Women at Work in Twenty-First-Century European Cinema

From hairdressers and caregivers to reproductive workers and power-suited executives, images of women's labor have powered a fascinating new movement within twenty-first century European cinema. Social realist dramas capture precarious working conditions. Comedies exaggerate the habits of the global managerial class. Stories from countries battered by the global financial crisis emphasize the patriarchal family, debt, and unemployment. Barbara Mennel delves into the ways these films about female labor capture the tension between feminist advances and their appropriation by capitalism in a time of ongoing transformation. Looking at independent and genre films from a cross-section of European nations, Mennel sees a focus on economics and work adapted to the continent's varied kinds of capitalism and influenced by concepts in second-wave feminism. More than ever, narratives of work put female characters front and center--and female directors behind the camera. Yet her analysis shows that each film remains a complex mix of progressive and retrogressive dynamics as it addresses the changing nature of work in Europe. Review "This book makes an important intervention into both feminist film theory and scholarship on European cinema. Mennel provides a kaleidoscopic overview of the landscape of European filmmaking today, and a key achievement of her study is its truly transnational, comparative framework, which generatively juxtaposes films from a wide range of European countries without losing sight of their cultural specificity."--Hester Baer, author of Dismantling the Dream Factory: Gender, German Cinema, and the Postwar Quest for a New Film Language "A book steeped in cinematic analysis of style and form that is relevant far beyond the field of cinema and European studies. Innovative and unique in the way it brings a very timely topical focus to a large body of contemporary European cinema."--Maria Stehle, author of Ghetto Voices in Contemporary Germany: Textscapes, Filmscapes, and Soundscapes About the Author Barbara Mennel is an associate professor of film studies in the Departments of English and of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Florida. Her books include The Representation of Masochism and Queer Desire in Film and Literature and Queer Cinema: Schoolgirls, Vampires, and Gay Cowboys. Tags: Performing Arts, Film, History & Criticism, Social Science, Women's Studies From hairdressers and caregivers to reproductive workers and power-suited executives, images of women's labor have powered a fascinating new movement within twenty-first-century European cinema. Social realist dramas capture precarious working conditions. Comedies exaggerate the habits of the global managerial class. Stories from countries battered by the global financial crisis emphasize the patriarchal family, debt, and unemployment. Barbara Mennel delves into the ways these films about female labor capture the tension between feminist advances and their appropriation by capitalism in a time of ongoing transformation. Looking at independent and genre films from a cross-section of European nations, Mennel sees a focus on economics and work adapted to the continent's varied kinds of capitalism and influenced by concepts in second-wave feminism. More than ever, narratives of work put female characters front and center—and female directors behind the camera. Yet her analysis shows that each film remains a complex mix of progressive and retrogressive dynamics as it addresses the changing nature of work in Europe. | Cover Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Specter of Domesticity 2. Precarious Work in Feminist Film 3. Heritage Cinema of Industrial Labor 4. Voice in the Cinema of Labor Migration 5. Care Work and the Suspicious Gesture 6. Reproductive Labor in the Age of Biotechnology 7. Crisis Cinema Conclusion Notes References Film Index General Index |"By zooming out to include multiple countries and contexts and by zooming in on individual films about women workers, Mennel makes a strong case that European cinema has something important to say about gender and the economy." — Feminist German Studies " Women at Work offers us a rich archive of cinematic depictions of female labor . . . It is to the credit of Mennel's sweeping cinematic analysis of the present that we now have a better understanding of not only the work women do across the continent but also the variety of new images European cinema has been offering us." — German Studies Review "Highly recommended." — Choice | Barbara Mennel is an associate professor of film studies in the Departments of English and of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Florida. Her books include The Representation of Masochism and Queer Desire in Film and Literature and Queer Cinema: Schoolgirls, Vampires, and Gay Cowboys . "Reproducing Europe argues that current European films focus on female characters in order to negotiate the transformations of labor of the last decades. Based on an analysis of approximately two hundred European films made since 2000 that focus on the relationship of women to their work, the book analyzes a cross-section of national cinemas and film genres, clustered according to pertinent topics in the theories of gendered labor. As reproductive labor now also includes the "donation" of eggs and organs, and the possibility of outsourcing pregnancy, dystopian narratives tell stories of refugees and clones who become the raw materials for organ harvesting. Farces and comedies exaggerate the habits of the global managerial class, while social realist dramas capture precarious working conditions in narratives about unemployed women. And films from countries affected by the global financial crisis (Greece, Spain, Portugal) emphasize the patriarchal family, a debt economy, and unemployment. Proposing the relevance of key concepts developed in second-wave feminist theory, the book updates categories of reproductive labor and the sexual contract. The postindustrial, neoliberal, and transnational character of Europe, with its decline of heavy industry, rise of service work, increase in migration since the expansion of the EU, and innovation in biotechnology has changed the organization of work. Films respond to these developments with a narrative emphasis on work, embodied by female characters more than ever before"-- Provided by publisher "Reproducing Europe argues that current European films focus on female characters in order to negotiate the transformations of labor of the last decades. Based on an analysis of approximately two hundred European films made since 2000 that focus on the relationship of women to their work, the book analyzes a cross-section of national cinemas and film genres, clustered according to pertinent topics in the theories of gendered labor. As reproductive labor now also includes the "donation" of eggs and organs, and the possibility of outsourcing pregnancy, dystopian narratives tell stories of refugees and clones who become the raw materials for organ harvesting. Farces and comedies exaggerate the habits of the global managerial class, while social realist dramas capture precarious working conditions in narratives about unemployed women. And films from countries affected by the global financial crisis (Greece, Spain, Portugal) emphasize the patriarchal family, a debt economy, and unemployment. Proposing the relevance of key concepts developed in second-wave feminist theory, the book updates categories of reproductive labor and the sexual contract. The postindustrial, neoliberal, and transnational character of Europe, with its decline of heavy industry, rise of service work, increase in migration since the expansion of the EU, and innovation in biotechnology has changed the organization of work. Films respond to these developments with a narrative emphasis on work, embodied by female characters more than ever before"-- Résumé de l'éditeur