"Juarez, the Beast": States of Fantasy and the Transnational City in Sicario

This essay examines the manner in which the film Sicario (2015) represents Ciudad Juárez as "Juarez… the Beast"—a dark geopolitical space where globalization is experienced daily by residents as horrific violence. By representing Ciudad Juárez as "Juarez, the Beast," the film is able to maintain the necessary ambiguity that allows ideological fantasies of the state to function at a large scale. As Donald Pease explains, fantasies regarding the state necessitate an "other" that helps uphold the contradictory nature of US exceptionalism, particularly the capacity to maintain a unique, exemplary world status while engaging in practices that violate the very principles that define its exemplary status as a nation. Pease's theories illuminate the ways in which the framing of Ciudad Juárez as "Juarez, the Beast" in Sicario functions as a suturing point that anchors abstract fantasies of national identity in the concrete otherness of the US-Mexico border.