Media Frenzy

AMLO on 60 Minutes; Frida on Amazon; Snow on Netflix

Welcome to episode 96 of Mexico Listo: Media Edition. In today’s episode, we take a brief look at 2 recent media events: AMLO’s appearance on the U.S. news show 60 Minutes, and a new documentary on Amazon Prime about Frida Kahlo. And if you stick around long enough, there will be a bonus 3rd media update that has nothing to do with Mexico whatsoever!

I watched AMLO on 60 Minutes so that you don’t have to

On Sunday, March 24, 2024, Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), appeared on the CBS news program 60 Minutes, where he was interviewed in Mexico’s National Palace by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. If you’re interested, you can find the segment on YouTube here. It’s approximately 15 minutes of quite un-insightful softballs, wherein controversial subjects (cartels, border security, corruption) are brought up and rapidly dropped. But then again, 15 minutes isn’t much time to go deep on any single subject, let alone the handful that were touched on in the episode.

If you are familiar with AMLO at all, this appearance holds no surprises. If you aren’t familiar with him, this appearance holds no revelations. A few highlights:

• AMLO thinks that Trump’s talk about a border wall is all a bunch of campaign bluster. Like any politician, AMLO is well-versed in campaign bluster, so maybe he knows what he’s talking about.

• AMLO rightly understands that immigration is almost entirely about economics - something that U.S. politicians don’t like to think about. AMLO, however, fails to mention security issues as another driver of immigration.

• Last February, AMLO doxxed a reporter from the New York Times (he publicly gave out her telephone number) for reporting on possible connections between AMLO and Mexican drug cartels. When this was brought up in the interview, AMLO claimed it was his right given that the reporter is a public figure, and was running a smear campaign. Regardless of his justifications, doxxing reporters in Mexico can lead to seriously bad consequences. Extremely bad form for Mr. Obrador.

• AMLO claims that his abrazos, no balazos (hugs, not bullets) strategy for dealing with drug cartels is working “very well”. He may be the one person on the planet who believes this; most people who study Mexico’s cartels believe this soft strategy to be an unmitigated disaster.

• Probably the most relatable part of the interview happened when AMLO pointed out that Mexico doesn’t have the drug consumption problems to the extent that the U.S. does because Mexico has “customs, traditions; and we don’t have the problem of the disintegration of the family”. I do believe that Mexico has much more cultural cohesion than the U.S. does, but access to disposable income may be another contributing factor.

• When asked if he’s been able to get rid of the corruption in Mexico, AMLO answered simply “yes”; “Completely?”, asked Sharyn Alfonsi. “Yes”. This is simply fantasy thinking. Clearly AMLO has never been pulled over for a traffic citation.

It’s been about 200 years since I last watched 60 Minutes, but I was surprised at how banal the interview seemed. But, if you are unfamiliar with AMLO, I suppose the interview is a decent introduction.

Frida Kahlo now streaming

On a brighter media-related note, Peruvian director Carla Gutiérrez has created a stunning documentary about Frida Kahlo. Titled, simply, Frida, and available now on Amazon Prime, this documentary draws extensively from Frida’s diaries and archival film footage of Frida, Diego Rivera, and Frida’s contemporary Mexico. Beyond the archival footage, the imagery of the documentary is Frida’s paintings themselves (often animated, which results in some interesting visuals). The documentary is narrated in Spanish (which makes it all the more authentic feeling and relevant), and of course subtitles in various languages are available. The runtime is only about 90 minutes. If you have any interest in Frida Kahlo and her works, I highly recommend it.

Bonus Spanish-language media goodness

On the subject of streaming Spanish-language media, Netflix’s La Sociedad de la Nieve (Society of the Snow) is a haunting and moving dramatization of the infamous 1972 Uruguayan rugby team's chartered plane crash in the Andes, in which the survivors were compelled to cannibalism of their deceased comrades in order to survive. Far from being a horror story with gruesome imagery, La Sociedad de la Nieve is about as poetic as a movie can be when dealing with such a grim subject.