Page - 64 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 02/02

64 | Stefanie Knauss www.jrfm.eu 2016, 2/2, 45–66 a traditional view of masculinity as authoritative and ruling through division rather than building community, oriented toward individual profit instead of the common good. Yet the non-gendered ethics of care in Sandra’s family and the empowering relationship between Sandra and Manu show that different forms of relationships and community in which an ethics of care and the virtue and duty of solidarity become normative are indeed possible, even under the still-persisting conditions of patriarchal, capitalist society. CONCLUSION The two films I have discussed here in more detail, as well as the work of the Dardennes more broadly, represent a variety of issues that lie at the intersec- tion of feminist theory, gender studies, feminist ethics and Christian social eth- ics, and thus provide important material for further reflections from the per- spective of gender on the flourishing of the individual and the common good. I have argued that their contribution is particularly focused on three aspects. First, the dialectical tension between individual freedom and the impact of so- cial identity categories is expressed in their representation of complex, non- stereotypical characters while acknowledging the impact of patriarchal society, especially in terms of family and work relationships. Consequently, while the ef- fects of the patriarchal gender system have to be included in any analysis of so- cial relationships and individual existence, the films remind their viewers to be careful to allow for the individual appropriation of gendered identity, so as not to delimit the singularity of the subject through stereotypical expectations as to what being a woman, man, intersex or transgendered person means for an individual. Second, the films’ representation of gender in the context of other social factors, expressed for example in the ways in which gender, employment status and family relationships together have to be taken into account in order to understand Rosetta’s experience of self, underlines the need for the inter- sectional analysis of individual existence and social contexts. Finally, the films’ exploration of relationships as both a burden and a source of empowerment contribute to the further development of the concept of relational autonomy as a concept of subjectivity that negotiates the singularity of the self with its need for relationship. These aspects are developed in two ways in the films: in Rosetta (1999) through the critique of problematic developments, yet with a concluding suggestion of hope, and in Two Days, One Night (2014) through the development of a vision of an alternative way of being that results from a universalized ethic of care and solidarity within the continuing problematic con- ditions of the masculinized logic of capitalism. Through critique and vision, the Dardennes thus contribute to the ethical labor of reflecting on the conditions that enable the good life of all human beings, doing justice in their depiction of