The Dystopian Imagination in Contemporary Spanish Literature and Film

Diana Q. Palardy

• Editorial: Palgrave Macmillan
• Año: 2018
• ISBN:
  9783319928852
• Categoría: Social Sciences
• Categoría: Ethnic Studies

This study examines contemporary Spanish dystopian literature and films (in)directly related to the 2008 financial crisis from an urban cultural studies perspective. It explores culturally-charged landscapes that effectively convey the zeitgeist and reveal deep-rooted anxieties about issues such as globalization, consumerism, immigration, speculation, precarity, and political resistance (particularly by Indignados [Indignant Ones] from the 15-M Movement). The book loosely traces the trajectory of the crisis, with the first part looking at texts that underscore some of the behaviors that indirectly contributed to the crisis, and the remaining chapters focusing on works that directly examine the crisis and its aftermath. This close reading of texts and films by Ray Loriga, Elia Barceló, Ion de Sosa, José Ardillo, David Llorente, Eduardo Vaquerizo, and Ricardo Menéndez Salmón offers insights into the creative ways that these authors and directors use spatial constructions to capture the dystopian imagination.

© The Author(s) 2018

Diana Q. PalardyThe Dystopian Imagination in Contemporary Spanish Literature and FilmHispanic Urban Studieshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92885-2_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Diana Q. Palardy¹

(1)

Department of Foreign Languages, Youngstown State University, Youngstown, OH, USA

Diana Q. Palardy

End Abstract

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the 15-M protest movement in Spain, there has been a growing interest in representations of dystopian societies in Spanish culture and the word distopía (dystopia) has finally made it into the dictionary of the Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy).¹ The official Spanish definition of a distopía, which is a “representación ficticia de una sociedad futura de características negativas causantes de la alienación humana” (fictional representation of a future society with negative characteristics that cause human alienation), first appeared in the 2014 edition of the dictionary.² That year was a signature year for dystopias in Spain for other reasons as well. It marked the publication of Mañana todavía: Doce distopías para el siglo XXI (Still tomorrow: Twelve dystopias for the twenty-first century) edited by Ricard Ruiz Garzón, which is generally recognized as the first anthology dedicated exclusively to Spanish dystopias and the one most well received by the press, even though strictly speaking several of the stories are not actually dystopias.³ According to Mariano Villarreal on his website Literatura Fantástica (Fantasy literature), approximately 30 translations (and reeditions of translations) of dystopias and 10 dystopias by Spaniards poured into the market in 2014.⁴ This contrasts starkly with the data provided for other years around that same time frame, as the number of Spanish dystopias per year from 2013 until 2016 (excluding 2014) averaged around 4. In my own database of Spanish dystopias, which will be discussed in greater detail at a later point in the introduction, the numbers differ but the pattern is somewhat similar, as there was a marked uptick in the production of dystopias starting in 2011 (averaging around 12 per year) and then a significant increase in 2014, reaching up to approximately 30 works. That same year, several articles appeared in prominent Spanish newspapers addressing both the inclusion of the word distopía in the dictionary of the Real Academia Española and the publication of the anthology Mañana todavía.⁵ This growing fascination with the genre in recent years in Spanish society is also evidenced, in part, by a rise in Google searches in Spain for the term distopía, as well as by the immense popularity of the film The Hunger Games, which premiered there in 2012.⁶ Moreover, Spanish dystopian novels and films, which in the past rarely received any recognition outside of the domain of science fiction, have begun to make their way into the mainstream, even competing with other genres to win prestigious awards like the 2016 Premio Biblioteca Breve for Ricardo Menéndez Salmón’s novel El sistema (The system) and the 2017 Premio Alfaguara de Novela for Ray Loriga’s novel Rendición (Surrender).⁷ These are just a few of the indications that the genre has been gaining more attention in popular Spanish culture in recent years.⁸

The Dystopian Imagination in Urban Cultural Studies

It is a daunting task to analyze hypothetical spatial constructions utilizing an urban cultural studies method. In urban cultural studies, the objective is to probe the connection between, in Benjamin Fraser’s words, “material conditions,” such as the formation of urban landscapes that are represented in novels and films, and “cultural imaginaries,” or the ways that these spaces are culturally inflected within the works.⁹ But how does one examine the context in which an imaginary urban place, a product of an author’s imagination, was created and the cultural relevance of that imaginary place? Moreover, how does one evaluate spatial relationships in what are often hypothetical, technologically advanced, futuristic societies, which are governed by new rules, structures, and values? Fortunately, the works of most authors and directors are somewhat derivative in nature, so this type of analysis may entail, for example, looking at the history of the construction and cultural relevance of a famous building that is represented in ruins in a text, or the cultural significance of plans for projects like Eurovegas that never materialized (at least not yet), but are brought to life in fiction. Whether examining what features have been stripped from or added to an urban landscape, what is most important is the exploration of the cultural significance of the setting and the way that it has evolved into its present state, as represented in the novel or film.

