Table of Content
Introduction 3
Chapter 1
Representation of the Colombian drug war in
former audio-visual commodities 6
Main themes in representations of the Latin American drug war
in former movies and series 7
The portrayal of governmental corruption in former US and
Latin American films and series 9
Gender representation in Latin and US American commodities 12 Consequences of established themes for contemporary and future
audio-visual commodities 14
Chapter 2
Representation of governmental fraud in the series Narcos and
Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal 16
Representing historical events from a national and international perspective 17 Narcos and its depiction of Colombian’s incapability 20 Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal and the shows’ national self-reflection 28 The two series Narcos and Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal in direct comparison 34
Chapter 3
The description of gender roles in the series Narcos and
Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal 36
Gender representation in television and film 37 Narcos and the Western interpretation of gender stereotype 40 Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal and the Colombian portrayal of oppressed women 48 The representations of women in Narcos and Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal in
explicit comparison 58
Conclusion 60
Introduction
“Prefiero estar en una tumba en Colombia que en una celda de la cárcel en los Estados Unidos.” — Pablo Escobar (AkiFrases)
“I prefer to be in the grave in Colombia than in a jail cell in the United States.” — Pablo Escobar
The quote above is one of Pablo Emilio Gaviria Escobar’s most famous statements that the kingpin declared after the United States and Colombia signed an agreement in 1982 for the extradition of Colombian drug traffickers who then could be prosecuted in the US. Having harder rulings, higher bars and less corruption within the US thus became the first real threat for Colombian drug lords like Escobar.
In June 2017 Netflix released the new Original series El Chapo. This show presents the life of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman the most wanted drug smuggler from Mexico. The series is in time for reminding the audience of his machinations in Latin America before the real trial will be held in a New Yorker court in 2018. The extradition rule, therefore, is still in use today for Latin American drug traffickers like El Chapo and would have taken effect for Pablo Escobar as well, when he would not have been killed during the attempt of arresting him in 1993. It is noticeable that production companies like Netflix take an interest in cases like the one of Pablo Escobar or El Chapo in order to form these stories into series and films to reach a global audience. There are countless examples that demonstrate the popularity of such dramas that evolve around drugs, sex and violence. A leading role in this debate has the Netflix Original series Narcos from 2015, which gave the story of Pablo Escobar and his life a revival and entertained an international audience. With Netflix being a video on demand platform that is probably the most popular one in recent years, offers like the series Narcos and now also EL Chapo attract and reach a much bigger audience than television shows that are and were part of only a national television program. Hence, it becomes from interest if this fact of a global audience has an impact on the content of depicting the Latin American drug war. It also shows that the topic of this thesis is of current interest and worth examining.
In the regular US American television, the first wave of integrating other ethical groups started with depicting African Americans and was followed 10 years later by the representation of Latinos and Latin Americans (Goldman, 48). With the popular soap opera genre, the Latin American telenovela found its way on the US market. The two new categories “telenovela rosa” and “telenovela de ruptura” focus on different topics than the shows before. Exploring the narco telenovela Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal in this thesis means concentrating on the latter genre
that examines national problems and that is critical to prevalent issues (Dunn and Ibarra, 115). The series often are rather different from the shows of the 1970s because:
[W]ithin the melodramatic paradigm, national characteristics have been accentuated even while international distribution and exposure have contributed to a complex web of pan-Latin American influences. What is most intriguing about the telenovela genre today is precisely how the melodramatic works with, on the one hand, the nation and its cultural characteristics, and, on the other, a self-consciousness about other markets and other Latin American cultures. (Lopez, 261)
With the integration of that genre, the USA demanded certain changes in the content selection, for example, including more scenes of sex and political issues and less focus on marriage (De la Luz Casas Pérez 409). Due to that development, the genres in Latin America and US America progressed in various ways. This will, moreover, be the main focal point of this thesis to elaborate on how these regions depict the drug war from the 1980s. Using the series Narcos (Netflix, 2015-present) as a case study for the representative examination of US Amercian narco series and Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal (Caracol TV, 2012-present) for Latin American’s shall exemplify the diverse representation forms of the drug war in Colombia. Choosing the two themes of gender representation and governmental fraud portrayal to explore the similarities and differences of the two geographical regions will give a first overview and idea of the complexity this topic offers. Hence, the following research question will be the guideline throughout this thesis: To what extent differ the US American representation of gender and corruption in the series Narcos from the one in the Latin American narconovela Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal?
