ABC-7 Xtra: border image segment 1

left >>> live where news comes first, this is “abc-7 xtra. >>> good evening, i’m maria garcia. welcome to “abc-7 xtra. are sundays your netflix night? or maybe you caught a movie tonight? by now, you’ve probably heard about or watched “narcos” netflix and the latest hollywood movie depicting the juarez-el paso border. it’s called “sicario. the juarez mayor is asking residents to boycott the movie saying it perpetuates violent stereotypes of juarez. and in el paso, city rep peter svarzbein wants the movie to start a dialogue about what the community can do to fight off this harmful image of el paso. the issue here is that the stories of drug running or violence on the border is often the only story from the border that people across the country and the world see. and officials say the fiction people see on their tv’s is de facto social commentary of our community that hinders the city’s efforts to grow economically. joing us tonight are senior field correspondent monica ortiz uribe with fronteras radio. texas tribune border reporter julian aguirre. and city rep peter svarzbein. you can e-mail us your comments and questions now to abc7xtra@kvia.com. you can also reach us at 915-496-1775. tweet me at @mariagbc7. remember to try to use the hashtag #abc7xtra. city rep peter svarzbein started the dialogue this evening at a community forum to discuss the effects of the film. our reporter darren hunt attended and filed this report for us. >> welcome to juarez. >> i do think that people’s images, especially of juarez, are not going to be improved. >> dr. richard pineda is director of utep’s sam donalson center. he said the borderland plays only a small part of “sicario, but it leaves a lasting impression. >> i think in every case that a story is glamorizing the circumstances of what’s going on, i think the impact of that always has the potential to create problems. >> it’s not just one movie, we’re looking at a constant portrayal, a narrative established at the border, you look at “breaking bad,” you lo at “the bridge. >> city rep peter svarsbein said it’s nothing new that the borderland was portrayed poorly. >> referring to juarez as “th beast,” which was probabl hurtful for people on both sides of the border. >> before i moved here a lot of people were like be careful, you know. >> katie siegel moved to el paso from boston nine months ago. i showed her a tweet from a student manager of the utsa football team in town facing utep this weekend. it read, where are we gonna eat? eh, let’s just order in so we don’t get murdered? good ole el paso. >> oh my god, that’s horrible! >> some feel films like this lead to comments like that. >> i do feel like the movie sort of portrayed juarez el paso sort of in a negative light. i kind of felt like it was in the villain in the movie a little bit. this discussion today, that’s what needs to happen and that’s how change comes. >> the best strategy is exactly this: to have a conversation about it, not to bemoan the film, not bemoan the creative industries but to think about how those kind of images are significant for how we think about the border and i think that’s why a conversation like this is important. >> joining us now is monica ortiz uribe with fronteras desk, julian aguirre with the texas tribune and city rep peter svarzbein. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> thanks for coming. >> peter, i asked you this earlier this week. a lot of people saying the discussion tonight is a good idea. but aren’t you preaching to the choir? i mean, aren’t people in el paso already aware that these images hinder the view of el paso? shouldn’t this message that there’s more about el paso than these kinds of movies, should this message reach people in the midwest or on the east coast who all they see are those movies, not necessarily el pasoans who already know? >> it starts with us having a conversation, a very frank one about what are the kind of portrayals that are put out there for our region, for our city and what can we do to offer something that’s more real, to offer a variety of narratives that show the reality here? when i used to work in new york, i worked as a free-lance photographer and i worked at a photo agency and oftentimes, they would ask me what was there in el paso? but really what they wanted to do was find the darkest of neighborhoods and they did that because that was what could sell. the problem is that we need to counter that. we don’t need to show something that’s false or that everything is all good but that things are getting better and that the reality on the border isn’t shown what’s in 10 minutes of “sicario” or another film, th there’s a lot more of a variety here and a lot more opportunities. >> monica, calvin tweeting at us it’s just a movie, people know that’s not what el paso and juarez is all about. it’s only part of the reality. and i know there are a lot of people at home thinking what is the fuss about? hollywood is hollywood. fiction is fiction. and this is a movie, a good, entertaining one at that. people know it’s fiction. what do you say to that? >> so yeah