Narco Cultura (2013)
In 2009, Forbes magazine listed notorious drug dealer Joaquin Guzman Loera as one of the richest people in the world. Mexican officials, including president Felipe Calderon, were outraged, claiming this hampered their ability to combat the drug trade engulfing large sections of Mexico by giving credibility to drug traffickers. This documentary places Forbes’ decision to include Guzman Loera as part of a cultural shift legitimizing the business of illegal narcotics.
As more and more Mexicans watch their friends and neighbors escape the prison of poverty by dealing drugs, the stigma of illegal narcotics has faded and morphed into idolization of Mexican drug lords who are cast as heroes instead of the murderers they are.
This documentary traces the rise of narcocorrido, a musical genre dedicated to romanticizing the drug lord lifestyle, in Mexico and parts of the southwestern United States.
The film doesn’t explicitly say so, but many music critics have compared the music glorifying drug traffickers in Mexico to gangsta rap which celebrates violence in African-American communities, since both are born out of anger at perceived racial injustice, both real and exaggerated.
This is a frightening and disturbing movie, which sheds light on another failure of the war on drugs. Not only is it failing to stop the actual production and sale of illegal narcotics, but the continuing pursuit of drug organizations has created sympathy for these criminals and enforcement organizations are in the midst of a losing public relations campaign.