By introducing in the first chapter former films and series and their manners of representing the narco war in Colombia this will shad light on and stereotypes used to be portrayed. It presents US American habits to depict the Colombian drug war and possible reasons for it. And in contrast to that former Latin American representation habits will be revealed in the next step. This will be followed by the second chapter, which investigates the theme of governmental and police fraud in Colombia. Through analysing predominantly the dialogues between the characters and the plot constellations, the research will point out specificities of the respective series. Adding visual particularities to certain examined scenes provides for an even deeper inquiry and understanding of the subject matter. Discussing one series after the other will make it possible to compare the analysis and make clear which similarities and which differences can be detected within this narrative. The last chapter is constructed as the second one and explores the topic of gender representation within the audio-visual examples and mainly focus on the portrayal of women.
These sections all together will allow a following indeepth discussion to establish the developments and stagnations within the genre. Here, the research question mentioned above will be answered and an outlet for the future will explain the necessary prospective examinations that will be needed in order to deepen the results of this thesis.
For clarification reasons will the following thesis use the term “Latin America” to mainly describe the countries of Colombia and Mexico and their regional involvement in the drug war together with the US.
Chapter 1
Representation of the Colombian drug war in former audio-visual commodities
Shortly after the release of the series Narcos (Netflix, 2015-present) Pablo Escobar’s real brother, Roberto Escobar, claimed that the whole series is based on lies and that he wants to give a content-related approval for the second season and profit participation (Denk, n.p.). It does not end with Escobar’s brother: Pablos’ son, now known as Sebastian Marroquin, also used his father as a model to write a book and participate in documentaries and, therefore, profits financially from his family background. By far, they are not the only ones turning the story of the son of Medellín into a commodity in order to entertain a huge audience that still desires new interpretations and representations of the former Colombian drug lord, be it literature, music, clothing, clubs, movies or series, customers and fans are willing buyers. As Miguel Cabañas argues, with these new commodities “a new vocabulary to describe these phenomena now punctuates journalistic discourse: narcoculture, narconovelas, narcodemocracies, narcoaesthetics, and narcoreligion” (Cabañas 2014, 4).
This chapter will examine specifically earlier movies and series from 1970-2000 and their themes in order to be able to make a comparison between the Netflix Original series Narcos (Netflix, 2015-present) and the Colombian narco-telenovela Pablo Escobar: El Patròn del Mal (Caracol TV, 2012-present). Differentiate the themes of the first chapter from the two latter ones will help to elaborate how certain themes might still be depicted in our present time and what has changed since then. Therefore, the first part will be an introduction to the main themes in the narco related movies and series to establish a basis and an overview of the thematic in general. The second part will elaborate deeper on the representation of corrupt governments from the two different perspectives of, on the one hand, the USA and, on the other hand, of Latin America. This will lead to the third part of this chapter, where the focus lies on the gender representation in narco-themed audio-visual goods. It will examine where the portrayals of the different regions exhibit similarities and disparities. The three parts together form the foundation for the following in-depth discussion about the differences between national and transnational representations of Latin American history.
Main themes in representations of the Latin American drug war in former movies and series
Narcoculture, in general, entails the depiction of “drug traffickers and the world of growing, processing, distributing, and consuming illegal drugs [...]. It also includes the effects of these activities on individuals and communities, the formation of protection networks and money laundering, their association with power structures, and their contribution to political corruption” (Cabañas 2014, 6f). Miguel Cabañas deducts that because this narcoculture is always an interpretation and a product of different interest groups it will, hence, always be subjective and a “partial reality” (2014, 7). Keeping this in mind will help to understand the diverse representations of the drug war in Latin America.