hollywood is not known for its accurate portrayal of reality and perhaps it wasn’t the filmmaker’s objective to educate us on the drug war but i think people are hungry for a better understanding of the drug war and why it’s happening and what’s behind it. as a journalist who covered the drug war from juarez since 2009, the film felt like a missed opportunity to explore that further, the drug war and its violence. i know the stories that i’ve come across on the ground in juarez are far more nuanced and complex than what was portrayed in the film, and i think people along the border and further away from the border are hungry for a greater understanding of what’s occurring, why is this violence so deep and how and why we are a part of it on the american side? >> i do agree that people are hungry for more complex, nuanced reporting. but essentially, i mean isn’t that your job, julian and not the job of these filmmakers? essentially their job is to entertain and to sell. and as peter said, it’s unfortunate, and maybe it’s at the cost of el paso and juarez but violence unfortunately in our society sells. those kind of dark corners of a society telling those stories, that kind of narrative is what sells movies sometimes. >> i think you’re absolutely right and first off it’s aguilar, notaguirre. >> i’m sorry. >> we’ve been in juarez covering the recovery efforts, and you’re exactly right, those never get shown in the main stream media. to your point, i think el paso and juarez have sort — are they drawing attention to a problem that they’re exposing in the common public good? i mean, the attention that we’re getting, is it going to draw more people to look at juarez and el paso and say well this is good, this is bad, but there are a lot of other issues they could be spotlighting here as far as el paso being sort of — this is the battle that you want to fight? >> it featured el paso only i think for a couple of scenes, one of them when they’re crossing the border, it mentions juarez, and it’s the backdrop of the movie. but it doesn’t center around the el paso and juarez community but you think it still leaves a lasting impression? >> well, any time you refer to a city as the beast, that’s not a positive or realistic portrayal. you know, the thing that’s important to get from this is while the entire movie is not centered in juarez or el paso, this again is important to understand that we are being portrayed for entertainment purposes but not everybody will take that but it’s another portrayal where we’re not defining ourselves and if you’re not defing yourself, somebody else will. so this is an opportunity to say while it’s just a film, it’s just a movie, everybody knows it’s fake, the problem is when you have over and over and over again the same kind of stereotype, the same kind of narrative shown for a region, shown for a people, that’s where it becomes problematic because, you know, it’s oftentimes that is the only thing that people see. of course, if you’re born and raised here, you see something different than that every day and we’re fortunate that we do live on the border and we see that. time and again, most people don’t have that luxury of living here, don’t have the opportunity to visit here so what they see is traffic, they see the bridge and breaking bad and “sicario. and so it’s again an opportunity to have a conversation. what is our role in shaping our own narrative? what is it that we can do to show those real stories, to show those stories that go beyond just the surface of five black suburbans down and saying that’s juarez, the beast. that’s the best? >> we have some tweets from reuben saying the world knows juarez is the number one murder capital of the world. i want to get — >> not true. >> and what about the grenades thrown in juarez where cnn advertised it for the world to see? what about the mayor of juarez, saying he lived in el paso because of death threats. so reuben making a point that juarez is violent. >> so the heaviest violence happened in 2010 in the city of juarez five years ago. and overall in juarez, there were more than 10,000 people that died and yes, things have gotten better. the violence has diminished substantially and the city is making a big effort to move beyond that violence, promote tourism and recover some of the american visitors that that city used to have but while the mayor’s call for a boycott of the film, i’m sure there are a lot of people who would argue that it’s call that it’s unhelpful or misguided at best because the city quite hasn’t moved on or transitioned from that very violent era and there are people still in juarez that are suffering from the aftereffects of the violence. some of these social organizations in juarez responded to the mayor’s call saying that the city is still vulnerable to this kind of violence. there are many orphans in juarez whose parents were killed in the drug war and they have no guidance and they’re vulnerable to being recruited by organized crime and these are problems that continue to occur in the city and without a conversation and just a call for a boycott, it doesn’t open up the