Journal de Etica y Cine

Volumen 16 | Nº 2 | July 2026

Cinema, Body, and Power. The Subaltern Subject in Prayers for the Stolen

Noche de fuego | Tatiana Huezo | 2021
Juan Casas

Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Monterrey, México
https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0624-9179

Abstract

This article analyzes the film Prayers for the Stolen (2021), directed by Tatiana Huezo, through the lens of the subaltern subject. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from subaltern studies, Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, James C. Scott’s notion of everyday resistance, Judith Butler’s performativity of gender, and Michel Foucault’s biopower, the article explores how the film portrays resistant bodies, silent acts of survival, and power technologies imposed on female bodies within a context of structural violence. The study argues that cinema, beyond being a mere social mirror, serves as a critical space that enriches theoretical reflections on subalternity. Ultimately, it proposes that cinematic art, as both a sensitive and political device, holds the power to give voice to those historically silenced.

Keywords: resistance | biopolitics | gender performativity | structural violence | cinematic representation

This article is, for the time being, only available in Spanish: Cine, cuerpo y poder. El sujeto subalterno en Noche de fuego

NOTAS

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Confined Childhoods: Allegory and Subjectivation in Samira Makhmalbaf’s The Apple La manzana | Samira Makhmalbaf | 1998 Ndeni Esperanza Rojas Barragán
Pictures of reality in three Argentine underground fictions … (Puntos suspensivos) | Edgardo Cozarinsky | 1971 - La pieza de Franz | Alberto Fischerman | 1973 - La civilización está haciendo masa y no deja oír | Julio Ludueña | 1974 Enzo Moreira Facca
Bodies Turned into Weapons: An Ethical and Psychoanalytic Reading Weapons | Zach Cregger | 2025 Fernando González y Galán
When revenge is justified. Regarding Kill Bill: Hegel, the life-or-death struggle for recognition of the other, and Foucault’s power relations Kill Bill | Quentin Tarantino | 2003-2004 Sheila López-Pérez
Fractured Mirrors in an Overloaded World Postmodernist Cinematic Variables in the Representation of Climate Change Jesús Cendros GuaschPavel Cendros Parra
The search of meaning and cinema Close | Lukas Dhont | 2022 Felipe Arthur Muñoz Becerra
The Narrative of Dissensus: Approaches to Viejo calavera (2017) by Kiro Russo Based on a Reading of Jacques Rancière Viejo calavera | Kiro Russo | 2017 Sebastian Morales Escoffier
The desiring gaze and the enjoyment of madness: a psychoanalytic reading of feminine horror Pearl | Ti West | 2022 Yi Wang

Etica y Cine (Ethics & Films) is a Peer Reviewed Quarterly Journal Edited by
Department of Psychoanalysis and Department of Deontology, School of Psychology, National University of Cordoba, Argentina
Department of Psychology, Ethics and Human Rights, School of Psychology, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
With the collaboration of:
Center for Medical Ethics (CME), Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Norway
Under the auspicious of:
The International Network of the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics.

Cinema, Body, and Power. The Subaltern Subject in Prayers for the Stolen

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