Within this culture, different countries tend to portray the effects of the narco world in various ways. Therefore, it is important to recognise first of all the differences between Latin American telenovelas and the well-known US Amercian soap operas. The Latin American telenovelas in general include love stories in some form and are streamed during the day as well as during the primetime and therefore “capture a more diverse audience in terms of age, gender, and class” (Goldman, 56). Moreover, they are seen as an event, where viewers meet and watch the newest episode together instead of being isolated like it is common for viewers of soap operas from the United States. Furthermore, telenovelas have a predetermined time limit and never run for 30 years like US American versions sometimes do (Goldman, 56). They are so beloved now “that well-known actors want to appear in these stories, such as the star of La reina [del sul], Kate del Castillo, an acclaimed actress in Mexico and the U.S.” (Dunn and Ibarra, 115) Because telenovelas from Latin America seem to be such a good export product, Hugo Benavides argues that the “melodrama might be the most successful and culturally authentic revolution affecting the continent since the 1960s” (Benavides, 2). The thematic of narco in movies appeared in 1970 and created new and specifically focussed film crews that were denounced “for their populist appeal and their glorification of drug-related behaviour and violence” (Benavides, 2f). But Hugo Benavides wants to make clear that the triumph of melodramas does not necessarily mean that they are an accurate pictorialisation of the Hispanic countries:
It [melodrama] soon became one of the most successful forms of cultural representation throughout Latin America. This does not imply that melodrama is the only, or even an authentic, form for expressing Latin America culture; it is simply one of the most successful. This is important, as it clearly is a waste of time (and energy) to wonder about authentic representational traditions, since almost always the ones we choose will lose the
popular support of those they are supposed to represent. Rather, it seems important to assess the varying success of popular representations instead of arguing about their authenticity from a particular, officializing standpoint. (19)
It is more important to reflect on narco-dramas and their possibility to create an ‛emotional democracy’ that nurtures their popularity and at the same time reifies the social distance between ‛real art’ (which is what the elite consumes) and the melodrama as the main form of popular entertainment (Martín-Barbero 1987 qtd. in Benavides, 11). In the time of the rise of telenovelas, revolution and guerrillas were present in Latin America and television became a part of almost every Colombian household. “To an important degree, both revolution and telenovela mark a way of making globalism essential within the local landscape of Latin America and of representing the local to a global audience (and market)” (Benavides, 198).
According to Nick Morgan, these narconovelas “used the backdrop of Colombia’s cocaine trade to tell violent stories of poverty, crime, and corruption in high places, a focus that earned them the generic name telenovela noir” (54). These shows focus on depicting problems like “illegitimate children, misplaced identity, the burden of social conventions, amorous rejection, and the ever-productive notion of forbidden desires, sexual and otherwise” (Benavides, 2). They portray “gender, religion and colonial discourse[s]” (Benavides, 172) in order to reach a wide-ranging pallet of topics that the audience is interested in and can relate to.
In many ways, narco-drama can be seen as falling between [ ] other melodramatic film genres. Most narco-films elaborate a story contained within the larger context of the drug trade and incorporate both a violent Mafia ethos and the martial arts. They almost always present a patriarchal power structure and beautiful women parading themselves as sexual objects and exploit a melodramatic structure of excessive sentiment, musical cues for the development of the plot, and a moral metanarrative of local good versus global evil. (Benavides, 15)
Describing the consequences in particular for Colombia, Cabañas argues that this genre tries to clarify the reasons for the bloodshed that happened in this country while at the same time the ultimate aim seems to be to cast light on the normal lives of the society in that state during the war. “The genre further contextualizes Colombian violence within the transnational economic and political processes of globalization, capitalist consumption, and neoliberal reform” (Cabañas 2014, 11).
As Hugo Benavides points out, parody supposedly plays an important role within the genre. With the “over-the-top dramatic acting” the series and films present the main issues and conflicts in a way that the audience needs to decide who really is presented as “the good guy”. There seems to be no strict classification between characters, which depict a good character and one, which does not. “The fact that any of these characters can be seen as the hero (or antihero)
pinpoints the ambiguity of parody in the plot. Parody thus stands at center stage of narco-films” (Benavides, 179).