opportunity to explore those problems and probably the mayor by boycotting the film is doing a disservice to his own cause. ticket sales might go up. >> and when you have systemic poverty and young people with no opportunity, they’re incredibly susceptible to be recruited by violent organizations. tom tweeting, new york, new orleans get negative portrayal but are just fine. we will be just fine. so we’re getting a lot of tweets from viewers like this and it makes me think, for example, baltimore, i mean baltimore gets portrayed in the media and fiction constantly as incredibly violent and i’m sure people in baltimore say, you know, there’s more going on in our city than urban violence. but, for example, the wire revolved around that. hit show on hbo. so there are parts of the country that producers, directors focus on the violence that’s going on there. >> but i think this movie and the sort of anger around it misses a lot of points as far as trying to figure out what else — i mean, has anybody brought up the — i don’t want a spoiler alert. >> spoiler alert, please be aware. >> i mean, there’s a line where he says, you know, as long as there’s 20% of the people over here consuming what these people are peddling, this is going to be a problem. is there a conversation about that, with the fact that the main character tells somebody’s son, that the u.s. did everything on the up and up. is there sort of a dialogue to be had on the fact that the u.s. is going into mexico and doing things that maybe mexico doesn’t agree with and is turning a blind eye to? >> providing weapons in some cases to criminal organizations, we know that happened. >> right. >> so again, touching on the missed opportunities in the film to tell the fascinating stories that exist on the border, there was a character of a mexican cop would see — who is corrupt, working for the other side. we never learn how he came to do it but there are stories in juarez that tell you why people decide to get into organized crime. i interviewed one mother, a single mother who was working two shifts in juarez assembling car parts and computer parts that we use every day. her son could barely afford a decent pair of sneakers. meanwhile, next door, there was a family involved in the drug trade, they had a nice car, they had a nice house, they recruited him and he ended up working for them and ended up getting killed. there are these different layers of complexity that are fascinating stories that could deserve some screen time. >> and thankfully, you’re telling those stories, you’re telling those stories. we have to take a commercial break. we’ll be right back. you’re watching “abc-7 xtra. you can tweet me at @mariagabc7, e-mail us at abc7xtra@kvia.com or you can also >>> welcome back to “abc- xtra.” we’re going to go to your phone calls but first, you wanted to make a point about the missed opportunity. >> i wanted to talk a little bit about missed opportunities. i think another missed opportunity with this film when you come from an economic development point of view is that the majority of that film, i mean, we’re talking outside of probably a day of principal shooting was in albuquerque, new mexico. new mexico has been able to harness a lot of film production opportunities. $1.5 billion into their economy since 2011 has been through film. so there’s opportunities that we need to be looking at to engage more of a creative sector in looking at el paso as a possible venue, as well. >> you invited the filmmakers from what i understand to this discussion. and they declined after learning — >> how this whole forum started and the reason why i’ve been so insistent on doing something like this is we reached out to the film company a little bit over a month ago. we wanted to do a private screening, inviting the public to come in for tickets and then have a panel discussion afterwards looking into representation of the border in film and pop culture. and when we reached out to the film company, they were open towards doing a screening but when they found out that we wanted to do a panel that was critical in nature, they took a step back and were not okay with it at all. and so for me, i thought it would be something important to go and still do a panel discussion on this opening weekend. again not to go and bash hollywood and to try to say we just need positive stories but to get a better understanding of how we can define ourselves and control our own narrative as a region. >> okay let’s go to our phone lines. we have mark on the far east side. what’s your comment or question? >> i just saw the movie “sicario” and it does depi juarez in a bad light but that reputation has been earned. i have employees who live there and that violence is still going on. it might have subsided somewhat. the problem is i teal from people out of town as well and they think that’s the way el paso is, unfortunately, and it’s not. and i understand why the mayor is upset but the reputation was earned and it is a very dangerous place to be in juarez, mexico. thank you. >> thank you very much. so that’s mark on the east side saying juarez’s reputation