Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015

Special Section: On Masculinities, , and the Global Age Title: NarCoMedia: Mexican Masculinities Author: Rebecca E. Biron E-mail: [email protected] Affiliation: Dartmouth College; Department of Spanish and Portuguese; 225 Dartmouth Hall; College St.; Hanover, New Hampshire, 03755 Abstract: Given the political force of how different social sectors conceive of narco-masculin- ity, what can we make of 21st century Mexican representations that neither fear nor admire narcos? Three post-2007 theatrical release feature films, Rudo y Cursi (2008), El infierno (2010), and Salvando al soldado Pérez (2011), invite viewers to laugh at the link between masculinity and criminality. Their refusal to take narco-masculinity seriously complicates debates regarding Mexican masculinities in general, violence, and the role of the local in the global circulation of goods and images. These comedies suggest that neoliberal policies and discourses cannot digest national class-based histories, while national, class-conscious perspectives cannot metabolize neoliberal economics. Keywords: Narcocultura, Masculinity, , Film Comedies, Narco-Masculinity Resumen: Dada la fuerza política con la que diferentes sectores sociales imaginan la narco- masculinidad, ¿cómo podemos concebir las representaciones mexicanas del siglo XXI que ni temen ni admiran a los narcos? Las películas a continuación, estrenadas a partir de 2007, Rudo y Cursi (2008), El infierno (2010) y Salvando al soldado Pérez (2011), invitan a los es- pectadores a reírse de la conexión entre masculinidad y criminalidad. La negativa, por parte de estas películas, de tomar en serio la narco-masculinidad complica los debates relativos a la masculinidad mexicana en general, la violencia y el papel de la circulación local y global de bienes e imágenes. Estas comedias sugieren, más bien, que las prácticas y discursos neo- liberales no podrán digerir las historias nacionales basadas en la conciencia de clase hasta que no metabolicen la economía neoliberal. Palabras clave: narcocultura, masculinidad, México, comedias, narco-masculinidad Biography: Rebecca E. Biron is a Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at Dart- mouth College. Her research and teaching interests include Latin American literary and cultural studies, literary theory, gender studies, and Mexican cultural criticism. She is the author of Elena Garro and Mexico’s Modern Dreams (Bucknell, 2013) and Murder and Mas- culinity: Violent Fictions of 20th-Century Latin America (Vanderbilt, 2000), and editor of City/Art: The Urban Scene in Latin America (Duke, 2009)

ISSN: 1548-5633 186 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015

NarCoMedia: Mexican Masculinities

Rebecca E. Biron, Dartmouth College

Mexican narco-masculinity is serious how to define value(s), legitimacy, and the lo- business. It links certain performances of cal/global relation.1 maleness to the power over life and death. Given the seriousness of narco-mas- It affects economics, politics, and cultural culinity in the contemporary Mexican drug production. It establishes hierarchy and busi- wars and consumer culture, comedic repre- ness practices within the illegal drug indus- sentations of it easily seem morally obtuse try. It terrorizes vulnerable communities and or at least inappropriate. Yet three post-2007 threatens to break the democratic social con- theatrical release feature films in particular, tract. It rages against government and law en- Rudo y cursi (2008), El infierno (2010), and forcement, while also confronting them with Salvando al soldado Pérez (2011), treat narco- their mirror image. At the same time, outlaw masculinity with marked disrespect. They de- masculinity serves as a foil for politicians and ploy irony, farce, satire, and ridicule in a vari- state authorities; they legitimate their hold on ety of ways. While it would be productive to power by emphasizing the difference between parse the differences among these subgenres their own masculinism and that of the stereo- as they appear in these films, I am more in- typical drug lord. In addition, narcocultura’s terested in the implications of using any co- presentation of violent hyper-masculinity medic mode to represent narcos.2 These three as a melodramatic object of consumption texts play across genres, national borders, and dark pleasure has become big business and ethical as well as aesthetic codes to make (Narcocultura). The exploits and melodra- fun of narco-masculinity. Paul Julian Smith matic lives of exceptional men involved in the (2014) and Ignacio Sánchez Prado (2014) contemporary drug trade and so-called drug have studied these films in light of contempo- wars sell big in , music, film, and tele- rary Mexican film history. In different ways, novelas targeted to popular classes in Mexi- both scholars focus on the evolution of view- can and Mexican-American communities. ing practices and the national film industry Whether citizens and consumers celebrate, in the context of popular consumerism, fear, or despise narco-masculinity, they buy transnational sensibilities, and the neoliberal exciting images and tales about those few privatization of culture. My reading adds to men who defy the social constraints meant their discussion by foregrounding the ques- to domesticate individuals and peripheral tion of what it means to laugh at the link be- nations into a regulated global economy. tween masculinity and criminality. How does Within the drug trade, among law enforce- refusing to take narco-masculinity seriously ment officials, and in the broader context of complicate debates regarding Mexican mas- narcocultura, complex affective responses to culinities, violence, and the role of the local narco-masculinity reveal tensions regarding in the global circulation of goods and images? Rebecca E. Biron 187

Taking narco-masculinity second type, the 20th-century battles over the primacy of either capitalism or communism seriously gave rise to military-style bureaucratic mas- culinities (think Stalin and Pinochet). These While acknowledging that masculin- figures, according to Connell, are now “a fad- ity takes many forms and produces different ing threat, and the more flexible, calculative, social hierarchies around the world, gender egocentric masculinity of the fast capitalist theorist R.W. Connell identifies “transna- entrepreneur holds the world stage” (371). tional business masculinity” as the global Successful narco-traffickers have more hegemonic type of the 21st century. Those in- in common with the CEO’s of legitimate dividuals who control the dominant financial global corporations than with Taliban or and political institutions of the current world ISIL militants insofar as the illegal drug trade order express this masculinity. Its most no- primarily involves business across borders, table characteristics involve “increasing ego- domination over rival corporations, person- centrism, very