The important fact about telenovelas and their success is that they made it possible for Latin Americans to see themselves represented as main characters for the first time (Benavides, 116). The representational forms of the narco theme are divided into two possibilities: either they “fictionalize historical figures and real events” like the telenovelas El capo or El cartel de los sapos do, or they “focus on nameless women or fictional characters who interact with the world of drug trafficking” as one can see in the examples of Sin tetas no hay paraíso or Las muñecas de la Mafia (Cabañas 2012, 75f).
The show Sin tetas no hay paraíso is probably one of the most influential narco-telenovelas of the recent past. It is based on the book of Gustavo Bolívar Moreno and was adapted a couple of times for example in Spain and the United States, after its grand success in Latin America (Cabañas 2012, 75). According to Cabañas the fame of the ensuing narco-telenovelas was possible “after Sin tetas no hay paraíso had spread around the world. The narcotelenovela is attractive to audiences not only because it offers a window into the world of criminality but also because it contains global themes and shows the dark side of globalization” (2012, 76).
Coming back to the typical technics of telenovelas in general, Hugo Benavides claims that the methods like the “overdramatization, emphasis on emotion rather than logic, use of music to mark key relationships, characters as symbols of ethical values – are still the key elements of telenovelas throughout the Americas and therefore are also part of all these telenovelas’ cultural and historical representation as well” (10). They are embraced and used in narconovelas like in any other telenovela sub-genre and support the content that the viewers are used to.
The portrayal of governmental corruption in former US and Latin American films and series
An important topic in narco-telenovelas is the unethical behaviour of government officials. When the Latin American government, in general, is acting in illegal ways or people of the Congress and the police show corrupt behaviour then this becomes interesting for the genre’s narrative. Latin American states have historically been involved in the drug trafficking business since the countries were swept by drug money in the 1980s. Government officials got financial compensations when they overlooked the criminal machinations of the drug cartels (Mercille
2013, 116). This created a basic distrust of Colombians as well as internationally, which is also depicted and often emphasised in television and film productions. Especially the United States tend to focus on that issue as Shannon O’Neil describes it: “‘The U.S. media breathlessly proclaims that Mexico is ‘on the brink”’ (64).
In general, one can roughly divide these depictions into the two perspectives that are of interest here. The first position describes the US and their belief of the incapable Latin American states. The opposite side forms the Latin American territories, which criticise their neighbour’s involvement and its own corruption to justify the situation that got out of control in Mexico, Colombia several other countries. Thus, US American mistakes and its involvement in the drug war find especially a space of interpretation mostly in Latin American telenovela versions. Therefore, both sides tend to focus rather on each other’s mistakes. But it is to say that Latin American narco-telenovelas also include national governmental corruption in their own versions in order to justify the criminal behaviour of the main characters in their shows and films. Narco-telenovelas use the negative image of the drug traffickers and their unmoral behaviour to draw a parallel between them and governmental exploitation:
The antihero gets his status and compassion of the audience because he likes to do the same things that the (Mexican) state(s) does to its citizens – exploit them, kill them, rob them for its own reproduction – and in doing so gets back at the state to a degree beyond any citizen’s possibilities for revenge. It is this many times explicit revenge against the state (and its representatives) that is the most satisfying image in the narco-drama and why redemption often requires multiple deaths, since revenge could occur in no other way. (Benavides, 127)
Hugo Benavides argues that the typical bad cop is represented as the US American character who fights against Latin American drug traffickers and illegal immigrants. It is this Latin American version that transforms the main criminal figures in the narco-drama into less bad people in the eyes of Hispanics (123).