was earned. we also had a tweet from a viewer saying that’s the only way el paso is going to get away from getting a bad rap from juarez. any time we talk about this, we get that kind of commentary. >> there have been terrible things that have happened in juarez, including bodies that had been hung from a bridge in juarez. that was a truthful portrayal. and yes, terrible things have happened in juarez. but i think in el paso as well, el paso often gets billed as the safer of the two cities but the american side also has a lot of responsibility in the drug trafficking world. it takes both sides of the border for the drug trafficking option to function. drugs move north, guns move south. and we are, americans are the best customers of the drug traffickers. it’s our purchasing. >> demand. >> yes, our demand that finances their enterprise. so we do bear some responsibility on the american side. and there are crimes committed on both sides of the border. >> we learned just in the last few days of essentially a murder for hire plot that originated in el paso and went over to juarez. so there is criminal activity also happening in el paso under the radar. >> yes. i mean, i think another thing to respond here is i don’t think you can separate el paso from juarez. you can’t do it culturally, duplicating — you can’t do it economically and to try to do so goes against our west opportunities when it comes for culture and economic development and growth. even during the height of the violence in 2010, 2011, there was no noticeable slowdown in terms of the traffic. >> okay. you wanted to make a point? >> i think there’s elected officials on the local and state and federal levels, they’re in a rock and a hard place because trade is essential, and people on both sides of the border saying look, i mean this is our bread and butter. [ inaudible ] at the same time, these are the same people that are screaming about sort of — i mean — it’s like it’s all fine but when the hammer comes down, they’re saying that’s on the mexican side, not the united states side. so there has to be a balance. how do you strike that sort of delicate definition about what the reality is on both sides of the border and still facilitate that trade, which is i think even more than $1 billion a day from san diego. >> let’s go to christina on the far side. >> i just have a question. you guys want to stop putting a negative stigma to the border and i wanted to know exactly what positive things you would like to project about the borderland. thank you. >> okay. wanting to know what positive things could we talk about with the borderland? >> well, i think first there’s an opportunity to talk about economic development and trade, and i think, too, there’s an opportunity as well to really look at really binational cultural collaboration and cooperation. really, you know, taking a step forward. for a lot of artists in our community, the fact that they may be in el paso and juarez is secondary to the work that they’re making and you see a lot of that occurring where there’s a lot of artists that are going back and forth between the borders and so i think there’s an opportunity for more cultural collaboration and cooperation as well as economic ones. >> but i also think there’s individual stories of people in very dark corners of juarez bringing hope and doing really great things. i mean, you have people building orphanages, you have people raising awareness about the violence towards women and child abuse. >> one of the biggest children’s museum in latin america was built in juarez just a few years ago. the city is making an effort to remodel its downtown to be more pedestrian-friendly. too many — to me, at the height of the violence in 2010, people shut themselves away in their homes and refused to go out at night. businesses shut down and the town was basically dead after 6:00 p.m. little by little people decided almost collectively it seemed that — to stop being afraid and retake their city. they opened up restaurants and bars and started going out at night again and now there’s a vibrant scene at night at restaurants and there’s a vibrant arts scene. they have a beautiful cultural arts center in juarez that hosts all kinds of events. and so the next steps that the city is trying to take is to invite americans back in and that hasn’t quite happened. it’s happening little by little. i see more people on social media from the el paso side saying they’re visiting juarez at the tequila festival, at the movie theaters, etc. >> we have to take a commercial break. when we come back, we’re going to go straight into several phone calls and stay with us. >>> welcome back. we have a lot of tweets and phone calls to get to. let’s get straight to them. joe, what’s your comment or question? >> you guys don’t want to get a negative attitude but we need to separate ourselves from juarez because our sister city juarez, how do you expect us not to get a negative, you know, attitude? okay thank you. >> okay. joe on the east side saying our main anchor always refers to juarez as our sister city and abc 7 should stop doing that. >> again