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The Melodramatic Discourse of "Todo es ETA" in Cinema: Terrorism and the Re-Enactment of a Conservative Postimperialist Masculine Spanish Nationalism

Cabanes Martinez, Aintzane
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9620-1004
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543235256789197

Abstract Details

2018, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Spanish and Portuguese.
This dissertation studies the discourse of “Todo es ETA” which frames Spain’s fight against terrorism as a need to eradicate the surrounding environment (the so-called "entorno de ETA") of the Basque terrorist group. In my view, this discourse which became hegemonic after 1996 with the advent to power of Partido Popular’s Jose Maria Aznar and which judge Baltasar Garzon judicialized, trespasses the debate on terrorism and the victims themselves. Focusing not only on Aznar’s political stagecraft but mainly on fiction and documentary films about ETA and the Basque conflict produced since 1996 until 2018, I argue that the “Todo es ETA” discourse is melodramatic. Melodrama is deployed by conservative agendas in Spain as a pervasive political and cultural mode that allows articulating Spain’s rhetoric of nationalism while reifying national myths of unity and cohesion through the creation of the national enemy: ETA and Basque nationalism. The analysis of this particular discourse on terrorism in cinema allows tracing the rise of a conservative nationalist ideology in Spain since 1996 and unveils how the nationalist ideology of the state needs differences and subaltern positions in order to articulate a new national hegemony. Thus I ponder upon the consequences of such discourse in order to re-consider how internal differences (in particular for this dissertation the Basque other) are represented, discussed, and ultimately repressed/marginalized in contemporary Spain. Ultimately, I contend that the melodramatic discourse of “Todo es ETA” is intended to produce and legitimate a re-writing of the foundational fiction of the Spanish nation by restoring the conservative postimperialist masculine order. In this sense, melodramatic conventions prove to be effective in interpellating spectators and citizens in order to produce a new dominant subject structure (the conservative Spanish subject) while sensorially re-wiring them to the community and establishing a different relationship with the past. Thus affecting the present. Therefore, this study also shows how contemporary conservative discourse in Spain needs cinema, both fiction and documentary, in order to compel the masses by creating consent and consensus.
Laura Podalsky (Advisor)
Joseba Gabilondo (Advisor)
Rebeka Campos-Astorkiza (Committee Member)
Dionisio Viscarri (Committee Member)
309 p.
Film Studies; Minority and Ethnic Groups
Spain; terrorism; ETA; Spanish nationalism; cinema; contemporary Spanish cinema; Basque studies; Basque Country

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Cabanes Martinez, A. (2018). The Melodramatic Discourse of "Todo es ETA" in Cinema: Terrorism and the Re-Enactment of a Conservative Postimperialist Masculine Spanish Nationalism [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543235256789197

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Cabanes Martinez, Aintzane. The Melodramatic Discourse of "Todo es ETA" in Cinema: Terrorism and the Re-Enactment of a Conservative Postimperialist Masculine Spanish Nationalism. 2018. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543235256789197.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Cabanes Martinez, Aintzane. "The Melodramatic Discourse of "Todo es ETA" in Cinema: Terrorism and the Re-Enactment of a Conservative Postimperialist Masculine Spanish Nationalism." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1543235256789197

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.