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New Culprits, True Culprits: The Re-politicization of Mexican 'Organized Crime' in 'Crimen de estado' (2009) and 'Ingobernable' (2017–2018)

Cantarello, Matteo 2020. New Culprits, True Culprits: The Re-politicization of Mexican 'Organized Crime' in 'Crimen de estado' (2009) and 'Ingobernable' (2017–2018). New Readings 17 (2) , pp. 24-47. 10.18573/newreadings.113

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Abstract

Since the 1970s, Mexican and foreign fictions have persistently glamorized Mexican narcotrafficking and have, as Pablo Piccato and Oswaldo Zavala have argued, contributed depoliticized understandings of the phenomenon. According to Zavala, Mexican politicians have constructed a “hegemonic discourse” that blames narcos while concealing state responsibility. This article argues that two recent works of fiction, Gregorio Ortega Molina’s novel Crimen de estado (2009) and the Netflix TV show Ingobernable (2017–2018) work to re-politicize Mexican organized crime. Both portray the phenomenon as both an arm of and a scapegoat of politicians and law enforcement. They shift discourse away from commonly glamorized elements to cast light on the responsibility borne by government. Both based on real events in Mexico’s recent history, they avoid glorifying narcotraffickers to portray them instead as subordinates of Mexico’s political machine. The works not only hypothesize that it is Mexico’s political (under)world that pulls the strings of organized crime but also depict the process of concocting what Zavala identifies as the hegemonic discourse. Borrowing from Wolfgang Iser, I demonstrate how the “fictionalizing acts” of works like Crimen de estado and Ingobernable achieve two goals: they dismantle the hegemonic discourse about organized crime and reveal how that discourse is in fact constructed by a complicit governing State.

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: Modern Languages
Subjects: F History United States, Canada, Latin America > F1201 Latin America (General)
H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare
P Language and Literature > PC Romance languages
P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0080 Criticism
P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1990 Broadcasting
Publisher: Cardiff University Press
ISSN: 2634-6850
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 15 January 2021
Date of Acceptance: 15 July 2020
Last Modified: 04 May 2023 06:24
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/138011

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