Narcos Mexico season 3 introduced a new character named Víctor Tapia to the series with a new story arc. But how important is his story arc to the main Narcos: Mexico plot? Víctor Tapia is a fictional character. His actions did not affect the main plotline in anyway. He was on this wild goose chase to find a mysterious killer who was targeting women. Even after Tapia delivered vigilante justice, killings did not stop. So what was the point of his seemingly useless character? Actually the femicide story arc is very important because it shed light on a very sad reality in the world. With Victor Tapia, viewers can witness different aspects of the femicide crisis.
I did not understand the story until the very end
I really like Víctor Tapia. Luis Gerardo Méndez did a great job by playing Victor Tapia’s troubled, depressed character. I think his character was an instrument to explore different aspect of the femicide issue. But when I watched the show for the first time, femicide narration just flew over my head because I was focusing my attention to Victor Tapia instead of what he was representing. In my defense Victor Tapia had a promising character introduction and an interesting story arc and character development. In the 10th episode Tapia visits a new crime scene and discovers a dumping ground of murder victims. Then the narrator starts to explain about the femicide crisis in Mexico. When I heard the word ‘Femicide’, I had a “aha!” moment and began to understand what was really going on. That word remind me of a Vice News documentary about the femicide crisis in Honduras. After that realization I watched more documentaries on the subject matter and re-watched scenes with Victor Tapia. It made me realize that his scenes show us the background of the femicide issue rather well.
Social connections play a part in investigations
Victor Tapia stumbled upon the issue when he reluctantly agreed to look into a missing person case. Mrs. Barragan’s 14 years old niece was missing for four days. Mrs. Barragan had called the police three times but no one came to investigate. As a last resort she asked help from Victor Tapia’s wife. As a beat cop Victor Tapia was not even suitable for the job, but that was the best Mrs. Barragan could do. It is the sad truth regarding these type of crimes. If the victim or victim’s relatives are well connected or famous people, investigators and other relevant authorities are going to pay proper attention to the case. Otherwise such cases will be buried without delivering justice.
Jumping to conclusions
Conducting a proper investigation to apprehend the perpetrators is a time consuming and difficult task. It is easier to provide a half-baked solution and throw the problem under the rug. Judging from the statements from femicide victims’ relatives most of the time authorities try victim blaming. They try to blame victims for mingle with wrong people, wearing wrong clothes etc. And sometimes police dismiss murders as suicides.
In Narcos Mexico Victor Tapia’s first reaction was wondering whether the missing girl ran away with a boyfriend or not, and the coroner’s first question was whether she was a prostitute or not. But in their credit they eventually realized that she was actually missing and proceeded with the investigation.
Incompetent forensic investigations
Justice system issue verdicts based on evidence. So collecting evidence from a crime scene and performing a proper autopsy play a key role in a femicide court case. If the evidence collecting was done poorly then the perpetrator will walk free.
Poor evidence collection can be a result of incompetent investigation or lack of necessary resources. Mexico City has a higher number of femicide incidents. Running out of resources is a major issue for Mexico City’s forensic examiners. Daniel Hernandez from Vice News interviewed a former medical forensic examiner for Mexico City for the Vice News documentary named The Femicide Crisis in the State of Mexico (Full Length). That forensic examiner provided picture evidence to show the horrifying state of some of the morgues in Mexico City. In his pictures there was a fully packed mortuary freezer, it was so full to the point there were multiple body bags in each individual shelf. Since the freezers had ran out of space there was an unrefrigerated body on a stretcher trolley which was already attracting some flies. Morgue floor was stained with bodily fluids. It was a gruesome scene. Furthermore the medical forensic examiner revealed that the lack of proper equipment and facilities make it hard to gather evidence from crime scenes and oftentimes collected evidence samples would rot away.
Forensic medical examiner in Narcos Mexico showed the sad state of city morgue to Victor Tapia. Real world state of the morgues looks worse than that.
Femicide is the end result of various entwined sociopolitical problems. Narcos Mexico show some of these problems.
Maquiladoras
Maquiladoras are Mexican assembly factories which are situated near US – Mexican border. Foreign companies use them to take advantage of cheap labor cost of Mexican labor force. Those companies bring in parts from various countries. Then Mexican laborers assemble parts in maquiladoras. Finished products are exported to the USA.
As stated above, maquiladoras are situated near US-Mexican border for the convenience of transportation of products. Maquiladora industry grew fast due to the cheap labor. But the problem was nearby areas of the factories remained undeveloped. Underdeveloped road systems and lack of night lamps create unsafe, dark, isolated areas. Women who worked in maquiladoras had to travel through such dangerous areas to go to work.
Missing girl in Narcos Mexico was an employee of a maquiladora in Juarez. When investigating her disappearance, Victor Tapia found out few other murdered maquiladora employees. When he narrowed down his search for the killer to factory district, we could see the unsafe and vulnerable dark environment which maquiladora or maquila employees had to walk through as their daily commute.
Women got more job opportunities making change in power dynamic in households
In Narcos Mexico we can see that Amado Carrillo Fuentes aka Lord of the Skies and Carlos Hank González both were working together to take full advantage of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This agreement worked favorably towards the maquiladora industry.
Then the narrator describe the Peso crisis in 1994. In the show it made people like Lord of the Skies richer because they made their money in US dollars. On the other hand regular working men like Victor Tapia lost their jobs during the economic crisis.
In this difficult times women could find job opportunities in maquiladoras where workforce consist of high ratio of female workers to male workers. Men had less job opportunities. In some households this shift of earning capability made tension. We see this happen when Victor Tapia’s wife suggest to find herself a job in maquiladoras to be helpful since Victor had been recently lost his job. But mere suggestion made Tapia to explode with rage because in his view it was his job as the man of the house to be the bread winner for the family. These kind of challenges to gender role may have contributed to increase domestic violence cases.
Desensitize to violence
Victor Tapia visited a crime scene of a femicide victim and learnt that it was a frequent occurrence in the area. And he saw how the body had been unceremoniously dumped beside a road. Then later he followed police vehicles to a recently discovered mass grave site of murdered women. Unfortunately this phenomenon is not far from reality. You can see in Femicide related documentaries how bodies of femicide victims were left behind. Locals in those crime rate high areas had been exposed to such gruesome sights from the early age. In a documentary few children were stating how many bodies they had seen. It was disheartening to watch them state the body counts that they had seen. Exposing to such horrors from the early age definitely going to desensitize people when they grow up. In such environment it is no wonder high number of people resort to violence when they face a problem.
Conclusion
Victor Tapia’s story helped to show many aspect of the femicide crisis, but it was poorly done. I had to watch few documentaries and read some articles to make connections between Victor Tapia’s plot and femicide issue. Problem is he was not directly involve to the femicide crisis. So basically us, the viewers as ignorant outsiders were watching Victor, another outsider was realizing the issue of femicide. If he was directly involved in such issue then the viewers would have invested more in the story arc. Actually El Chapo TV show did a better job in discussing similar social issues in Mexico.
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