Overview

Exploring representations of Latinx people from Scarface to Narcos, this book examines how pop culture has framed Latin America as the villain in America's long and ineffectual War on Drugs. If there is an enemy in the War on Drugs, it is people of color. That is the lesson of forty years of cultural production in the United States. Popular culture, from Scarface and Miami Vice to Narcos and Better Call Saul, has continually positioned Latinos as an alien people who threaten the US body politic with drugs. Jason Ruiz explores the creation and endurance of this trope, its effects on Latin Americans and Latinx people, and its role in the cultural politics of the War on Drugs. Even as the focus of drug anxiety has shifted over the years from cocaine to crack and from methamphetamines to opioids, and even as significant strides have been made in representational politics in many areas of pop culture, Latinx people remain an unshakeable fixture in stories narrating the production, distribution, and sale of narcotics. Narcomedia argues that such representations of Latinx people, regardless of the intentions of their creators, are best understood as a cultural front in the War on Drugs. Latinos and Latin Americans are not actually America's drug problem, yet many Americans think otherwise-and that is in no small part because popular culture has largely refused to imagine the drug trade any other way.

Full Product Details

Author:   Jason Ruiz
Publisher:   University of Texas Press
Imprint:   University of Texas Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9781477328187

ISBN 10:   1477328181
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   10 October 2023
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

Introduction Chapter 1. “Say Goodnight to the Bad Guy”: South Florida, Cocaine, and the Many Faces of Scarface Chapter 2. Miami Vices: Whiteness and Otherness in Representing the Criminalized City Chapter 3. “The Most Alive Dead Man in the World”: Plotting the Death of Pablo Escobar Chapter 4. Dancing toward Revenge: Queer Representation and What It Means to Be Seen in Narcomedia Chapter 5. Dark Matters: Breaking Bad and the Suburban Crime Drama Chapter 6. Bad Hombres: Narcomedia at the US-Mexico Border Chapter 7. From Public Enemy to Global Media Commodity: Pablo Escobar Transformed Epilogue. “It’s Time for a White Man to Leave the Building”: Centering Latinidad in Narcomedia Acknowledgments Notes Selected Filmography Bibliography Index

Reviews

A concentrated, rigorous look at Latinx representations in late-20th- and early-21st-century 'narcomedia,' or 'communication forms that emerge from drug trafficking'...Ruiz’s observations are incisive throughout. He is at his best, though, when directly addressing the 'how' and 'why' behind the production of problematic Latinx representations...Narcomedia itself makes important inroads into paving the path ahead for Latinx representations in US-made film and TV. Ruiz’s book is a fine example of the scholarly vigilance and clarity of thought needed to hold the abidingly white-centric entertainment industry’s feet to the fire in their ongoing representations of Latinx people on-screen. * Los Angeles Review of Books *

Author Information

Jason Ruiz is an associate professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Americans in the Treasure House: Travel to Porfirian Mexico and the Cultural Politics of Empire.

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