewAction",{"@type":68,"mainEntity":69},"FAQPage",[70,76,80],{"name":71,"@type":72,"acceptedAnswer":73},"What central issue does the essay address in Spanish crisis cinema?","Question",{"text":74,"@type":75},"How narratives of suffering in crisis films are gendered, especially how mental and physical anguish related to economic crisis are inscribed on female bodies and subjectivities.","Answer",{"name":77,"@type":72,"acceptedAnswer":78},"Why does the author focus on female-centered crisis films?",{"text":79,"@type":75},"Because a strand of films showcases female experience of crisis, austerity, and debt, emphasizing bodily impact and experiences often gendered as female, such as violence, childbirth and motherhood, or self-harm.",{"name":81,"@type":72,"acceptedAnswer":82},"How does the essay interpret the meaning of representation of female suffering?",{"text":83,"@type":75},"It argues that even sympathetic cinema can cast women as disposable “raw material,” while at times films also reveal hidden experiences and offer an ethical gesture of possible 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