It is as if, through these stock characterizations of bad foreigners and local heroes, narco-drama has also been able to escape the official observation of the border from the north. It has done this by portraying the stereotypes that the north expects, all the while ridiculing that same north, which is unaware of its own stereotypes and stock characters. (Benavides, 124)
Depicting narcos in an improved way also has the effect, that these characters can become commodities themselves that expand worldwide which creates fans who are willing to pay for related products of the show or movie (Cabañas 2014, 10). An often-shared view of media transforming the image of a socially unaccepted behaviour in something that the mainstream viewer slowly gets adjusted and interested in is also argued in the case of narco-telenovelas.
Adalberto Santana states that those films and television series turned drug trafficking and the use of drugs into a governmental problem that strengthened state power and enhanced the desire for the forbidden. The depiction of sex and drugs are part of the reason why soap operas are so successful. They also may support governmental decisions to proceed against drug dealers and drug use (Santana, 236ff). This point of view, though, implies that the viewers of those shows are not in any way critical and consume the presented content as a given. Nevertheless, it is meaningful to keep the mediated opinion in mind when discussing transnational commodities, which are, on the one hand, influenced by the genre itself but also by the national common sense. Regardless, not only US narconovelas depict Latin American governments as corrupt. The Hispanic countries often depict those inefficiencies themselves, where justice is not served:
[T]he narconovela does not stage the inclusion of the historically marginalised sections of the population. Instead, it represents the mise-en-scène of the darkest threads of contemporary common sense, bringing into being a shadow world, stripped of all comforting features, in which deceit and corruption are the norm and trust is only for fools. Rather than as an imagined community, these narratives figure Colombia as a dystopia in which the structures of power are hidden and criminality and injustice go unpunished. (Morgan, 74f)
These “unpunished” crimes than are used as justification for drug lords and their negotiators to behave like they do. With having no role models in the official government, the anti-heroes are able to create new laws that enable criminals and corrupt police officers to operate on the same level of amorality.
The US versions, on the other hand, focus on implementing the weak and helpless Latin American states, so they find reasonable ground for their military involvement in those countries. As Julien Mercille claims, the engagement of the US American government in the movie business allows the state to control and steer the content in a direction that is promoting the political actions in the foreign countries (Suid, 2002 qtd. in Mercille 2013, 111). “Indeed, popular culture messages reflect elite views of US foreign policy because the media-entertainment industry is itself part of the corporate establishment” (Mercille 2013, 110). Mercille, therefore, argues that the content that Hollywood is producing is always favourable toward the concerns of the political economy in the US (2013, 111). These depictions then are supposed to legitimise closer military relations with Mexico and the other Latin States (Mercille 2013, 112).
Julien Mercille argues that popular culture plays an important role in conveying these political values to the population (2013, 114). In the interest of this value creation, US movies and series portray, for example, Mexico as disorganised and anarchic and this shall, in the next step, explain why an intervention is necessary. “Mexicans, cartel members or not, are often depicted as crooked, corrupt, mischievous, and in general less worthy than the U.S. officers chasing them” (Mercille 2013, 119). Julien Mercille also argues, that US America only depicts
military and police actions against the drug cartels in order to promote the actions that were taken in reality. The reduction of drug consume or rehabilitation facilities in the own country are never presented (2013, 119).
[C]ultural productions’ portrayals of the drug war in Mexico and Washington’s involvement in it closely reflect U.S. government and mainstream views. Thus, intervention in Mexico’s affairs is seen as legitimate, militaristic solutions to drug problems are emphasized, Mexicans are shown in a bad light, and beyond cartels, street gangs, and cops there is not much else to be discussed. Such productions make U.S. foreign policy more acceptable to the public by neglecting to mention key aspects of U.S. responsibility in drug trafficking, notably, the failure to implement tight gun control and money laundering regulations and to support more treatment and prevention programs, in addition to the negative consequences of neoliberal reforms. (Mercille 2013, 123)
Mercille criticises that the US media portrays Latin American countries harshly but at the same time neglects its own “responsibility in the drug trade, in particular, the role neoliberal reforms have played in increasing its size”(2013, 124). Curtis Marez, nevertheless, sees in the reflection of “state power, foreign policy, and transnational capitalism” within media goods like literature, movies and series, the positive side effect that the society is able to understand “larger political-economic power relations in the Americas” (3).
