Animating infrastructures, or how an illicit tunnel becomes a global media spectacle

ABSTRACTThis article explains the affordances of animation to create compelling and emotionally resonant stories for global consumption by analyzing the animated depictions of the tunnel used by Mexican cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán to escape prison in 2015. Animation contributed to the international recognition of the tunnel and El Chapo’s escape story by rendering select characteristics from this otherwise illegible structure into easily communicative excerpts across popular culture sites and journalistic outlets. This analysis considers several features of animation as a communication medium that make it appealing for globally resonant stories: lack of linguistic markers, scalability, vividness. Finally, the article concludes with a critique of the obfuscations that may result from centering animated depictions of illicit infrastructures in journalistic and government reports, particularly the erasure of broader political implications in favor of visual spectacle.KEYWORDS: AnimationtunnelsCNNMexiconarcotraffickinginfrastructures Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Notes1. The italics in this quote are my own, to signal the moments where the journalist’s voice rises to express admiration.2. Officials took down the video and uploaded an updated one hours later after realizing the first version erroneously stated El Chapo’s arrest date as January 9.Additional informationNotes on contributorsJuan Llamas-RodriguezJuan Llamas-Rodriguez is assistant professor in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Border Tunnels: A Media Theory of the U.S.-Mexico Underground (University of Minnesota Press, 2023).