¿”Pero sigo siendo el rey”? Rewriting the narcocorrido: masculinity, language and violence in Los trabajos del reino and Narco cultura.

• In Event: Márgenes, violencia y narrativa

Abstract

In the last decades violence related to the rise of powerful drug cartels in Latin America has become one of the more pressing issues in the region. Apart from catastrophic human and social consequences, this violence has also produced a proliferation of narratives that –through literature, film, journalism, sociology, economics, mass media, etc.— attempt to describe, explain, glorify or profit from such violence. Within this context narcocorridos have become both very successful and intensely contested. Criticized by many while also being a proven money-making machine, narcocorridos tell the tales of the drug world creating a version of the drug trafficker deeply rooted in the “romantization” of violence and the glorification of hegemonic masculinity.

This paper focuses on a novel and a documentary that question the relationship between art and violence from within the genre of narcorridos. Kingdom Cons (Los trabajos del reino 2004) written by Yuri Herrera (1970), and Narco Culture (Narco cultura 2013) directed by Shaul Schwarz (1974) explore the role of language and masculinity in narcocorridos and hone in on the tension between artistic freedom and the lucrative—and sometimes dangerous—market of the commodification of violence. My analysis centers on how through different means both Herrera and Schwarz advance what Herrera has called a re-humanization of the corrido, and thinks about the implications this rewriting has for the debate around the representation of violence more broadly.

Author

• Juliana Martínez, American University