As a convoy of United States federal agents heads east on the Border Highway in El Paso, one agent turns to the other and says, “There she is, the beast,” as they look at the city on the other side of the border. The movie “Sicario,” from director Denis Villenueve and starring Emily Blunt and Benicio Del Toro, was released in the United States in early October and has been met with opposition from the citizens of Cd. Juárez, where part of the film takes place.

Leading the charge against Sicario is Juárez Mayor Enrique Serrano, who strongly disagrees with the lawless and violent way in which Juárez is depicted. He also raises questions about the responsibility of Hollywood and the impact it could have on moviegoers.

“They don’t cite the events as historic events, but as if they were the reality we live today in our city,” Serrano told Excelsíor, a national Mexican newspaper. “The truth is we are far removed from those events. We did live through something similar, but now Ciudad Juárez is in a much different situation.”

After being the world’s most deadly city in 2011, the statistics concerning violence in Juárez have reduced drastically. The accuracy of the movie is not necessarily what is in question, but the fact that it is a period of time the city of Juárez has tried hard to overcome and forget. Serrano and some of the residents of the city are afraid the bad portrayal of the city in “Sicario” will prevent people from visiting Juárez.

The movie’s release has caused reaction on both sides of the border. El Paso city Rep. Peter Svarzbein organized a forum after a screening of “Sicario,” where people could express their thoughts about the movie.

“I saw those people hanging from the bridges in Juárez, I saw the people without heads,” said Blanca Callasco at the forum. “We’re trying to bring back life to Juárez and these movies just bring back bad memories.”

People who minimize the importance of the film and its portrayal of the city and its people point to the fact that, although the situation in Juárez has improved, there still remain a lot of problems spanning from corruption and leading to violence and insecurity.

“Of course it’s bad to stereotype people and depict a place in a negative way,” said Howard Campbell, anthropology professor at UTEP. “But Serrano’s comments are hypocritical for the reason that the violence continues in Juárez.”

Others such as Graciela Rubio, who was in attendance at the forum arranged by Svarzbein, don’t believe it will impact the city negatively for the simple fact that it is a movie–it’s fiction.

“It’s fiction, it’s very well done,” Rubio said at the forum. “I do not think it will keep people from going to Juárez.”

It is not the first time the portrayal of Mexican people on the silver screen causes controversy, it has been happening ever since the inception of films. The idea that movies, fictitious or not, impact society as a whole is a view shared by many scholars and the responsibility Hollywood should have in making movies has been a topic of debate for many years.

“One of the issues that we have in Hollywood is that, historically speaking, they’ve never represented Mexicans very fairly,” said Roberto Avant-Mier, associate professor of communication. “This goes back to the 1900s and the days of silent films.”

Misrepresentation of the Mexican people was present in old western movies, where Mexicans were portrayed as bad guys and banditos, and although the western genre has mostly died out, the negative portrayal continues in other forms. Even if the stereotypes shown in movies are not directly responsible for the issues society currently faces, Avant-Mier believes they still contribute in their own way.

“Scholars very definitively say that these stereotypes are harmful in that the ways that mainstream America views and understands, for example Mexicans, or Mexican immigrants or Latinos or illegals,” Avant-Mier said. “The sort of perception of them as bad guys and criminals, bad people, banditos–it does really have real-life implications.”

The idea and power behind these representations becomes stronger because of the number of movies there are about Mexicans. It is something Avant-Mier calls the burden of representation. The less movies there are depicting a certain culture or race, the bigger impact it can have on the public.

The fact that there are just not a lot of movies representing Mexicans, puts a bigger burden on the few that do exist, the weight they carry in impacting people’s perception is larger.

“It wouldn’t bother me so much if Mexicans were represented in a variety of different ways,” Avant-Mier said. “If you have 10 movies about Mexicans and one is about drug dealers, it’s not that big of a deal. But it there is 10 movies and nine are about drug dealers, most people are going to get the impression that that’s what Mexicans are.”

Although he would like for these types of movies not to be made, Avant-Mier understands and acknowledges Hollywood’s rights and purposes, while at the same time pointing out the right of the public to share their disagreement with a film that can have consequences for an individual, a city and a culture as a whole.

“People want to make Hollywood movies, they’re there to make money,” Avant-Mier said. “Who’s to say what they’re doing is wrong? They have a right to make money and we have a right to be upset of these representations and images.”

Campbell said one has to look beyond the movie and focus on the issues of corruption and violence.

“I think that this attempt to blame everything on Hollywood is a way of diverting blame from the problems of corruption within the Mexican government and the problem of U.S. consumption of drugs and sale of guns,” Campbell said. “We should really focus on those things and the violence occurring within Mexico and not on whether people are depicted badly or in a positive way, even though that does matter, but that’s not the most important issue I would say.”

Luis Gonzalez may be reached at [email protected].