Several scholars have approached urban dystopian spaces in a similar fashion, although they do not all necessarily adhere to an urban cultural studies method. Within the field of architecture, Daniel K. Brown’s website Architecture and Dystopia seeks to uncover the stories of oppression embedded in dystopian architectural structures, with an eye toward advocacy for social justice.¹⁰ Likewise, the website Failed Architecture: Researching Urban Failure, supported by The Creative Industries Fund NL, offers a vast array of photo essays documenting real-life examples of urban dystopianism, with an entire section dedicated exclusively to “Ruin and Dystopia.” Gordon MacLeod and Kevin Ward’s article “Spaces of Utopia and Dystopia: Landscaping the Contemporary City,” featured in a special issue of Geografiska Annaler edited by Guy Baeten, considers the interplay between utopian and dystopian spaces in contemporary urban environments. Gyan Prakash’s edited collection of essays Noir Urbanisms: Dystopic Images of the Modern City (2010) offers an interdisciplinary, transnational exploration of dystopias in a variety of urban environments, but with a greater focus on the aesthetics of representations of dystopia.¹¹

In my examination of theoretical approaches to the cultural significance of literary and filmic representations of dystopian spaces, I have utilized concepts presented by Marc Augé, Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, David Howes, Steven Flusty, and J. Brian Harley, among others. In each chapter of this investigation, I address theories that help to illustrate how the constructions of spatial relationships in the primary works contribute to a dystopian atmosphere. This emphasis on spatial analysis is particularly relevant in dystopian fiction because topos, meaning “place” in Greek, is key to the concept of dystopia. Also, since more dystopias take place in urban settings than in rural environments, an urban cultural studies approach is fitting. Although not all of the landscapes in the literary and filmic texts are imbued with a gritty, urban atmosphere, the issues raised in each of the works are highly relevant to the area of urban cultural studies, which may be defined more thoroughly as the effort “to explore the relationship between a project and its formation in the context of a necessarily and unavoidably urbanized (and urbanizing) society.”¹² Whether analyzing representations of buildings, maps or any other type of spatial construction in the works of fiction, my approach focuses on reading each cultural artifact as if it were a text, exploring the urban context in which it was produced or the urban discourses that it evokes. Several contemporary critics such as Sebastián Cobarrubias, John Pickles, Stephen Luis Vilaseca, Mónica Degen, Mehmet Döşemeci, Gordon MacLeod, Kevin Ward, and Elia Zureik have adopted interdisciplinary approaches to examining cultural issues within urban environments. These are just a few of the many critics who provide effective models for an urban cultural studies approach (even though, in some cases, they may not be labeled as such) and offer insights that are relevant to this present study.¹³

Studies of Spanish Dystopias

This present investigation is particularly important right now because even though there has been a growing interest in Spanish dystopian literature and film since the 2008 economic crisis, to the best of my knowledge there are still no book-length studies on the topic, apart from doctoral dissertations.¹⁴ There are a few relatively recent books in Spanish that address both utopian and dystopian fiction, such as La utopía en las narrativas contemporáneas (Utopia in contemporary narratives) (2008) by Gonzalo Navajas and El sueño sostenible: Estudios sobre la utopía literaria en España (The sustainable dream: Studies about literary utopias in Spain) (2008) by José Luis Calvo Carilla, but they tend to concentrate mostly on works from earlier periods.

Despite the absence of book-length publications on contemporary Spanish dystopias (or even just Spanish dystopias in general), a wide variety of book chapters and articles have focused on the subject, to varying degrees. Within a number of academic books on science fiction, there are sections dedicated exclusively to dystopias, such as in Novela y cine de ciencia ficción española contemporánea: Una reflexión sobre la humanidad (Novels and films in contemporary Spanish science fiction: A reflect...