conditional loyalties (even to al advancement, and avoiding government the corporation), and a declining sense of re- regulations. The drug trade has no necessary sponsibility for others (except for purposes of connection to nationalist fundamentalism. image making)” (Connell 369). Connell notes Rather, it shares the priorities of corpora- that this transnational business masculinity tions: growing transnational consumer mar- “differs from traditional bourgeois masculin- kets, lowering business costs, and increasing ity by its increasingly libertarian sexuality, profits. However, cartel violence has more in with a growing tendency to commodify re- common with that of the ‘masculine funda- lations with women” (369). This set of traits mentalists’ Connell describes (370). It tar- correlates to a particular relation to violence, gets local turf wars and compels expressions in which the “transnational business mascu- of loyalty. Rather than hide their destructive linity” of the neoliberal type eschews direct, side effects, as legal businesses try to do, car- physical violence while at the same time man- tels flaunt them publicly.3 aging corporate-based global economic sys- In the absence of the rules that govern tems that often inflict horrific violence from the legal economy, as well as the protections a distance and on increasingly large scales. provided by legal corporate structures, high- In contrast to narco-masculinity’s relatively level drug dealers employ aggressive displays local savagery and high drama, the elegantly of gendered power to set and police the illegal suited masculinity of neoliberalism calmly industry’s business standards. They rely on disregards world-wide costs of business such credible performances of ruthlessness and as low-wage and slave labor, deforestation, oil violence to control their industry. Widely wars, resource-depletion, and air pollution. referred to with the antiquated terminology Connell addresses two main types of of ‘lords,’ ‘barons,’ ‘capos,’ or ‘kingpins,’ male masculinity that compete with transnational leaders in the illicit drug trade oscillate un- business masculinity in “the world gender predictably between cruelty and generosity order.” First, gender instabilities caused by as a way of dominating the social networks global interconnectedness give rise to anti-in- on which their profits depend. Inspiring fear ternationalist and staunchly masculinist fun- and loyalty (or inspiring loyalty through damentalisms. Exemplified by such groups fear) among subordinates protects cartels’ as the hard right wing of any number of na- money-making efficiency. Building legends tions, the Taliban, or ISIL, these fundamen- about the outsized masculinity of industry talisms retrench into conservative religious leaders works similarly to branding in the le- traditions and isolationism or invasion. They gal corporate world; it gives consumers and seek to stop the cultural liberalization that ac- potential workers a dynamic, affective at- companies economic globalization. As for the tachment to the organizations. Convincing 188 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015 performances of a simultaneously fearsome by civil society and hunted by law enforce- and seductive hyper-masculinity exert execu- ment. This view appears in sociological and tive control and discipline in the drug trade historical studies, public policy documents, and its territories. Thus, both the threat and and crime fiction.4 the largesse of narco-masculinity are a sober, At the same time, and for the same char- conservative matter of business management. acteristics, the narco is celebrated within vul- From the point of view of the legal nerable communities as a virile popular hero. economy and government officials, however, He embodies the rebellion of communities narco-masculinity connotes rebellion more disadvantaged by uneven modernization and than control. Its excesses defy the cool, ratio- globalization, as well as defiance of govern- nal image of the masculinity associated with mental authority whether it comes from the the leaders of legal transnational corporate United States or Mexico. Narco-masculinity organizations. Especially for Mexico, the ten- offers an alternative gender ideal through sion between autocratic masculinities and which marginalized groups imagine the pos- rebel masculinities reflects a long history of sibility of competing with legal global capital- regional resistance to federal power. The ru- ism, even if they do not actively participate in ral bandits who became major actors in the selling or consuming illegal drugs. In answer 1910 Revolution were subsequently memori- to the extractive effect of “legitimate” trans- alized in popular culture as folk heroes. Rec- national capitalists, the most economically ognizing that affective connection, official powerful and admired narcos bring money discourse since the founding of the ruling back from the consumer metropole into Partido Revolucionario Institucional pur- the peripheral local economies. They fund posefully mythologizes 20th century outlaw schools, churches, and cemeteries. In light of rebels like Pancho Villa in order to appropri- such largesse, narco-masculinity’s ruthless- ate the Revolution’s defense of economic and ness is often represented as the natural result civil rights for the poor, and of indigenous/ of socio-economic marginalization and stag- mestizo identities, into nationalist ideology. nation, and therefore not legitimately subject Associating rebel masculinities with deep to hegemonic disciplining. Its strength de- national identity, or imagined mexicanidad, rives from class loyalty and the exemplariness though, produces a crisis of legitimacy for of rags-to-riches success. Mexico’s contemporary relation to neoliberal Prominent cartels insert representatives economic and social policies in the context of from the rural poor into transnational finan- globalization. cial life. While no one denies the high cost in Narco-traffickers are today’s rebel ban- social stability, and even lives, the communi- dits. In the 21st century , the ties benefit from having cartels as a symbolic explosion in violence especially during the focus, a rallying cry for relevance. As the Calderón presidency (2006-2012) resulted protagonist of this type of rebel narrative, from transnational pressures on the Mexican the narco figure lives out the tragic irony of government to limit drug trafficking across achieving business success and yet remaining the border. The United States-sponsored excluded from hegemonic sociality. In order “,” in tandem with internal cor- to fulfill his role as this kind of hero, he must ruption in the Mexican state, sparked new dy- embrace his criminal status, his ostentatious namics in the long-standing turf wars among consumption, and his inescapable class iden- cartels. Government discourse more insis- tity. The psychological costs of excess and vio- tently represented narco-traffickers