Aproximaciones a la exclusión social: el otro lado del "milagro" español en Barrio de Fernando León y 7 Vírgenes de Alberto Rodríguez

Abstract

In this article, I analyze two movies as fictional accounts of social exclusion in Spain during the late 90s and the early 2000s—a period that is widely associated with prosperity and well-being. The two movies are Barrio (1998) by Fernando León and 7 Vírgenes (2005) by Alberto Rodríguez. I argue that these movies problematize and question the so-called "Spanish miracle"—the utopian image of Spain that dominated cultural and political discourses in the pre-crisis era—by exposing a social world inhabited by excluded and marginalized subjects. In order to contextualize these two movies, the article begins with a brief discussion on the social and economic paradoxes hidden behind the discursive façade of Spain's prosperity. Next, I explore the film's protagonists in light of Zygmunt Bauman's notion of disposable lives, and trace their individual experiences within the consumer society that flourished following the expansion of neoliberal policies in Spain. Given this context, I consider the disposability of those (male) characters in relation to other forms of exclusion (bare life), and examine their relation to the affluent middle classes represented in the two movies. Finally, I seek to address the broader implications of these issues by rethinking the dynamics depicted in these two movies in connection with the 80s and the era of economic crisis inaugurated in 2008.