reiterate when it comes to drug trafficking, it takes two to tango. i can tell you every week i get a press release from couples and border protection that tells me how many hundreds of pounds of meth, coke, marijuana were seized at the border. what i don’t get are press releases that tell me how about bundles make it across and that has to be stored in stash houses, in border cities like el paso. the weapons, the same thing. they’re the ones coming south and there’s a center done that found that 80% of drug mules who are arrested, the people that bring the drugs back and forth, the drugs north and the guns south, are american citizens. so we can’t — it’s dangerous territory to turn away from this drug war as americans and say we have no part in it. we’re the safest city in america. >> not only that, but the gentleman’s comment about separating juarez from el paso, you take juarez county and lift it magically and put it up north without the people that come here to shop, to get gas, everything from the discount stores on stanton street to — >> to the upscale stores rely on mexican commerce. >> the malls, to the auto dealerships, and every single thing. the fact that el paso weathered the real estate storm when the entire rest of the state sunk because people came over here to rent and buy houses — a lot of the influence — [ inaudible ] >> just to add on to the gentleman’s response, i think when you look at — we could stop calling juarez our sister city tomorrow, but the reality is that when somebody’s coming to visit, whether it’s a company that’s thinking about moving here or somebody who’s looking at going to texas tech for medical school, their parents and friends are going to go isn’t el paso dangerous? isn’t it right next to juarez? so it doesn’t make a difference what we call juarez. we still have that perception that we’re connected. and it’s not — >> because we are connected. >> because we are connected. >> economically, culturally. >> and the same people that are coming here to buy a television or pair of shoes are the same people that are going south to buy a bottle of booze or some medication. >> yeah. let’s go to the northeast. oggie, what’s your comment or question? >> i’m trying to figure out why “sicario” is bad but it accepted that the narco no velas, there’s no talk about that. that stuff doesn’t hurt the border. that’s a whole nother issue and you’re using it as an excuse. >> thank you very much. that’s true. there are so many things that glamorize the narco culture, both in mexico, and now we mentioned the netflix program at the beginning of the show that’s getting a lot of attention. i mean, obviously, it’s more than just “sicario. it happened to be released this weekend. >> right. well, you know, he brings up a excellent point. i mean, the singers of narco corridos are often revered on the mexican side and the culture is practiced on both sides of the border, in dress or song, but you focus on the story of one person and that story is told, and i might argue it might be told in a little more complex fashion than what we got to see in the film. we never really got to know the characters or what motivated them. i thought it was fascinating, the character was an ex-mexican prosecutor whose wife and child were somehow killed but i never hear the back story behind that. i know i’ve heard echos of that story in my interviews and the details of it are fascinating. i wish i had known more about them in the film. >> let’s go to some of our tweets. reynolds says i guess you could say sometimes movies can be like media. if it bleeds, it leads. this isn’t bleeding, and it’s leading an entire 35-minute discussion. james tweeting, “sicario” mov with a bunch of drug war cliche cliches, beautifully shot, awful dialogue. the el paso chamber of commerce should piggyback good tourism clips of our cities, relax, it’s a film. reuben saying the movie is entertainment that people pay to see. we should talk about the more than 80,000 people who fled juarez to come to el paso. matt saying if we create a documentary portraying the togetherness of el paso, few people would watch it. violence grabs the attention of our society. and gideon tweeting i’m from baltimore. the violence will always be there, el paso will be okay but hollywood could help. and reuben saying you could promote tourism and you can promote the city, but there’s no denying the violence is here. there’s no denying it. marco saying mexico blames their woes on the drug problems in the u.s. every movie says that. now, ms. monica is quoting movies. i’m not sure which movie you quoted. but i think that’s an anecdotal comment. gabriel saying can we break away from las cruces instead? thank you so much for joining us on “abc-7 xtra. we’ve run out of time. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> i appreciate it. >> thanks for joing us. you’re far away. and i’m so sorry julian, thank you so much and thank you so much for joining us on “abc- xtra.” glad you were able to be with us. i hope you found this informative and i hope it provided more context than a sound bite. make sure to watch us next week