as hyper- lence define him as a marked man, which is masculine, savage antiheroes, rightly feared an essential component of his melodramatic Rebecca E. Biron 189 charisma. The expectation that individual with economic and cultural globalization. narcos will die violently at a young age feeds Local music, narratives, and icons absorb and nationalist and regionalist desires to identify respond to transnational economic, political, a genuinely Mexican cultural type, however and cultural networks of signification. Rep- predetermined by tragic defeat he may be. resentations of narco-masculinity rely on a This ambivalent idealization of nar- double consciousness in which an imagined co-masculinity defines narcocultura texts global audience structures conventional nar- like corridos, telenovelas, and video-homes ratives and tropes. The hyper-masculinity in (straight-to-DVD films).5 Many communi- these forms of representation appeals to a ties on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border global taste for stereotype even when it ad- embrace narcocultura out of enjoyment of the dresses mainly among Mexican and Mexi- nationalist, populist pride that it expresses, can-identified audiences. Who plays the role as illustrated by the long history of the revo- of hero and who plays the role of antihero in lutionary corrido and its evolution into the fictional as well as nonfictional texts about narco-corrido (Wald; Ramírez-Pimienta). drug dealers depends on the genre and target Such enjoyment is based on the equation of audience of each narrative. In spite of their deep mexicanidad with outlaw status, rural different ideological investments, both popu- roots, and extreme (both hyper-violent and list discourse that praises narcos and official self-destructive) expressions of masculinity. discourse that fears or attacks them treat the It would seem that audiences, voracious for category of masculinity with sober respect. cheaply produced video-homes about narcos, Given the political force of how different so- seek realism and escapism at the same time. cial sectors conceive of narco-masculinity, On the one hand, the most popular films tell what can we make of 21st century Mexican known, real-life stories taken from contem- representations that neither fear nor admire porary news sources and crime and set in narcos for their expression of masculinity? real-life locations (northern Mexico’s des- erts, highways, cantinas, cemeteries).6 On the Funny business other hand, the transformation of such realia into criminal melodrama and aesthetic play transposes the sources of fear and insecurity When read together, Rudo y cursi, El in- into the realm of predictability and cliché. fierno, and Salvando al soldado Pérez critique This translation of physical danger into view- the intersection of nationalism, global drug ing pleasure may well work as a kind of vac- trafficking, and masculinity. They parodi- cine against fear. By actively consuming these cally cite images of hyper-masculine Mexi- serious, sensational narratives, the poorer can narcos that are transnationally produced populations most likely to be affected by el and circulated. They expose the similarities narco’s real violence turn it into a desirable of the drug trade with legal global economic commodity.7 Identifying with and enjoying practices. They make visible the fantasy that violent narco-cinema provides an imaginary narco-masculinity is somehow authentically inoculation against being victimized. Mexican as opposed to the sanitized, non-lo- Whether they vilify or venerate the fig- cated hegemonic masculinity associated with ure of the narco, both narcocultura and official legal global capitalism. In these films, trans- discourse foreground masculinity as the bat- national business is serious while its uncriti- tleground on which struggles over class com- cal association with masculinity is funny. petition and nationalism play out. Real cartel Written and directed by Carlos Cu- practices have global reach. Certain forms arón, Rudo y cursi was produced by Cuarón’s of masculinity become Mexican-identified brother Alfonso along with Guillermo del through iterative, ambivalent engagements Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu. It 190 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015 stars Gael García Bernal as Tato (“Cursi”) cannot block the gunshot that maims him. and as Beto (“Rudo”). The actors The humor here derives from the pro- reprise aspects of the adolescent rivalry they tagonists’ unsophistication regarding their portrayed in Y tu mamá también (2001, co- chances of achieving manliness through written by the Cuarón brothers and directed honest effort. This film demonstrates the cas- by Alfonso Cuarón). Rudo y cursi is not a film trated irrelevance of men who try to play by about narco-trafficking; rather, it follows a moral rules in a context of ubiquitous corrup- conventional story of the rise and fall of two tion. Tonally the lightest film of the three un- naïve brothers seeking success as professional der consideration here, Rudo y cursi is none- soccer players. theless the saddest. It suggests that, given the Billed in the United States by Rolling contemporary predominance of mediatized Stone as “Good-natured fun! A rowdy, ram- value and organized crime, convincing mas- shackle comedy” (DVD jacket), this film de- culinity (implicitly defined by the protago- picts the relationship between masculinity nists as non-violent, family-oriented, and and legitimacy as impossibly fraught. The hu- self-sufficient) has become unattainable by mor of the film derives from the irony of audi- legitimate means. The protagonists’ bumbling ences’ awareness of this relationship while the triumphs and dramatic failures are put into protagonists are surprised by it over and over stark relief against an undeveloped secondary again. The brothers’ innocent primary moti- character, the local narco whose dominance vation is to honor their impoverished mother they are forced to accept in the end. by becoming successful enough to build her a The young men had intended to take house. Sons of different fathers who are both their fathers’ places in their familial roles, but absent, the young men engage in a mutually the conclusion of the film finds them outma- supportive rivalry to establish themselves as neuvered by a new father figure who bests manly protectors of their mother and sister. them at their own goal. While Beto and Tato Beto’s and Tato’s rural upbringing, however, are away in pursuing their soc- has hardly prepared them for the unscrupu- cer dreams, Don Casimiro buys the nearby lous world they encounter when they begin to ranches, builds a highway to develop the ru- make money and seek celebrity status. ral area, marries their sister and builds the Through the efforts of a shady Argen- house the boys had wanted to build for their tine agent, Batuta (played by Guillermo Fran- mother. Don Casimiro appears onscreen cella), the