Dear villa: The marginalist ecstasy on television and in the argentine narrative in the zero years

Abstract

In the months before December 2001 and even in a stronger way in the years that
follow, a significant interest in social exclusion seems to increase and take over
journalistic micros, series and documentaries in Argentine televisión. At the same time,
different cultural manifestations like the cinema and cumbia undertake the task of
narrating the routine of those that live in the urban periphery. The fenomenon has its
replica in literary fiction and thus many writers of the new generations begin to chronicle the social emergency in their narratives and focus their attention on the space
of villa miseria. Among these texts there can be found Cuando me muera quiero que me
toquen cumbia. Vida de pibes Chorros (2003) by Cristian Alarcón, Santería (2008) and
Sacrificio (2010) by Leonardo Oyola and La virgen cabeza (2009) by Gabriela Cabezón
Cámara. Closer to fascination than to political denounciation, literature will sway
between the aesthetization of desperate delinquency and the bizarre celebration of
marginality. Such options bring together the narrative to the show put on by television
programmes such as Policías en acción or Crónica TV reports.