Gender representation in Latin and US American commodities
When examining narco-telenovelas, one can establish two main themes that seem to be included in nearly any narco-related portrayal. On the one hand, the just elaborated depiction of corrupt and malfunctioning governmental institutions on both the US and the Latin American side in the genre and, on the other hand, the representation of gender. This entails the sexualized depiction of women and the hypermasculinity of men. Elaborating on this particular topic in this section will help to get a sense of the specificity and peculiarity of narco-telenovelas and their popularity for their viewers. As Jane Arthurs claims, television is not conceptualised as a medium that advocates the equality of women, particularly when they are depicted sexually in any way (Arthurs, 97).
Men and women, in general, have often predetermined roles in cultural commodities that reappear. The authors Jennifer Dunn and Rogelia Ibarra summarise the distributed gender portrayals that men are being depicted as rather rational thinkers and ambitious whereas women’s bodies and their relationship towards male characters play a more important role (117).
In the last decades, this negative view upon women is dominant in films and series about narco drug trafficking. Nevertheless, it is important to examine the representation of gender roles in older commodities to be able to “captur[e] the social tension of all narco-dramas and narco-culture in general” (Benavides, 173) and, on the other hand, to manifest the changes of audio-visual concepts concerning female empowerment.
Examining the hypermasculinity and the role of women in narco-telenovelas, Miguel Cabañas describes the use of women’s body parts as follows:
The eroticization of the War on Drugs in the form of women’s body parts becomes an interesting and contradictory game of mirrors. The War on Drugs is both a story of consumption and a fetishized tale for male and female viewers alike. After all, the prime-time audience of most soap operas enjoys seeing sexy actors playing stereotypical and complex characters. This is emphasized in the Telemundo version [Sin tetas no hay paraíso] by starting each episode with maps of Colombia, Mexico, and the United States superimposed on the image of the naked body of an attractive dark-haired woman. (2012, 81)
Starting a show with that emphasis and that implementation suggests a fitting following hour of that kind of entertainment for the audience. It catches the eye of potential new viewers and satisfies the hunger of amusement for the regular audience. The author Cabañas uses the narco-telenovela Sin tetas no hay paraíso as a case study to explain the exploitation of women in this genre: “Sin tetas explores the ways in which women’s bodies are objectified by drug traffickers“ (2012, 79) and at the same time by the viewers themselves.
Sin tetas no hay paraíso is a series that was adapted in multiple countries and, therefore, undergone a diversity of different interpretations and representations. Nevertheless, the portrayal of women seems to be almost the same in all of the versions. Women are depicted as victims who need to be saved by “patriarchal institutions such as the state“ and are suppressed by the consistent focus on drug traffickers and their dominant gender (Cabañas 2012, 77). The portrayal of men, on the other hand, focuses on “their vulgarity and lack of style” (Morgan, 69). It is less the body and the natural features of men that are of interest, but rather the objects that the drug lord is able to buy and surround himself with by using the money that he is earning with the drug business.
With presenting male characters in shows in such a way, women are either depicted as supporting this lifestyle in order to become rich women on their own, or as victims of these men. There seems to be no in between. Interesting in the example of Sin tetas no hay paraíso is the fact that the adaptation of the Telemundo channel seems to have expanded the focus on the US American involvement in the war on drugs with their special unit DEA and also included scandalous episodes about women and their exploitation and involvements in drug trafficking,
which makes them look weak and helpless (Cabañas 2012, 77f).
In Miguel Cabañas opinion, all telenovelas have the opportunity and the potential to ‘refine’ or ‘redefine’ gender roles. When showing women how they are making their own choices and their involvements in the drug war, the audience would get a wide-spread picture of female representation. But in the current version of Sin tetas no hay paraíso, the dominance of the “hypersexualized narco” is leaving little or none space for developing a new representation of the female gender (2012, 77). The “tendency toward violence and unbridled promiscuity“ in the different interpretations of Sin tetas no hay paraíso shows the viewer an intense machismo of drug traffickers who suppress women (Cabañas 2012, 79). But one can also argue that through the pictorialization of weak and exploited women and their strong and suppressing male counterparts, the audience gets confronted with this exaggerated image and that beyond national boundaries (Cabañas 2012, 75). How and if the series of interest in this thesis Narcos and Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal exploit the possibility of changing gender representation will be revealed in chapter three.
