Guybrush
Dittohead
So LA Times reports on the ongoing drug war in Tijuana, Mexico. By all accounts, it’s a sanguine affair, with beheadings, involuntary acid baths and wanton killings the rule of the day.
Reading the article, what strikes me the most is the way in which the supposed mob leader – one Teodoro Garcia Simental, a first-class twat – is described, and more interestingly, how his murderous deeds supposedly separate him from mob leaders of yore. Says one of the anonymous officials cited in the article:
To me – not that I have ever encountered a real-life mob leader – this sounds like pure fiction: I cannot imagine the mobsters of the 1920s – to pick an obvious example – being any less sadistic. Rather, it seems to me, people have bought into some illusory Hollywood version of what things were really like. This also reminds me of what a professor of criminology once said about how every small-time crook he ran into always strove to emulate the ways and manners of the mafiosos on the white screen – your Corleones and Sopranos – often to hilarious effect. The two phenomena aren’t exactly two sides of a coin, of course, but they both illustrate what a bizarre influence cinema’s gangster mythology exercises.
Reading the article, what strikes me the most is the way in which the supposed mob leader – one Teodoro Garcia Simental, a first-class twat – is described, and more interestingly, how his murderous deeds supposedly separate him from mob leaders of yore. Says one of the anonymous officials cited in the article:
“Criminals earn respect and credibility with creative killing methods,” said the official, who requested anonymity for reasons of security. “Your status is based on your capacity to commit the most sadistic acts. Burning corpses, using acid, beheading victims. . . . This generation is setting a new standard for savagery.”
To me – not that I have ever encountered a real-life mob leader – this sounds like pure fiction: I cannot imagine the mobsters of the 1920s – to pick an obvious example – being any less sadistic. Rather, it seems to me, people have bought into some illusory Hollywood version of what things were really like. This also reminds me of what a professor of criminology once said about how every small-time crook he ran into always strove to emulate the ways and manners of the mafiosos on the white screen – your Corleones and Sopranos – often to hilarious effect. The two phenomena aren’t exactly two sides of a coin, of course, but they both illustrate what a bizarre influence cinema’s gangster mythology exercises.