Chapter 16
In: Sights, Sounds, and Sensibilities of Atrocity Prosecutions
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Abstract
This chapter is about ‘atrocity as entertainment’. I draw from cultural studies, criminology, and post-colonial studies to explore the images of extreme violence produced for entertainment purposes. As a case-study, I focus on a situation which has been less prominent in the international criminal justice literature: the Mexican ‘drug war’. I examine ‘narco-entertainment’ on Netflix and critically reflect on fundamental concepts of international criminal justice (i) the nature of ‘conflict’, (ii) the recruitment and use of child soldiers, and (iii) the notion of an ‘armed attack’ on a civilian population. I foreground the aesthetic representation of these legal concepts and focus on how storytelling techniques, images, tropes, and editing, uncover the aesthetic biases of international criminal law and justice. The adoption of an aesthetic lens is a useful addition to research on international criminal justice because it unlocks possibilities for the evaluation of legal processes which otherwise might be missed, and situates these in broader conversations about aesthetics, law and politics. For example, in relation to Mexico, an ambiguous picture emerges which situates the violence in a hybrid place; not war, but not peace, producing national, transnational, and international crimes, as well as global entertainment. This chapter hints at a broader research agenda that brings aesthetics, cultural studies, crime, and international law into closer conversation.