brothers do achieve success on na- during the wedding reception for the sister, tional professional teams, only to succumb to where both she and her mother fawn over the typical pitfalls of quick riches and absurd him. The women enjoy his beneficence in the overreach. Tato falls in love with a model on absence of other reliable men in their com- whom he lavishes gifts before she dumps him munity. While Beto and Tato had protested for another up-and-coming player. Focusing the family’s having anything to do with the on his ridiculous desire to become a singer, narco because of his violence and criminality, he loses his goal-scoring mojo. For his part, in the end they have no way to argue for the Beto develops a gambling problem, and his superiority of law-abiding masculinity. They creditors have him shot; he loses a leg, and must subordinate their egos and their manli- thereby his soccer career. These clichéd per- ness to Don Casimiro. sonal trajectories complement the film’s por- The narco is a secondary character trayal of the rivalry between the two brothers. in relation to Beto’s and Tato’s adventure in They share the same rags-to-riches trajectory, the big city, but he looms large in the film’s although their failures take different forms. thesis regarding masculinity. The film’s pro- Cursi, the kicker, cannot score with his lover tagonists are clownish rubes, while the narco or with his singing career. Rudo, the goalie, plays the straight man. The lack of character Rebecca E. Biron 191

development for Don Casimiro demonstrates earlier, when he had first left his mother and the pervasiveness of “what everyone knows” younger brother to seek work in the United about narcos; he barely needs to be represent- States. ed at all, much less as a stereotype. In Rudo y In the story’s present, Benny returns cursi, the narco is taken as the only uncon- home after twenty years away, with nothing to testable type of masculine figure. The conclu- show for his honest labor. His journey from sion invites viewers to enjoy the irony of Don the border quickly introduces him to the new Casimiro’s stabilizing effect on the family in ubiquity of el narco and the social devastation contrast to Beto’s and Tato’s drama. To see it has wrought. He learns that in his absence the humor in the conclusion we must have his brother, “El Diablo,” became a violent, already assumed that a narco is not an appro- powerful player in the local drug scene before priate father figure or a legitimate competitor being murdered. Hoping to protect what is with loving sons for their mother’s respect. left of his family, Benny takes up with Lupita, At the same time, we must acknowledge that the woman who had born his brother’s child. Don Casimiro, in fact, has succeeded exactly In order to protect Lupita and his nephew, in the way that Tato and Beto had defined Benny succumbs to the manipulation of his their own noble goal. The figure of the narco childhood friend, El Cochiloco (played by here is neither heroic nor evil. He is an empty Joaquín Cosío). El Cochiloco methodically cypher for the socio-economic reality within grooms Benny to become more and more which the brothers cannot win. In the end, enmeshed in the competition for the regional their simple dream looks ridiculous because plaza that is being waged between the local it never had a chance to overcome the infil- drug lords, the Reyes brothers. Predictably, tration of drug money and narco-masculinity Benny begins to perform all the clichés of into local, domestic arrangements. narco-masculinity when he starts working Whereas the protagonists in Rudo y for the cartel. He quickly learns to enjoy the cursi learn over the course of the film that cash, prostitutes, and cocaine that serve as nice guys will always finish last in the current payment for his new line of work. The film economy, El infierno takes that idea as a given mockingly depicts Benny as an ignorant dupe and then explores its effects on men who want when he begins to imitate his bosses’ sarto- to think of themselves as heroic rather than rial style. Viewers clearly see the irony of his criminal. The third film in Luis Estrada’s tril- remaining blind to the contradiction between ogy of cultural-political satires (with La ley de his own violent actions and his sense of self as Herodes of 1999 and Un mundo maravilloso of both victim (in relation to el narco) and hero 2006), El infierno was commissioned in 2010 (in relation to his family). for the bicentennial celebration of Mexican One of El infierno’s most memorable Independence. This dark comedy depicts the and funny montages depicts Benny’s and El rise of a hapless everyman, a migrant laborer Cochiloco’s adventures in terrorizing local named Benny (played by Damián Alcázar), residents in the style of a goofy buddy film in the ranks of the local drug industry in the sequence rather than the dramatic exposition deserts of northern Mexico.8 Benny’s motive of criminal savagery. Through the careful for becoming a hitman was simply to earn staging of scenes that display diverse meth- enough money to extract his lover and her ods of killing used by real-life contemporary son from the drug war and move back to the hit-men (shootings, beheadings, acid baths, United States with them. His plan reflects an the posing of bodies as narcomantas, etc.) earlier version of the same goal; the opening the montage visually cites well-known crime scene of the film flashes back to twenty years scenes from the Mexican drug war since 192 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015

2007. This parade of horrors is accompanied father, two men whose extreme violence he on-screen by cheerful norteña music. The admires and imitates. humor depends on an assumption that the The humor in El infierno, then, does not film’s viewers will find both the music and the stem from the plot about cycles of revenge chilling murder scenes familiar to the point of and violence, which foregrounds tragedy and cliché (Biron 827). critique. Rather, the humor emerges in Es- This playful deployment of image satu- trada’s juxtaposition and exaggeration of two ration turns more profoundly parodic in the kinds of image saturation. The film plays with film’s conclusion. After both Lupita and El its viewers’ affective relationship to violence Cochiloco are killed by Reyes’s henchmen, by having Benny and El Cochiloco imitate Benny finally discovers the collusion among scenarios pulled from contemporary news government officials at all levels with local headlines and websites like El del narco. cartels. Left for dead after having been shot These images in journalistic form frighten, for informing on the Reyes brothers, Benny outrage, and eventually numb the public, but spends time in the desert contemplating what the controlled frame of El infierno domesti- he has learned. Finally, he returns for the lo- cates such images of murder and mayhem. cal celebration of two hundred years of Mexi- Through repetition, emphasis