The Politics of Age and Disability in Contemporary Spanish Film

The Politics of Age and Disability in Contemporary Spanish Film examines the onscreen construction of adolescent, elderly, and disabled subjects in Spanish cinema from 1992 to the present. Applying a dual lens of film analysis and theory drawn from the allied fields of youth, age, and disability studies, this study is set both within and against a conversation on cultural diversity-with respect to gender, sexual, and ethnic identity-which has driven not only much of the past decade's most visible and fruitful scholarship on representation in Spanish film, but also the broader parameters of discourse on post-Transition Spain in the humanities. Presenting an engaging, and heretofore under-explored, interdisciplinary approach to images of multiculturalism in what has emerged as one of recent Spain's most vibrant areas of cultural production, this book brings a fresh, while still complementary, critical sensibility to the field of contemporary Peninsular film studies through its detailed discussion of six contemporary films (by Salvador García Ruiz, Achero Mañas, Santiago Aguilar & Luis Guridi, Marcos Carnevale, Alejandro Amenábar, and Pedro Almodóvar) and supporting reference to the production of other prominent and emerging filmmakers.

Matthew J. Marr is Associate Professor of Spanish in the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

Introduction: Framing Cultural Pluralism Anew in Contemporary Spanish Cinema Studies I. Adolescence and Alterity 1.The"Angry Girl" in Mensaka, Páginas de una historia ("Mensaka, Pages from a Story")(Salvador García Ruiz, 1998) 2. A Lad Indeed: Boyhood Friendship and the Politics of Masculinity in El Bola ("Pellet")(Achero Mañas, 2000) II. Senescence and Subjectivity 3.The Black Comedy of Aging in Justino, un asesino de la tercera edad ("Justino, a Senior Citizen Killer")("La Cuadrilla" or Santiago Aguilar & Luis Guridi, 1994) 4.Senescent Seduction in Elsa y Fred ("Elsa and Fred")(Marcos Carnevale, 2004) III. Discourses of Disability 5.The Unseen Inside: Mental Illness as Disability in Mar adentro ("The Sea Inside")(Alejandro Amenábar, 2004) 6. A Pluralistic Vision: On Blindness and the Break with Auteurist "Autocracy" in Los abrazos rotos ("Broken Embraces")(Pedro Almodóvar, 2009)Afterword