Narco Cultura Film Mexican History

Running head: Mexican history according to Narco Cultura film

Mexican history according to Narco Cultura film 9

Mexican history, according to Narco Cultura film

The Mexican drug war has been going on for more than a decade, but it has little to no success. Beheadings, mass hangings of bodies, killings of innocent citizens, car bombings, abuse, and assassination attempts of various community members, including reporters and political figures, are part of Mexico’s drug war. More than three hundred thousand homicides have been committed since 2006, when the government declared war on the cartels. Besides these crimes, the violence has spread deep into Mexico’s interior, with organized crime groups diversifying their criminal activities to extortion, kidnapping, auto theft, and other illicit enterprises (Bietell, 2013). Violence is a central feature in the trade of illegal drugs. Many criminal organizations use violence to settle disputes and maintain employee discipline and is directed towards the government and news media.

The film Narco Cultura is a documentary film directed by Shaul Schwarz, released to the theatres in October 2013. The two hours documentary was nominated for two awards in 2014. The documentary explores the connection between the Mexican drug war and the increasingly prevalent narcocorrido’s (drug melodies) lyrical themes. The documentary exposes the cycle of addiction to money, drugs, violence, and music between Mexico and the United States. The subculture of Narco-Cultura grows under the influence of powerful drug cartels throughout Mexico (Mcallester, 2013). It has its form of literature, dress, music, religious beliefs, and practices assimilated by people in different parts of the country.

The supposition investigates a relationship between the Narco-culture and the history of organized crime in Mexico. The historical origins of the Narco-culture and its influence on drug cartels, violence are determined. The analysis is done by comparing the documentary Narco-Cultura with the primary and secondary sources of Mexican History. The film examines how the narcocorridos differ from the experiences of those who struggle with Mexico’s mass drug violence and the experiences of artists who profit from it.

The Mexico drug violence

The social and political conflicts that have been experienced in Mexico have been present since its origination. Drug trafficking is done with backward and forward linkages as they manage the supply and distribution of drugs in many countries. They are the main supplies of medications to the United States, and they have increasingly gained a lot of control in the US through the support of the US gangs. The penetration of different drugs has infiltrated the social and cultural arenas, leading to the oppositional culture known as Narco Cultura, meaning a drug, crime, and death-obsessed culture. The culture has evolved into a cultural and physical construct in Mexico. The amount of proceeds obtained from the drug trades is used to bribe the corrupt US and Mexican border officials.

In the early 20th century, Mexico supplied drugs to the United States as the government protected them, as this was done during a one-party rule. The government tolerated crime during that period (Jaffary, Osowski &Potter, 2010, pg. 389). With the government looking for ways of accommodating, they started carrying out arrests throughout the 1990s. However, the stability began to frail in the 1990s with the decentralization of the government (Biettel, 2013). Before the strength started failing, transitions in international trade took place around the 1980s. In the early 1990s, the Colombian drug traffickers Organizations were forcibly broken by the United States, and the Mexican traffickers took over the traffic of cocaine. The organizations evolved from being mere couriers to wholesalers.

It led many officials who protected the cartels were unable to do so as the government tried to regulate the competition among the Mexican drug traffickers. The main drugs supplied to the United States by Mexico are heroin, methamphetamine, and Marijuana. These lead to cartel violence in an attempt to establish impunity. Some remote parts of Mexico have become areas for Marijuana cultivation. They provide places for providing airstrips for many cartels to land cocaine to go to the United States through Mexican channels (Hamnett, 2004). Because of its vicinity to the United States, sections of Northern Mexico are by far the most dangerous in the world. The deaths associated with drug trades are mainly targeted executions, with bodies commonly discovered late at night having been dumped at the suburban parts after being killed with very high-profile weapons. The main drug trafficking Organizations are the “Tijuana/Arellano Felix Organization, the Sinaloa cartel, The Juarez Carrillo Fuentes Organization, Los Zetas, Beltran Levya, Gulf cartel and the La Familia Michoacana”.(Bietell,2013). They occupy different areas in different Pacific states.

