This week on Palomitas, we dive into the explosive, darkly comic world of Fe de etarras [Bomb Scared] (Borja Cobeaga, 2017) with special guest Dr. Alison Posey, (newly appointed) Assistant Professor of Spanish at Transylvania University.
A tragicomic farce that turns terrorism into a punchline, the film traps four bumbling ETA members in a flat during Spain’s euphoric 2010 World Cup victory, waiting for orders that never come. As national pride erupts around them, their revolutionary ideals unravel into absurdity, ego clashes, and crockpot nationalism.
We unpack:
How Cobeaga uses food, football, and Trivial Pursuit to skewer Basque identity myths and the failure of radical dreams.
The film’s controversial place as one of Netflix España's first original films and the firestorm over its provocative marketing campaign.
Whether satire can effectively process historical trauma or if it risks trivialising ETA’s violent legacy.
The film’s bold departure from solemn ETA dramas, offering a shocking, laugh-out-loud, and surprisingly poignant critique of nationalism in post-ceasefire Spain.
Can reducing a terrorist to a joke be a victory for society? Tune in to find out.
Scholarship cited in the episode:
Barrenetxea Marañón, Igor, and Gabriela Viadero Carral. “El fin de ETA y Ocho apellidos vascos (2013), de Emilio Martínez Lázaro.” Aportes Revista de historia contemporánea 32, no. 94 (2017).
Castro, Deborah, and Concepción Cascajosa Virino. “From Netflix to Movistar+: How Subscription Video-on-Demand Services Have Transformed Spanish TV Production.” JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 59, no. 3 (2020): 154–60. https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2020.0019.
Hilborn, Matthew. Film Comedy and Spain. Oxford: Legenda, 2025.
Mueller, Stephanie A. “Terrorist-Turned-Entrepreneur: Basque Masculinities in Fe de etarras.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 55, no. 1 (2021): 139–63. https://doi.org/10.1353/rvs.2021.0008.
Posey, Alison. “The Ocho apellidos vascos Effect: Disavowing Difference in Fe de etarras.” In Center and Periphery: Twenty-First-Century Literature, Cinema, Media from Spain, edited by Amparo Alpañés, 3–30. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 2025.