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Abstract

This article will study how female characters, namely the figures of the narcotrafficking female boss and of the buchona, participate in the violent neoliberal dynamics of unbridled accumulation of wealth, hyperconsumption, hedonism, and ostentatious luxury in the videoclips of the narcocorridos La dama de la troca colorada (Rossina Silva “La Pa’rribeña”, 2010) and Las plebitas chacalosas (Yasmín Gamboa, 2010), as well as in the videohome narco-movie La descarada (Oscar López, 2017). Specifically, it will address the role of the female cartel boss and the buchona in gore capitalism (Valencia 2010) in light of their socially destructive necropolitical practices and of their extravagant spending habits, which serve to pay for consumer products, parties and various ephemeral luxuries. All of these reflect a stark consumer culture, in which disposable goods reign supreme and which accelerates the depletion of natural resources. First, we will show how some of the female characters within the chosen corpus resort to hyperviolence and commodify death to fulfill their aspirations of wealth accumulation and social ascent. Second, we will analyze how the buchonas characters engage in transactional, erotic-affective relationships with drug traffickers in order to obtain luxuries which contrast with the economic precarity generally experienced at the border.