“Something like Happiness”

Abstract

This article uses the medium of film to analyze masculinities at the intersection of the regionally specific with the typical: the peripheral factory town with the universalizing panelák, or apartment block. This article addresses how the private spaces in industrial regions achieve new meaning when the role of the factory or public space, idealized in communist propaganda, has undergone a dramatic transformation. After the narratives that made spaces “great” became irrelevant in 1989 and the paneláky and factories lost their metaphorical meanings, they became simply apartment buildings and privately owned worksites. Within these spaces, many working-class men in industrial regions have faced more difficult transitions than women because they, as idealized workers under socialism, were more invested in the system and lost more from its collapse. Through an analysis of common themes in films released roughly fifteen years after the Velvet Revolution, the author asks how these men relate to the panelák, or private space, when excluded from the masculine, public space of the factory. How does the employment situation impact the family unit? What solutions do directors present to these men who find themselves ill-equipped for life in the industrial periphery after the post-1989 transition? This article draws from and contributes to recent work in the field of Czech gender studies and functions as a Czech case study on the relationship between gender and space in the former Eastern Bloc.