Consequences of established themes for contemporary and future audio-visual commodities
Recapitulating the mentioned general themes in narco-dramas and the two topics that are from deeper interest for the discourse between the US and Latin American representations of the Colombian drug war, one can argue that the depicted content always relates to its origin country and region. And moreover, it depends on how much the media and politics are involved in the production process (Cabañas 2014, 9). Overcoming the issue of not being able to criticise any Latin American state for its mistakes in the drug trafficking business, Nick Morgan argues that modern versions of narconovelas are now able to „represent Colombia more directly“ because they, moreover, adopted new language styles „from el parlache and la jerga canera, the gritty slang of Colombia’s street gangs and prisons“ and, therefore, are more relatable and believable for new generations who are watching this content. (59). These genres contribute to the possibilities for Colombians and Latin Americans, in general, to get ‟redemption and revelation” for their past and their cultural heritage (Benavides, 12). Moving on from telenovelas being mostly a genre for female viewers towards the narco-telenovela which combines “the telenovela rosa and the telenovela de ruptura” which, on the one hand, creates a varied audience and at same time allows female protagonists to rise as main characters in a male dominant genre (Dunn and
Ibarra, 132). Presenting either the Latin American states as corrupt or blaming the United States as intruders is a practice that both “sides“ still are using. With Latin America including its own guilt, one can see progress within the genre. In contrast, the US American point of view lacks such a self-reflective perspective, where addicts are shown in rehabilitation facilities or prevention measures are shown (Mercille 2013, 124). Research has shown, that military action against drug trafficking is in fact not the most effective way. The next step would be to include a softer approach to reducing the drug demand in reality as well as showing it in audio-visual content (Mercille 2011, 1650). Nevertheless, it is clear that the genre narco-drama has evolved in the last couple of decades and that recent series and films diverse from the ones that were released in the 1970s. Thus, chapter two and three will elaborate on the two contemporary series Narcos (Netflix, 2015-present) and Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal (Caracol TV, 2012-present) and their interpretations of Pablo Escobar’s drug business in Colombia, which might differ further from the older ones.
Chapter 2
Representation of governmental fraud in the series Narcos and Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal
One of the topics in Internet discussions about the US American production Narcos (Netflix, 2015-present) is focussed on the Brazilian actor Wagner Moura who plays Pablo Escobar in the series. The actor did not speak Spanish at all before he was casted for the role and, therefore, had to learn it from scratch with the result that native Spanish-speaking viewers were disappointed when hearing that the main role was not speaking proper Colombian Spanish. On reddit.com a lot of complaints were posted about the fact that the US version of Pablo Escobar’s life failed to portray numerous national figures because they have Puerto Rican, Mexican and other accents instead of the original Colombian sound (User mfcabrera). The most asked question was about the production company and its decision not to cast native speakers, not even for the bigger roles. However, it seems the Spanish that the characters are speaking is good enough for most of the viewers who are precisely not native speakers and cannot tell the difference, which is indeed the most targeted audience. The main idea of this chapter is concerned with the question of how the two series portray the Colombian history by using the theme of governmental corruption as the first focal point to compare the two audio-visual commodities and the national and international forces that come into play when producing Narcos (Netflix, 2015-present) or Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal (Caracol TV, 2012-present). Comparing the regional differences of the series will then lead to the overall theme of this chapter, which tries to find out the reasons for certain contrasts and similarities in depicting the drug war and the two topics government fraud and gender.
