Imagine, for a moment, that a drug war in the United States had claimed 10,000 American lives in a little more than two years, and that about 90% of the 16,000 military-style assault weapons captured from traffickers here were traced to gun dealers in Mexico. What would the reaction of the U.S. government be?
Applying that rhetorical question a bit closer to home: according to www.disastercenter.com, 34,000 Americans were murdered in the last two years for which they have records (2006 and 2007). I'd be pretty shocked if you couldn't attribute 10,000 of those to drugs, gang activity, or organized crime, which is what Mexico refers to when it talks about drug violence. And presumably, slightly less than 100 percent of the weapons used in these crimes were made in the US. So what is the reaction of the US government?
4 comments:
Exactly. But we already had a good run of 'hood movies in the early 90s, whereas the highly cinematic potential of Mexican drug violence hasn't been exploited nearly enough.
Kidding, sort of, but I do tell people all the time that the numbers are mostly (not entirely, of course) a distraction from the real question of just what the violence means for Mexico. Then I mention institutional corrosion and people's eyes glaze over.
Mexico's been missing out on the local versions of Clockers and Menace 2 Society. All they have gotten is El Pantera, which is pretty silly stuff. I've always wondered why Mexico's filmmakers, a pretty heralded bunch, have never wanted to take a long, nuanced look at drug gangs. Instead, they've treated us to umpteen "life in Mexico City is dreary" flicks in the last eight years, all of them falling fall short of Amores Perros.
I think it's time to stop waiting for the homegrown and start writing letters to HBO demanding Wire/Sopranos treatment of Mexican gangs. Culiacan or maybe the Golden Triangle would be perfect, or I guess Acapulco if they felt the need to glam it up a bit. I think with all the coverage in US press it could be huge.
Yeah that could be great. They should center it somewhere in Sinaloa, or in a border town, or in Michoacán, and show both sides of the supply chain, with decreasingly important plotlines and characters down to Colombia and up to the streets of the American cities. It's might be a little too much to work with, but then I'd have said the same thing if you'd explained the scope of The Wire to me eight years ago.
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