自2015年Netflix播出由三位美国人制作、关于巴勃罗·埃斯科巴的剧集《毒枭》（Narcos）以来，拉美媒体中的犯罪内容激增，这部剧推动了“毒枭小说”热潮。《鹦鹉分析》（Parrot Analytics）报告称，《毒枭》及其后续剧现在占Netflix拉美犯罪题材收入的40%。关于跨性别墨西哥黑帮分子的电影《埃米莉亚·佩雷斯》获得了13项奥斯卡提名。

公众反应呈两极分化：市场调研公司Datexco的一项调查发现，86%的哥伦比亚人认为有关他们国家的剧集过分强调贩毒，而在麦德林，游客仍穿着印有埃斯科巴头像的T恤。像记者阿纳贝尔·埃尔南德斯这样的批评者认为，毒枭小说使贩毒行为正常化并浪漫化；参与逮捕“矮子”古兹曼（El Chapo）的美国缉毒署特工评估《毒枭》大约80%是真实的。埃尔南德斯将该类型的兴起与总统安德烈斯·曼努埃尔·洛佩斯·奥夫拉多尔避而不谈与帮派对抗的政策联系起来，她称这导致政府对犯罪团伙的全面正常化，并催生了一代在网上炫耀逍遥法外的新贩毒者。

制作方正在回应：哥伦比亚AG Studios与作家马里奥·门多萨正开发节目，扩大对其他拉美常见暴力类型的覆盖——性别暴力、虐待儿童以及国家行为者实施的犯罪——以避免将这些更为普遍的伤害变得看不见。

Crime content has surged in Latin American media since the 2015 release of Narcos, a Netflix series produced by three Americans about Pablo Escobar that helped launch a narco-fiction boom. Parrot Analytics reports Narcos and follow-up shows now account for 40% of Netflix’s revenue from Latin American crime titles. The film Emilia Pérez, about a transgender Mexican gangster, earned 13 Oscar nominations.

Public reaction is polarized: a Datexco survey finds 86% of Colombians think shows about their country focus too much on drug trafficking, while tourists in Medellín still wear Escobar T-shirts. Critics like journalist Anabel Hernández argue narco-fiction normalizes and romanticizes criminals; a US DEA agent involved in El Chapo’s capture assesses roughly 80% of Narcos as realistic. Hernández links the genre’s rise to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s avoidance of confronting gangs, which she says led to governmental normalization and a new generation of traffickers flaunting impunity online.

Producers are responding: AG Studios Colombia and author Mario Mendoza are developing programmes that expand coverage to other common Latin American violences—gender violence, child abuse and crimes by state actors—to avoid making those more universal harms invisible.