Heroic scripts The case of Christopher “Dudus” Coke

In 2010, Christopher “Dudus” Coke, one of Jamaica’s most powerful “dons”, was arrested and extradited to the United States, where he is currently serving a sentence of 23 years in federal prison for arms and drugs trafficking. The myth surrounding Dudus has been scripted and re-scripted, going through multiple phases of visual elaboration. Only a few photographs have circulated in the press and these scarce images have played a central role in initially reinforcing and then dismantling the myth surrounding his persona. Through its analysis of the case of Christopher Coke and other Jamaican “dons”, this visual essay argues for attention to the models of masculinity underlying myth-scripting, and the connections between masculinity and in/visibility.