on absurdity can independence, and one hundred years of and pointlessness, and the relatively sympa- the Mexican Revolution. Like a vengeful Mes- thetic character of Benny, the film ridicules siah, Benny unleashes apocalyptic violence this violence as nothing more than a set of against the narcos, the police, the church, and imitative behaviors enacted by men who ex- the government. He shoots everyone on the perience narco-masculinity as a dissociative dais as the patriotic fireworks explode in the performance rather than an identity. night sky. The tragedy, as the film’s conclusion Estrada’s meta-cinematic gesture in this points out, is that some people take narco- famous scene repurposes icons and emblems masculinity so seriously that they imitate it of Mexican national history and identity. The for real, thus inflicting explosive destruc- flag, the lectern, and the dais covered in patri- tion on local communities in ever-shorter otic bunting, for example, no longer connote cycles. El infierno signals early on its metatex- positive national aspirations based on a glori- tual awareness of the grave risks of this role- ous history. Here they represent the profiteers playing. In one of the first scenes of the film, of drug violence and are also themselves the Benny asks his padrino, an honest car me- bloodied victims of it. Estrada presents this chanic, about the region’s recent history. He mordant critique of endemic corruption, tells Benny (and us) of how the rivalry be- however, through such hyperbolic visual sat- tween the Reyes brothers for the plaza has ire that he underscores the fantastic nature exponentially increased prostitution, kidnap- of Benny’s final act. The scene privileges the pings, and murders. Because the older Reyes desecration of nationalist symbols from the wants to bring his son into the business, the point of view of the film’s audience rather younger Reyes has begun a war to defend than from any diegetic perspective. In fact, his own interests. Listening to this account, the subsequent scenes return to a more so- Benny exclaims “¡Está buena la película!” His berly realist style and show Benny’s nephew, padrino answers, “¡Qué película y qué hijo de El Diablito, as he continues the cycle of de- la chingada, ahijado!” Thus, El infierno em- struction. Now he seeks to avenge the death phasizes the indistinction between its own of his mother as well as that of his uncle and fictionality and the socio-economic reality Rebecca E. Biron 193

that surrounds it: you can’t make this stuff up, by a tiny group of terrorists who produced but it clearly follows a compellingly melodra- large-scale violence in the geographic cen- matic script. ter of political and economic hegemony. The Unlike Rudo y cursi and El infierno, twist in Gómez’s film, however, is that a small whose protagonists are victimized by their group of Mexican thugs, led by a notorious relationship to narco-masculinity, Salvando narco, plays the role of hero. In contrast to the al soldado Pérez features as its main character logic of narcocultura, in which criminal re- a powerful, confident drug lord named Julián bellion is equated to heroism, Salvando al sol- Pérez (played by Miguel Rodarte). “El sol- dado Pérez upholds the definition of heroism dado Pérez” refers to Julián’s younger brother as positive self-sacrifice on behalf of victims Juan, who, before enlisting in the army, had of violence. Saving a U.S. soldier from both emigrated to the United States with their his Iraqi captors and his own failing military mother in order to escape the violence of el leaders, Julián and his men triumph morally narco in Sinaloa. This 2011 film parodies the and well as militarily. plot of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan The second joke develops around the (1998, screenplay by Robert Rodat). Director importance of style over substance in pro- Beto Gómez (with co-writer Francisco Payó jecting narco-masculinity as superior to both González) updates the story by placing it in military and hegemonic business masculin- the Iraq War and by having a private group ity. The film includes numerous shots of Ju- led by a Mexican narco save one young U.S. lián’s gang posing or strutting in their ostrich soldier who has been taken prisoner by the leather boots, piteado belts, Rolex watches, Iraqi army. Salvando al soldado Pérez plays Versace-style norteño shirts, skin-tight wran- with a wide variety of tropes from Hollywood gler jeans, and Stetsons. These costumes imi- action and crime films as well as Mexican vid- tate the ostentatious style of musicians like eo homes. A number of scenes and sequences, Los Tigres del Norte rather than the sedate for example, recall iconic shots from Rambo, clothing of many real-life 21st century narcos Scarface, The Godfather, the James Bond se- who send their children to private schools ries, and U.S. westerns. Unlike those films, and socialize with high society. Each of the however, Salvando al soldado Pérez takes modeling breaks in the film occurs in a mo- neither its subject matter nor itself very seri- ment of preparation for battle, when the main ously. It blends smooth, special effects-based characters gather their courage and inspira- montage with amateurish scenery and visu- tion for their mission. These pauses in the ac- als. It inaccurately represents Middle Eastern tion provide comic relief from the shooting geography and languages. It exaggerates ra- and chasing scenes. They imply that narco- cial and ethnic stereotypes. In direct response style provides the manliness its wearers seek, to the dedication to war realism in Spielberg’s rather than that the style is a mere sign of movie, this film’s unevenness posits represen- inherent identity, or of something already tation itself as a field of ideological battle be- achieved. The film’s subtitle emphasizes the tween competing forms of masculinity. preening poseur status of Julian’s gang: “Pu- The humor in Salvando al soldado Pérez eden perder la vida, pero no el estilo.” targets three main issues, which can be cor- A third type of humor in the film con- related to the film’s plot, style, and character cerns the character development of the pro- development. In the plot, the joke is on the tagonist, Julián Pérez. He is a hyperbolic arrogance and futility of the United States’s caricature of “el jefe de los jefes,” the most global war on terror. A gang of five fearless powerful of vicious and tragic drug lords Mexicans outperforms and then escapes from from near Culiacán in Sinaloa. Julián deploys the most expensive army in the world. This all the mythical abilities of shadowy capos to feat echoes the 9/11 attack on New York City serve the simplest and most innocent of goals: 194 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015 to please his mother. Through flashbacks in- years later. Having reached the pinnacle of terspersed with the contemporary rescue power he now has the freedom to reconcile mission, we learn that