Introduction: Making Neoliberalism Visible

Abstract

Christian Petzold’s Yella (2007) helps to establish the parameters for reconsidering German film in the context of neoliberalism. Yella develops formal interventions into audiovisual language to make the structures and affects of neoliberalism visible; it exposes neoliberalism as a highly gendered cultural formation; and its ability to create images of the present is contingent not only on representational practices, but also on its mode of production. Following a brief analysis of Yella as an emblematic film, this introduction provides a critical overview of approaches to neoliberalism and offers a short history of neoliberalism in Germany. It concludes by outlining the contributions of the book and its feminist approach for making neoliberalism visible.