Description
The role of popular culture both in the production of, and as a tool to understand, our political realities has prompted a burgeoning range of scholarship in politics and international relations. One of the most significant areas wherein this pervasive form of discourse has the potential to impact a population is through framing. For many decades, the general public’s understanding of the ‘War on Drugs’ has been framed by representations of it in film and television. This paper seeks to demonstrate the manner in which Netflix’s hit show Narcos produced representations of America’s ‘War on Drugs’ and the potential impact of these frames on the American population’s understanding and acceptance of current policies relating to this ‘War’. Emerging research (Adkins & Castle, 2014; Mulligan & Habel, 2011) has demonstrated the power of popular culture to shift an audience’s predispositions, more so than traditional sites of production (political elite & media). As such, this television series provides an important cultural artefact through which we intend to display how the US’ actions are distanced from its own policies carried out by the CIA, in order to reframe America’s involvement in the region. In effect, it others itself by demonstrating how US policies undermined the ‘War on Drugs’, which is simultaneously presented as a just and realistic cause. Despite the complexity of the issues at stake, often for the purposes of a compelling narrative, the subject of drug trafficking is presented as a simple contest between morality and immorality, which then filters into political discourses. The ‘other’ is therefore presented as both the CIA and Pablo Escobar to justify traditionally repressive military approaches as emblemized by the DEA and Narcos protagonists agents Pena and Murphy.
