Hope, heartbreak, humiliation: Women protagonists in three European films during convulsively neo-liberal times

The analysis addresses market-empowering neo-liberalism as constructed in three acclaimed twenty-first-century European films with thirty-something female protagonists. Beyond gender’s intersection with neo-liberalism, the analysis concerns power, the workplace and individualistic neo-liberal subjectivity. In Two Days, One Night , Sandra’s Belgian employer presents her colleagues with the poisonous ‘choice’ of retaining Sandra or sacking her for bonuses. Initially defeatist about campaigning for votes, Sandra does not prevail but gains dignity, empathy and her voice against management power. In The Worst Person in the World , Norwegian service worker Julie fumbles in early adulthood in the ‘markets’ of love and career. Although the film is relatively benign towards neo-liberalism by associating it with excessive choice rather than scarcity, love interest Aksel’s demise suggests that he was insufficiently nimble in negotiating change wrought by neo-liberal time/space compression. The Teacher’s Lounge conjures a neo-liberal microcosm in a surveillance-saturated German middle school. Faculty, staff, administrators, students and parents rally towards the self-interest that market ideology promotes. Consequently, the school is ungovernable, while in the film’s closure, the exemplary service work protagonist Carla is devastated. The conclusion asks whether neo-liberalism’s convulsions and failures are ushering in a still more punishing social model.