Alfonso Herrera and Laisha Wilkins on 23 August clashed on X after the entry of an actor promoting the movie “La Captura” about stopping Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. The dispute is whether or not the cinema is going to talk about drugs again. In the background there is simply a more serious stake: culture can exposure evil or tame it.
A dispute that reveals the problem
Alfonso Herrera, known among others from RBD, encouraged viewers to watch the movie "La Captura". Laisha Wilkins responded critically, calling for a departure from the drug subjects of bosses in mass culture. Mexican media including Infobae and Excélsior, described the exchange as a match on how to show narcoculture.
So it's not just 1 online argument between 2 actors. The question that Mexico has been asking itself for years: are cartel stories a informing against violence, or another fuel for the legend of a bandit? That question is not exotic. Poland besides lives in a planet where streaming platforms give young people ready myths, frequently stronger than school, household and state.
Film on Netflix and the real Guzmán
"La Captura", known in an English-language catalogue as "Facing El Chapo", is simply a Mexican crime film. Netflix describes production as a drama based on real events in which 2 Mexican officers must last the final hours of service after encountering a ruthless cartel boss. The cast includes Alfonso Herrera, Noé Hernández and Héctor Kotsifakis.
The historical background is hard. Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as ‘El Chapo’, was sentenced in the US on 17 July 2019 to life conviction plus 30 years in prisonAfter being convicted of moving a criminal empire and another drug charges. It's not a folk character or an anti-hero from a city ballad. It's a symbol of the state's decay, corruption, fear and force that have destroyed average people over the years.
That's why Wilkins and Herrera's dispute makes sense. Culture can show the fact about evil, the price of betrayal of the state, service work and household drama. Maybe, step by step, turn a criminal into a pop culture icon. The border can be thin and the platforms live due to the viewer. The stronger the narcoboss, the easier it is to sale a miniature of his legend.
Narcoesthetics alternatively of Responsibility
Right-wing sensitivity is not about moving distant from hard subjects. State, crime, borders, police and services are real. We gotta talk about them. We must besides show that without a strong state, a common man is left alone against money, weapons and mob violence.
The problem begins erstwhile a criminal gets a more attractive frame than a victim, an officer and an honest citizen. Then the screen doesn't warn. The screen teaches fascination by force without moral brake. The Mexican dispute is so besides a informing for Europe, which besides easy confuses amusement with moral neutrality.
In Poland we know well that culture is not an addition to the life of the nation. She's in the imagination. If over the years he tells young people that a bandit is more interesting than a defender of order, then 1 cannot pretend to be amazed that the authority of the state is weakening. A akin problem can besides be seen in current cartel cases, even if El Chapo's boy is waiting for further decisions of the US court. Criminal dynasties aren't romanticist story material. They prove that the weak state always pays the bill with the blood of citizens.
Lesson for Poland too
For the Polish reader, the issue from Mexico has another dimension. Sovereignty doesn't end at the border and the army. Sovereignty is besides the nation's ability to defend its own standards: who is the hero, who is the criminal, what deserves admiration and what is condemned.
Therefore, the criticism of narcoculture is not a prudence. It is simply a defence of simple order. You can make a movie about stopping El Chapo so that the center of the communicative is officers, risks and the price of fighting the cartel. You can besides sale viewers another dose of the dark charm of the criminal world. Wilkins just hit the another mechanism.
A country that wants to last cannot let pop culture to educate citizens in delight over those who live in violence. This concerns Mexico, the USA and Poland. Public order begins with the law, but it is born in the head earlier: in whom society applauds.
Sources: Infobae, Excélsior, Netflix, U.S. Department of Justice.
