Cyclical Productions of Gang Aestheticization; Dominant and Counter-Rhetorics Surrounding the Mara Salvatrucha

This thesis approaches the field of Working Class studies by analyzing the multiple aesthetic forms of the Salvadoran gang, the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). To do so, this argument is divided into two sections. First, I explore how specific films and memoirs formulate the popularized reception of the MS-13 by echoing middle-class values (Rodriguez, Anders, Fukunaga). The second section of this thesis looks to the gang's development of counter-narratives as a response to these dominant narratives. Through disidentification of the body, language, and homeland, the MS-13 negotiates predetermined class boundaries and enters the mainstream view. How is cultural capital defined through formulaic representations? How do dominant narratives about the MS-13 follow a history of working-class symbolic capital? What does it mean to willingly embody themes of savagery, excess, tastelessness, and the unmodern? Ultimately, the MS-13 demonstrates an unwillingness to perform conciliatory productions of labor for the Latino body within a hypercapitalist structure. By looking at these cyclical productions, we may better understand the classed and racialized politics of representation in popular U.S. culture.