Julián first killed a man with his original family. His mother promises when he was still a child. In the diegetic pres- to forgive Julián for his criminal life only if ent, he is a widower with a pampered, glut- he brings Juan home alive. Thus, while the tonous son. He surrounds himself with crude film’s farcical plot centers on the themes of henchmen and a metrosexual super-assistant, mindless war, accidental military success, ini- Eladio. Julián lives in a mansion stocked with tiation rites among men, and national as well high-tech surveillance and information sys- as racial stereotypes (the Mexican gang uses tems on an estate that features a swimming chile sauce as a torture/interrogation tool, for pool shaped like a marijuana leaf, a personal example), the sincere motive at the heart of chef, a fleet of golf carts for travel around the things is Julián’s search for salvation through grounds, and a private zoo of exotic animals his mother’s blessing. (a nod to Pablo Escobar, Jesús Zambada, and He obtains it in the end. The last scene Scarface, among others). He casually executes in the film features Julián dancing with his his own employees for oversights in their mother at his estate back in Mexico, where work. Like a consummate professional, once the family and the warriors all celebrate the he accepts the mission of saving his younger success of their mission to save Juan. In the brother in Iraq, he devotes all of his manage- soundtrack that accompanies the scene, rial prowess, government connections, and Chavela Vargas sings “Corazón negro,” a bal- laser beam concentration to the task. lad that narrates Julián’s exploits and his re- On the other hand, Julián’s motivation demption in heroic terms: “Hoy es un gran for this mission is entirely romantic and sen- guerrero The same story is repeated over the timental, which would seem to contradict his closing credits in a fast-paced corrido titled ruthless, amoral persona. In the second flash- “Soldado Pérez” by Los Tucanes de Tijuana. back to his childhood, we learn that his first These musical gestures underscore the fic- murder was in defense of his mother’s honor; tionality of narco-corridos that contempo- with a slingshot, he killed a messenger who rary narcos commission to be written about had tossed money on the floor disrespect- themselves, hoping to buy their way into be- fully in compensation for his father’s death in coming popular legends. Here, the filmmaker the cartel’s service. Julián impresses the local engages Los Tucanes in this enterprise as a narco with his coolness under pressure. His wink to his audience in relation to the self-re- new mentor tells him, “Todos necesitamos gard of narcos in general, and his protagonist una familia para sobrevivir. Para eso somos in particular. Of course, the very last piece hombres, para cuidar lo que queremos… Es- of text before the credits tells us that “Julián tás con nosotros o simplemente no estás. Esta Pérez murió tres meses después en una em- bala era para ti.” This speech equates the cartel boscada.” All these efforts to immortalize the with family, and does so under the threat of narco as a liberating warrior actually depend death. Thus, young Julián associates the trau- on our foreknowledge of his early death, a ma of his father’s murder with his own first death that no mother’s blessing can forestall. kill. He associates manliness with protecting family in the very moment that he (prema- Mothers, brothers, and turely) leaves his mother’s house. Finally, he accepts the replacement of his nuclear fam- fatherless boys ily by the cartel. But he never really had any choice. In spite of their darkly comedic nature, The first scene in the filmic present fea- Rudo y cursi, El infierno, and Salvando al sol- tures Julián’s arrival at a hospital in Los Ange- dado Pérez share in common two forms of les to seek his estranged mother twenty-five sincerity: familial loyalty and the search for Rebecca E. Biron 195 masculine role models. The protagonists of read together. A curious consistency among all three films are motivated by their desire them traces assumptions and values about to please and care for their mothers. All three everyday Mexican masculinity and how role films also explore how brotherly love even- models for it change over time. Joaquín Cosío tually overcomes fraternal rivalry for moth- acts in all three films. In Rudo y cursi, Cosío ers’ love and for worldly success. The stories plays the abusive stepfather figure, Arnulfo, all begin with an early scene featuring two for whom Beto and Tato’s mother settles in brothers, in which the dynamics of compe- the absence of other options for adult male tition and connection are clearly signaled. companionship. He comes off as lazy and Rudo y cursi opens in the banana orchard ignorant. He insults the boys as well as their where Beto and Tato labor together before mother. When the boys return from Mexico being discovered by their agent. Later, they City, they see their mother’s bruises from his literally face off against each other on op- beatings, but feel powerless to intervene. In posite teams in the climactic soccer match. the hierarchy of options for masculinity in When they both lose, in different ways, how- this film, Cosío’s character represents the in- ever, they end up in the final scene of the film creasingly irrelevant, backward machismo of together on a beach ruefully commiserating the poor. In contrast to him, the younger men about their failures. El infierno opens with a eschew violence and show emotional vulner- scene set twenty years before the principal ability in their relations with women. In com- action of the film. It depicts Benny’s original parison to Arnulfo, Don Casimiro represents departure for the United States in an effort a new kind of villain. He lavishes women to earn money to send back to his mother with gifts and provides the economic benefits and younger brother. In a reversal of roles, to which honest working class men have no and after El Diablo’s death, Benny becomes access. The new illegitimate father, the film the one who tries to live up to his brother’s implies, retains patriarchal power, keeping it violent reputation after returning home. The beyond the reach of honest young men with murderous Reyes brothers, the antagonists more egalitarian ideas about gender. This du- in El infierno, provide the counter-model to bious improvement in terms of the threat of this fraternal ideal. As for Salvando al soldado domestic violence comes at the agonizingly Pérez, its first scene establishes the arche- high price of the increased social instability, typal relationships among Juan (as younger crime, and violence that accompany el narco brother needing protection), Julián (as fear- and its wealth. less and skilled older brother), and Julián’s In El infierno, Cosío plays the delicious- lifelong friend, Carmelo. The boys engage in ly layered role of El Cochiloco. He hopes to a slingshot competition at the end of