Letras Hispanas Volume 11, 2015 SPECIAL SECTION: On Masculinities, Latin America, 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, Mexico, 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 blogs, 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