Popular Mexican Narco-Telenovelas Do More Than Just Glorify Drug Trade Victoria Dittmar - Insight Crime
go to original November 25, 2016

Queen of the South (Television Promos)

The growing backlash against Mexican soap operas revolving around the drug trade and its principal players, known as "narcotelenovelas," is based largely on their perceived harm to the country's social fabric. But this criticism ignores the very social factors that contribute to the growing popularity of narco culture in Mexico.

In early November, Senator Zoé Robledo and Congresswoman Lía Limón released a joint statement in which they called upon the Secretary of the Interior and the Federal Telecommunications Institute to be more restrictive with regards to commercial television channels airing narcotelenovelas during the family programming time slot. According to the two officials, the airing of such programs during that time period is in violation of the Telecommunications and Broadcasting Federal Law, because the content of the series "promotes and glorifies violence and depicts drug trafficking and its [related] activities as an aspirational life-style" and is thus inadequate for young viewers.

The officials have pushed for the narcotelenovelas to either be taken off the air or, failing that, that they be broadcast at a later hour, as these series "weaken the social fabric of Mexican families" by promoting wrong values and behaviors which feed organized crime.

Since September, the conservative non-governmental organization "A Favor de lo Mejor" (In Favor of the Best) has expressed its concerns over narcotelenovelas and launched a campaign for these programs to be classified as "D," a category which would prohibit them from airing before midnight. The NGO insists that the narco-series' constant depiction of violence and crime could produce serious harm in a country where 81 percent of the population has access to television.

Censoring aspects of narcoculture is nothing new. Narcocorridos, or drug ballads, have previously provoked scandal due to their drug-themed lyrics. In some instances, drug capos have even hired musicians to play the narcocorridos. Various Mexican states have accordingly adopted some sort of regulation to supervise in some form or another this musical genre.

Competent authorities will decide whether it is legal or not for narcotelenovelas to be aired at early time slots. But the argument that these programs glorify drug trafficking and damage the social fabric is a faulty one, because it doesn't take into account the context in which theses series and their success have emerged.

Miguel Cabañas, an associate professor at Michigan State University who studies the popular cultural representation of drug trafficking, told InSight Crime that the authorities and activists are trying to assign narco-culture's success to a single reason. But in reality, it is much more complicated than that. Cabañas said that the stigmatization of narco culture is a means of drawing attention away from the enduring problems organized crime present to citizen security.

"If we follow this line of thought, we realize that the [aforementioned politicians and activists] are redirecting the debate from the corruption in the country or problems with the justice system towards cultural aspects," Cabañas said. "The problem isn't to view it on television, it is to view it on the streets."

Cultural portrayals of drug traffickers also offer an alternative way to understand Mexico's criminal situation. Cabañas pointed out that the conventional and institutional means of communications do not always offer a satisfying explanation of the country's organized crime dynamics. In that sense, narcotelenovelas are a means of widening the debate.

"Many of the shows have an implicit criticism," Cabañas said. "Some combine historical and fictional elements. And this appeals to people because it shows them the government response to this [criminal] phenomenon. They try to explore these themes through these characters."

InSight Crime considers some of these alternative interpretations by analyzing The Lord of the Skies and The Queen of the South - two of the most popular narcotelenovelas in Mexico.

Check it out here

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