Pablo Escobar and Narco Nostalgia

2020 ◽  
pp. 29-62
Author(s):  
Aldona Bialowas Pobutsky
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Drug Trafficking ◽  
Female Body ◽  
Conspicuous Consumption ◽  
The State ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Body Ideal ◽  
Global Tourism ◽  
Architecture And Music

Chapter 1 looks into discourses surrounding the Medellín cartel and the present-day value of the Escobar brand. It explores how the popular media in Colombia has reproduced one type of narco, whose flamboyance and caudillo-like attitudes reflect the behaviors associated with Escobar and his ilk, rather than the more discreet figureheads of today’s drug-trafficking. This take on Escobar’s history created a nostalgic version of the hedonistic capos and their conspicuous consumption, thereby strategically resurrecting and fetishizing Colombia’s arguably worst criminal. It also draws attention away from present-day narco alliances that still plague Colombia. The second half of the chapter focuses on narco aesthetics, which appear in every facet of popular culture, from architecture and music to media production, fashion, and the female body ideal. It explores the conflict between Escobar’s tangible legacy (properties, prison) vis-à-vis Medellín’s push toward rebranding itself as a peaceful site of incomparable physical beauty. While the state strives to erase his memory by either neglecting or destroying places of related to Escobar, the latest trends in global tourism are doing exactly the opposite; they promote the exploration of thrilling experiences, thereby reviving Escobar’s popularity worldwide through narco tourism, against the wishes of many locals.

Epilogue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassandra L. Yacovazzi
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
The Public ◽  
Monastic Life ◽  
The Common ◽  
Public Imagination ◽  
Maria Monk ◽  
People Today

Nuns in popular media today are a staple of kitsch culture, evident in the common appearance of bobble-head nuns, nun costumes, and nun caricatures on TV, movies, and the stage. Nun stereotypes include the sexy vixen, the naïve innocent, and the scary nun. These types were forged in nineteenth-century convent narratives. While people today may not recognize the name “Maria Monk,” her legacy lives on in the public imagination. There may be no demands to search convents, but nuns and monastic life are nevertheless generally not taken seriously. This epilogue traces opposition to nuns from the Civil War to the present, analyzing the various images of nuns in popular culture as they relate to the antebellum campaign against convents. It argues that the source of the misunderstanding about nuns is rooted in the inability to categorize these women either as traditional wives and mothers or as secular, career-driven singles.

The Challenge of Mass Democracy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin A. Schupmann
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
The State ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
The People ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Mass Democracy

Chapter 1 analyzes Schmitt’s assessment of democratic movements in Weimar and the gravity of their effects on the state and constitution. It emphasizes that the focus of Schmitt’s criticism of Weimar was mass democracy rather than liberalism. Schmitt warned that the combination of mass democracy, the interpenetration of state and society, and the emergence of total movements opposed to liberal democracy, namely the Nazis and the Communists, were destabilizing the Weimar state and constitution. Weimar, Schmitt argued, had been designed according to nineteenth century principles of legitimacy and understandings of the people. Under the pressure of mass democracy, the state was buckling and cannibalizing itself and its constitution. Despite this, Schmitt argued, Weimar jurists’ theoretical commitments left them largely unable to recognize the scope of what was occurring. Schmitt’s criticism of Weimar democracy was intended to raise awareness of how parliamentary democracy could be turned against the state and constitution.

Teaching the Bible and Popular Media as Part of Contemporary Rape Culture

2020 ◽  
pp. 423-439
Author(s):  
Beatrice J. W. Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Rape Culture ◽  
Pedagogical Strategies ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Cultural Myths ◽  
Biblical Texts

This essay explores pedagogical strategies for addressing rape culture in biblical studies courses, employing Genesis 34 and Judges 19–21 as primary texts. The first section discusses the nature of popular culture and its impact on gender. The following four sections highlight cultural myths about sexual assault by focusing on significant biblical texts and incorporating aspects of popular media to facilitate conversations about rape culture. The conclusion summarizes the main points and encourage further studies that combine the study of popular media and biblical texts. Overall, the essay contributes to the reading and teaching of the Bible within contemporary rape culture so that students become critical interpreters of biblical texts, as they become resistant readers of past and present rape culture.

Popular Culture versus the State

1991 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Docker
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
The State

The State's Developmentalist Illusion and the Origins of Illegal Coca Cultivation in Peru's Alto Huallaga Valley (1960–80)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Maritza Paredes ◽  
Hernán Manrique
Keyword(s):  
Drug Trafficking ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Soil Degradation ◽  
Illegal Drug ◽  
The State ◽  
Peruvian Amazon ◽  
State Development ◽  
Ecological Conditions ◽  
International Demand ◽  
Development Plans

Abstract The origin of illicit economies has been understood as a consequence of ‘low stateness’ (i.e. low reach of the state). Given the limited stateness in many regions, however, this article seeks to explain how only some sub-national territories have become vulnerable to illegal drug trafficking. To make this case, the representative example of the Alto Huallaga valley, in the Peruvian Amazon, is analysed. This article argues that ineffective development and settlement efforts by the Peruvian state in the Alto Huallaga, rather than the absence of the state, produced socio-ecological conditions in the region, in the late 1970s, that made it more vulnerable to the illegal economy. At the same time as international demand for illegal cocaine was expanding, two conditions resulting from frustrated state development plans came together: an enclave of poor peasants who were not self-sufficient and a natural environment impoverished by soil degradation and intensive deforestation, paradoxically not suitable for any crop except coca.

The Globalization of Superheroes: Diffusion, Genre, and Cultural Adaptations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Hammonds
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Retributive Justice ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Cultural Imperialism ◽  
High Demand ◽  
Cultural Adaptations ◽  
Civic Values ◽  
The World ◽  
Entertainment Value ◽  
Industrial Societies

Superheroes are a global phenomenon. The superhero genre has been proliferated through modern industrial societies by way of movies, television, comics, and other forms of popular media. Although virtually every nation in the world has heroic myths, the modern superhero, as marked by the inception of recent American comics heroes in 1929, is a uniquely Western invention. Superheroes are “Western” insofar as they embody and exhibit Western civic values, such as democracy, humanism, and retributive justice. These characters have been communicatively incorporated into globalization processes by means of diffusion and thereby enact aspects of cultural imperialism. Even so, superhero figures have been in high demand across many populations for their entertainment value. As superheroes have diffused in non-Western cultures, they have not only been absorbed by new cultures but also refigured and adapted. These non-Western adaptations have had a recursive influence, such as the global popularity of Japanese manga. The recursive relationship between Western superheroes and their non-Western adaptations implies superheroes are an important aspect of cultural fusion in global popular culture.

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