Running head: Mexican historyaccording to Narco Cultura film

Mexican historyaccording to Narco Cultura film 9

Mexican history, according to Narco Cultura film

The Mexican drug war has been going on for more than a decade, but it has little to no success. Beheadings, mass hangings of bodies, killings of innocent citizens, car bombings, abuse, and assassination attempts of various community members, including reporters and political figures, are part of Mexicos drug war. More than three hundred thousandhomicides have been committed since 2006, when the government declared war on the cartels. Besides these crimes, the violence has spread deep into Mexicos interior, with organized crime groups diversifying their criminal activities to extortion, kidnapping, auto theft, and other illicit enterprises (Bietell, 2013). Violence is a central feature in the trade of illegal drugs. Many criminal organizations use violence to settle disputes and maintain employee discipline and is directed towards the government and news media.

The film Narco Cultura is a documentary film directed by Shaul Schwarz, released to the theatres in October 2013. The two hours documentary was nominated for two awards in 2014. The documentary explores the connection between the Mexican drug war and the increasingly prevalent narcocorridos (drug melodies) lyrical themes. The documentary exposes the cycle of addiction to money, drugs, violence, and music between Mexico and the United States. The subculture of Narco-Cultura grows under the influence of powerful drug cartels throughout Mexico (Mcallester, 2013). It has its form of literature, dress, music, religious beliefs, and practices assimilated by people in different parts of the country.

The supposition investigates a relationship between the Narco-culture and the history of organized crime in Mexico. The historical origins of the Narco-culture and its influence on drug cartels, violence are determined. The analysis is done by comparing the documentary Narco-Cultura with the primary and secondary sources of Mexican History. The film examines how the narcocorridos differ from the experiences of those who struggle with Mexicos mass drug violence and the experiences of artists who profit from it.

The Mexico drug violence

The social and political conflicts that have been experienced in Mexico have been present since its origination. Drug trafficking is done with backward and forward linkages as they manage the supply and distribution of drugs in many countries. They are the main supplies of medications to the United States, and they have increasingly gained a lot of control in the US through the support of the US gangs. The penetration of different drugs has infiltrated the social and cultural arenas, leading to the oppositional culture known as Narco Cultura, meaning a drug, crime, and death-obsessed culture. The culture has evolved into a cultural and physical construct in Mexico. The amount of proceeds obtained from the drug trades is used to bribe the corrupt US and Mexican border officials.

In the early 20th century, Mexico supplied drugs to the United States as the government protected them, as this was done during a one-party rule. The government tolerated crime during that period (Jaffary, Osowski &Potter, 2010, pg. 389). With the government looking for ways of accommodating, they started carrying out arrests throughout the 1990s. However, the stability began...

Before the strength started failing, transitions in international trade took place around the 1980s. In the early 1990s, the Colombian drug traffickers Organizations were forcibly broken by the United States, and the Mexican traffickers took over the traffic of cocaine. The organizations evolved from being mere couriers to wholesalers.

It led many officials who protected the cartels were unable to do so as the government tried to regulate the competition among the Mexican drug traffickers. The main drugs supplied to the United States by Mexico are heroin, methamphetamine, and Marijuana. These lead to cartel violence in an attempt to establish impunity. Some remote parts of Mexico have become areas for Marijuana cultivation. They provide places for providing airstrips for many cartels to land cocaine to go to the United States through Mexican channels (Hamnett, 2004). Because of its vicinity to the United States, sections of Northern Mexico are by far the most dangerous in the world. The deaths associated with drug trades are mainly targeted executions, with bodies commonly discovered late at night having been dumped at the suburban parts after being killed with very high-profile weapons. The main drug trafficking Organizations are the Tijuana/Arellano Felix Organization, the Sinaloa cartel, The Juarez Carrillo Fuentes Organization, Los Zetas, Beltran Levya, Gulf cartel and the La Familia Michoacana.(Bietell,2013). They occupy different areas in different Pacific states.

Around the US border, narcocorridos, or Mexican drug ballads, are a modern interpretatin of the corridor that originated in folk or Banda music from the northern part of Mexico. The narcocorridos are often compared to gangster rap. It has exciting metaphors of the Narcotraficante who rise from the poor and marginalized social classification in becoming influential and well-known personalities in organized crime. The tales written in Mexican drug pop songs focus on the lifestyles of criminal organizations and elements of the organized crime filledwith abuse (Richmond, 2014). The compositions are about incidents linked to illicit drug trafficking operations, including miseries and tragedy as parts of their fictional frameworks. They gained a lot of popularity as the new and exciting tales of danger and the depictions of the extravagant lifestyles of the drug traffickers in the 1970s and the 1980s. The songs, as the technology advances, have begun and are used to support acts of vengeance. It is a mode of settling a score with rival drug cartels in a violent and gruesome manner that is similar to the changes made by the cartels in their methods of operation after the government radicalized approaches to drug trafficking and related crime by the Mexican and the United States government.

Comparing Narco Cultura film and primary and secondary sources relating to drug trading.

The internal forces that influence corridos, drugs, and violence

The Narco Cultura film features Edgar Quintero, a singer for the Mexican-American band Buknas de Culiacan, specializing in tracks glorifying Mexican drug pins. Quintero, who resides in Los Angeles with his relatives (Mcallester, 2013), performs a rapidly growing type of music almost identical to Mexican gangster rap. Quintero cannot avoid the impression that hes manipulating it in the film. The songs comprise mainly of people and events learned primarily from the internet.

The songs strangely gather a lot of people. The cartels in Mexico have a significant influence on the media. The access Schwarz has is a result of working the drug wars head-on. They speak ofpeople that operate in constant danger of assassination. The autopsy reports are viewed, and the torn-apart communities are seen. The documentary brings to light the effects of violence…