“Currency, carry me, everyone is held hostage:” an analysis of post-2008 recessionary films

Abstract

As the impact of The Great Recession of 2008 has been felt severely by millions of people, “why” and “how” of the crisis became the topic of debate in almost every field. Number of films revolving around the crisis, whether explicitly focusing on The Great Recession or taking the scene designated by the crisis as a background for similar stories about white-collar workers, have been made. The argument of this thesis is that, these narratives focusing on the crisis is a new cycle of films revealing a capitalist realist attitude, and can be named as “recessionary films.” Under three main headings -ideology, structural columns, and crime/justice dichotomy- I analyze the narratives to explore their common thematic elements.