Around the US border, narcocorrido’s, or Mexican drug ballads, are a modern interpretation of the corridor that originated in folk or Banda music from the northern part of Mexico. The narcocorridos are often compared to gangster rap. It has exciting metaphors of the Narcotraficante who rise from the poor and marginalized social classification in becoming influential and well-known personalities in organized crime. The tales written in Mexican drug pop songs focus on the lifestyles of criminal organizations and elements of the organized crime filled with abuse (Richmond, 2014). The compositions are about incidents linked to illicit drug trafficking operations, including miseries and tragedy as parts of their fictional frameworks. They gained a lot of popularity as the new and exciting tales of danger and the depictions of the extravagant lifestyles of the drug traffickers in the 1970s and the 1980s. The songs, as the technology advances, have begun and are used to support acts of vengeance. It is a mode of settling a score with rival drug cartels in a violent and gruesome manner that is similar to the changes made by the cartels in their methods of operation after the government radicalized approaches to drug trafficking and related crime by the Mexican and the United States government.

Comparing Narco Cultura film and primary and secondary sources relating to drug trading.

The internal forces that influence corridos, drugs, and violence

The Narco Cultura film features Edgar Quintero, a singer for the Mexican-American band Buknas de Culiacan, specializing in tracks glorifying Mexican drug pins. Quintero, who resides in Los Angeles with his relatives (Mcallester, 2013), performs a rapidly growing type of music almost identical to Mexican gangster rap. Quintero cannot avoid the impression that he’s manipulating it in the film. The songs comprise mainly of people and events learned primarily from the internet.

The songs strangely gather a lot of people. The cartels in Mexico have a significant influence on the media. The access Schwarz has is a result of working the drug wars head-on. They speak of people that operate in constant danger of assassination. The autopsy reports are viewed, and the torn-apart communities are seen. The documentary brings to light the effects of violence on the people. There is a difference as the corridos are not what they seem to be as they are portrayed as the songs that interpret Mexican history and the country’s heroes. The movie displays a different perspective of the corridos as they increase crime and drug trading.

He wishes to cross over to see the real Mexico, a state that is a home where the world’s deadliest drug cartel resides. To change that, he decides to visit the state (Mcallester,2013). To be part of the community, he starts illuminating his songs by firing a handgun into the sky and trying to look like real Narco for his prosperity by ensuring that someone is filming him. It is similar to what transpires in the cartels as although they kill, steal they do so to their people.

The cartel leaders are fair and assist their people. The leaders of these groups take care of their people and increase the quality of life by providing them with the necessities (Richmond, 2014). Most of the narcocorridos praise the activities of their leaders as the support and economic activities that the drug kingpins accord to the citizens. He acts in front of a crowd of onlookers who really can recite the words to his compositions and understand what it’s like to reside among criminal organizations.

The Narco Cultura, directed by Schwarz’s movie, shows the difficulties that the Mexican and Mexican-American people face in their daily occurrence of the heinous brutality of drug violence and how the people who practice them are celebrated in songs. The songs are written mainly by people who can understand the meaning that is behind the lyrics.

They are restricted to specific groups of people as they are sometimes misunderstood. The songs are highly popularized among the drug trafficking culture gaining more publicity and power (Richmond,2014). Quintero sings lyrics like” We are bloodthirsty, crazy and we like to kill. We are the best at kidnapping. Our gang always travels in a caravan, with bullet-proof vests, ready to execute” (Mcallester, 2013). The documentary shows Quintero associating with an elderly gentleman who rests at the table with a pair of firearms and methamphetamine in clear pockets.

Quintero is quickly exposed to the narcotics when he learns that a legitimate Sinaloa Narco has invited him to perform at his house. Quintero’s expression is frightening, but it only remains just a few seconds. Quintero is no Narco and cannot hit a single empty there is a difference between a real Narco life and Narco culture. Real-life differs as most of these organizations have fractured.

There is an increase in inter-drug operations violence among many organizations as they all fight for territory and control the trafficking routes. Internal violence within the organizations occurs when the leader is eliminated, creating a more significant uncertainty on who the successor will be. The organizations have violent responses to the government making drug battles a common occurrence (Biettel, 2013). There are many casualties of people caught in these gun battles, creating a lot of fear. The horror depicted in the film cannot compare to the actual mess that most people live in.

Another lead character is the investigator Rich Soto who lives in Juarez, the core of the Mexican drug war. The number of politicians, celebrities, and police rises steadily as they are the drug cartel victims. The film illustrates how the police follow what the drug cartels dictate, or you end up getting killed. A large number of enforcement operations has increased the number rate of violence.