which achieve upper middle-class respectability by Carmelo acknowledges Julián’s worthiness selling his services as a vicious hitman. In as an unbeatable opponent. These opening public, he is a manipulative, violent, threat- scenes indicate that being boys together in a ening stereotype of a henchman for narcos. In certain way determines how men will chal- private, he is an attentive husband, father, and lenge and yet also depend on one another, in provider. When his son is killed in revenge mutually supportive rivalry for their mothers’ for a death in a rival gang, the barrier between approval. Childhood loyalties carry over into his profession and his family life is breached; adulthood, and the absence of fathers seems his careful distinctions dissolve, and his own to make them stronger. death ensues. Cosió’s character tries to teach The search for masculine role models Benny how to control this situation and play provides another type of thematic coherence the system against itself. Unlike Benny, who and sober reflection when these films are symbolically takes down the entire system in 196 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015 the end, however, El Cochiloco succumbs to seems able to occupy almost any role except the logic of revenge that imprisons most nar- that of wealthy, hegemonic corporate mascu- cos in a cycle of deadly violence. linity. This exception proves the rule that for Finally, in Salvando al soldado Pérez, nationalist purposes, Mexican masculinity Cosío plays one of the senior members of can only be coded as rebellious and violent, Julian’s gang. When we first meet his char- even if it may occasionally also be heroic. In acter, Rosalío Mendoza, he is hosting his this sense, narco-masculinity is just everyman goddaughter’s lavish birthday party while masculinity dressed up in rebellious costume dressed in a ridiculous prawn costume. This in order to revel in its difference from global clownish image humanizes the character who hegemonic masculinity. The costuming in- has been billed to Julián as an expert pilot, volves clothes, but also plotlines. Pleasure, drug smuggler, and successful liaison be- whether that of those who enjoy the tempo- tween Mexican cartels and U.S. markets. As rary powers attained at the highest levels of the plot unfolds, he represents the accidental el narco or that of the consumers of these im- successes that bumbling ‘experts’ can achieve ages, depends on the self-consciously futile simply for being loyal, energetic, and fearless. pursuit of imaginary self-determination in an Rosalío’s role in the rescue mission implies over determined socio-economic sphere. that whoever survives el narco into middle Narcos get their ideas about masculin- age or beyond offers a wealth of knowledge ity from the mediatized sacrificial caricatures about the military, business, psychology, and that fuel “gore capitalism” in the era in which masculinity. He has no need to prove him- legal globalization and the illegal drug trade self, and so he willingly turns his skills to a are inextricably bound together. As Sayak Va- deeper purpose than profit: to helping Julián lencia Triana puts it, save his younger brother. The whole gang’s improbable success in rescuing Juan from Con el advenimiento, aceptación y Iraq celebrates this change in purpose, but it normalización del capitalismo gore, is Rosalío who dramatically pilots the rescue ¿seguirán siendo válidas las categorías helicopter that takes all the heroes and Juan de legitimidad e ilegitimidad para des- to safety when they are under fire from both cribir la aplicación de la violencia?, ¿qué convertirá a la violencia en algo the U.S. and Iraqi armies. At the same time, legítimo?, ¿el precio que se nos cobre however, the film’s farcical representation of por ejercerla? El monopolio de la vio- that triumphant moment (the sequence fea- lencia ya no es propiedad exclusiva tures slapstick gags, deliberate close-ups of del Estado-Nación sino del Mercado- the gangs’ belt buckles, and long shots of the Nación. El monopolio de la violencia helicopter wobbling in the air past minarets se ha puesto a subasta y la puja más while clotheslines dangle from its sides) sig- alta en México la está haciendo el cri- nals that even the ‘pure’ motive of saving Pri- men organizado. (n.p.) vate Pérez is inseparable from the prescripts of melodrama and the inane conventions As we have seen in the most deeply held mo- of war/action/spy/gangster/western block- tives of the protagonists in Rudo y cursi, El buster films. The clichéd hyper-masculinity infierno, and Salvando al soldado Pérez, there evident in these forms of representation ap- is nothing funny about the situation in which peals to a global taste for stereotype and also people cannot escape the necropolitical logic slyly deconstructs the notion of the Mexican of lo narco; there is only pathos in that lack macho ideal. of choice.9 Tracing Cosío’s roles in these three films But there is something hilarious about reveals the comic actor’s function as the mal- the whole constellation of imbalances and leable face of generic Mexican manhood. He forms of (self)exploitation when in Salvando Rebecca E. Biron 197 al soldado Pérez, for example, the Mexican unexamined background figure against which news media reports the story of how a small the protagonists experiment with different group of pistoleros saved a large number of options for contemporary masculinity. The U.S. soldiers from captivity in Iraq. Admit- young men in Rudo y cursi find themselves ting that few details about the rescue have stuck between the outdated, small-time ma- been independently confirmed, a reporter chismo represented by Cosió’s abusive char- announces, “Pero de lo que no hay duda es acter and the more charming and seductive que se trata de mexicanos.” Against all odds, patriarchal stance of the narco who replaces this blind national pride reasserts an exuber- him. For his part, Benny in El infierno has ant desire to claim for mexicanidad a special no way out of the pervasive culture of narco- relationship to out-of-scale, outrageous, out- violence other than self-immolation. Finally, law masculinity. Salvando al soldado Pérez rejects the notion The expression of this desire might not of realistic character development altogether, have gotten laughs in a Mexican film before presenting all five members of Julián’s gang the advent of what Ignacio Sánchez Prado as cartoonish exaggerations of fictional ar- calls “the Second Reinvention of Mexican chetypes. This exaggeration, in concert with Cinema,” best represented by Alfonso Cu- the appeal to a hyper-personal moral code arón’s Y tu mama también (2001). This rein- in relation to honoring one’s mother, renders vention entails “the construction of a national meaningless all the binaries on which serious cinema thoroughly uninterested in engag- discourse about narco-masculinites depends: ing with the nation as such” (92). “It does good/evil, conservative/rebel, legitimate/ille- not