| Abstract: | As a Spanish-language broadcast programme based on a sympathetic Mexican character who also happens to be a drug kingpin, La Reina del Sur negotiates the perilous terrain of the European drug trade and an omnipresent hostility directed at Mexicans. As cable programmes with the industrial freedom to venture into spaces in between prosocial and antisocial, Weeds and Breaking Bad attempt to incorporate a more nuanced and culturally informed characterization of the Mexican drug dealer – one that notably impacts the relationship of the white protagonists to their new occupations as producers and dealers of illegal substances. These three series – produced independently of one another and distributed on three different networks – have crossed paths in a manner that can be revealed through the intricacies of a controversial and complex cultural artifact: the narcocorrido. |