pose a homogenous national discourse, gitimate, authentic/mediatized, local/global. as the inherent contradictions of the nation Salvando al soldado Pérez plays with the sil- are central to its narrative construction […]. liness of its own characters and situations. It Rather, we are confronted with a complex also indicts these binaries for being equally spectrum of different social strata that con- meaningless when they are used to classify stantly interact and problematize each other” real people who try to participate in the con- (193). The collapse of Mexicanism in the age temporary global trade of goods, images, and of neoliberalism and “Americanized frame- (national) identities. works of meaning” fundamentally alters the These comedies make visible how calculus for the Mexican film industry. As Mexican narco-masculinity both resists and Sánchez Prado shows, in contemporary films is constructed by the irresolvable tension be- that do not necessarily deal with lo narco, tween global economics and local identifica- the identity politics of race, class, and gen- tions. They home in on the intersection of der supersede national concerns. However, two non-coterminous facts: that neoliberal when feature films targeted to both popular policies and discourses cannot digest nation- and middle-class audiences represent narcos, al, class-based histories; and that national, the self-conscious use of parody resists both class-conscious perspectives cannot metabo- identity politics and nationalist ideology. The lize neoliberal economics. Both axes of this use of intertextuality, trans-genre pastiche, intersection fixate on narco-masculinity as and transnational citations of multiple types the crux of the issue, whether they vilify it or of representations of narco-masculinity not celebrate it. Texts that refuse to take narco- only destabilizes any particular notion of ‘real masculinity itself seriously may not motivate Mexican masculinity,’ but it also makes a joke viewers into direct political action; in fact, out of even wanting to define such a thing in they may depress political energy by mocking the first place. identitarian impulses. Still, given the aura that In the three comedies I have examined narco-masculinity exudes for those who fear here, Joaquín Cosío stands in as the relatively and/or revere it, some demystification just 198 Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015 might allow for more effective accounting of celebrate local drug dealers as an endless source of the globalized, neoliberal nature of lo narco, cheap home entertainment. They formulaically re- and perhaps thereby of intervention into the hearse stories of revenge and passion drawn from more nefarious effects of both the drug trade daily news reports about murders and corruption among drug cartels and corrupt law enforcement and the war on drugs. The complex, ambiva- agencies. They typically cost only forty to fifty lent deployment of humor deflates the out- thousand dollars to produce because they are shot sized symbolic power of narco-masculinity, on location, mostly in Tijuana, with few special ef- whether it is imagined as inevitable, heroic, fects (actors fire blanks from real guns while crew or malign. Maybe narco-masculinity dies off-camera shoot victims with paintball guns to when we’re all laughing. simulate wounds). Filming usually takes just two or three weeks, and the directors use actors drawn from the real milieus in which they are filmed. A Notes few professional actors, such as Mario Almada and Jorge Reynoso appear in hundreds of these films. 1 Masculinity’s symbolic relation to national Scripts for this type of cinema can be prepared identity, dominant ideologies, and power is, of very quickly (3-4 days), because much of the ac- course, not particular to the illegal drug industry, tion and dialogue is improvised based on the plots Mexico, film, or the present. This relation is, rather, of successful narcocorridos. worldwide, and across time. For a concise account 6One particularly popular example is the1978 of its contours in modern Mexico, however, see filmLa banda del carro rojo, based on a corrido by the introduction to Robert McKee Irwin’s Mexi- Los Tigres del Norte (Shane Smith). can Masculinities. For an elegant treatment of the 7 th El narco refers to the illicit drug trade in gen- connection between masculinity and 20 -century eral, including the collateral damage it causes by Mexican film, see Sergio de la Mora’s Cinemachis- widely distributing cocaine, heroin, and meth- mo: Masculinity and Sexuality in Mexican Film. amphetamine, by promoting direct violence as 2 I draw from Martha Elena Munguía’s treat- a business practice, and by attracting violent law ment of “la risa como un fenómeno multifacético, enforcement to embattled communities. Un narco complejo, ligado a la heteroglosia, con una infinita refers to a single drug dealer, usually a higher-up capacidad de transmutación de voces y acentos. in cartel organization. Detrás de la risa puede acechar la garra del llanto, 8See Biron “It’s a Living: Hit Men in the Mexi- puede estar la alegre burla del que desenmascara can Narco War” on the film’s treatment of sicarios verdades oficiales, la ironía mordaz” (Munguía as laborers in the global economy. 31). 9 3 I am referring here to Achille Mbembe’s defi- See El Blog del Narco for reports of the very nition of “death-worlds, new and unique forms of public atrocities committed by rival cartels: be- social existence in which vast populations are sub- headings, hangings, dismemberment, video mes- jected to conditions of life conferring upon them saging, kidnappings, narcomantas, etc. the status of living dead…[U]nder conditions of 4 For in-depth historical and sociological ac- necropower, the lines between resistance and sui- counts that focuses on narco-masculinity as socio- cide, sacrifice and redemption, martyrdom and pathic, see Poppa; Grillo; Molloy and Bowdon; Ro- freedom are blurred” (“Necropolitics” 40). dríguez Castaneda; and Reguillo. For public policy documents and rhetoric, see Archibold, Cave, and Malkin; “Plan Mérida;” and Witness for Peace. For crime literature and literary/cultural criticism re- Works Cited garding the serious denunciation of narco-mascu- linity, see Mendoza; Pérez-Reverte; Polit Dueñas; Archibold, Randal C., Damien Cave, and Elizabeth Maihold and Maihold. Malkin. “Mexican Leader Wants Drug War 5Mexican narco-cinema is dominated by the Set in Law.” New York Times, 16 Oct. 2011: straight-to-video industry and sold primarily in A5+. Print. the United States. Shane Smith’s 2009 documen- Biron, Rebecca E. “It’s a Living: Hit Men in the tary about this phenomenon, Mexican Narco Cine- Mexican Narco War.” PMLA 127.4 (2012): ma, explores the curiously nonchalant yet also ob- 820-34. Print. sessive way in which such low budget crime films El Blog del Narco. Web. 02 Jan. 2015. Rebecca E. Biron 199

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