The first step will be a theorization of national and international productions, in which “national” will describe the Latin American and especially the Colombian region and “international” mainly the United States and its interpretation of the narco theme as the representation of the evil state power in Latin America. This section will then be followed by a close analysis of this topic within the series Narcos. Trying to examine on how the US production may or may not influence and steer the depiction of corruption in a geographically close country that was the number one supplier of cocaine during the drug war. Comparing this perspective to the analysis of the Colombian series Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal will offer a space for the elaboration on how strongly content is channelled and formed by the production country or if the category of a genre is of more importance. Theories by Daniela Franco Velázquez, Robert J. Bunker & José de Arimatéia da Cruz, Juan Piñón and Mauro Porto will, among others, establish
different perspectives that can help to form a broader view on this topic and to manifest new research fields.
Representing historical events from a national and international perspective
In the context of national and international representations of the drug war in Latin America, I will consider the two different positions in this case study. On the one hand, the Hispanic countries, which are processing their own history and the violence that took place every day on the streets. On the other hand, the Western point of view with a focus on the United States, which created among others the demand for more and more drugs and it’s dealing with rising drug-related crimes. Robert Bunker and José de Arimatéia da Cruz argue that when comparing Latin American and US American interpretations, one can see that the former has a closer relationship to mortality and that this is indeed attributed to the “national experience” (713).
No matter which genre — narconovela, docu-drama or documentary — in the end, both national heritage and the chosen genre come together and form a hybrid that interprets the previous historical occurrences in a certain way. If “national experience” is the main influence for Western countries to depict the drug war differently, then it will thus be handled as the main issue of this chapter. As Daniela Franco Velázquez describes it for the Latin American region, the countries now are able to depict the terrible circumstances that used to be part of the population’s everyday life, in their independent way so that the audience can relate to the story because they actually lived through it and, therefore, the “filmmakers have tried to raise social consciousness” (9).
According to Piñón, the tensions between the countries of the United States and Latin America are accountable for the way “cultural-industrial process[es]” are proceeded and how commodities are formed in order to allure national and international viewers (Piñón, 668).
The production of telenovelas, once an almost exclusively Latin American genre, is now increasingly being mastered by production teams at NBC, Sony, Disney, NewsCorp., Viacom, and TimeWarner, in joint ventures with smaller local independent production companies. Such partnerships – while involving cooperation between local and transnational companies – are also starting to challenge the long hegemony of transnational corporations such as TV Globo, Televisa, and Venevision. (Piñón, 668) According to Joseph Morgenstern, films and series can positively inspire the watching audience by pinpointing at malfunctions and problems of the society (Morgenstern, 50). Hence,
talking about the depiction of corruption within the narcos topic becomes of even more interest. It seems clear that the theme of narco is from importance within the Latin American society because of the countries immediate history. Nevertheless, it also becomes popular within the US because it is, on the one hand, a history where the USA played an important role and, on the other hand, are the two biggest groups of illegal immigrants in the United States formed by Mexicans and Colombians who searched for rescue from their own impairment state (Passage, 5). Producing content that might be of importance for these groups can have an impact as well.
Edgardo Manero states that the biggest hazards for the United States are “drug-trafficking and organized-crime activities, terrorism and political and social instability” (27). That is part of the reason why the US invested in “the third largest military assistance program in the world” an amount of 289 million dollars in the year 1999 (Passage, 19). Being of interest in real life US America makes the topic interesting and relevant for entertaining goods like film and television series. So when it comes to portraying the drug war, the United States reflects this topic quite differently than Latin America. As Bunker and Cruz note, the motives that are mostly used in the US American narco cinema concern the fight between good and bad. Either the good party wins, or no one succeeds or even both groups end up with losing (714). These story lines then are often filled with tragic family stories associated with the drug business and venal governments but also with “the threats the narcos represent to the United States” (Bunker and Cruz, 714).
For Latin American productions of narco-dramas, as already mentioned in the first chapter, it is vital that they depict the immoral behaviour in their countries and the struggles that the society is dealing with. By doing so, Benavides argues, that “narco dramas are not simply emotional relief or a form or relaxation, but provide alternative moral structures in a society full of corrupt politicians, law enforcement, military, and businessmen” (18). Focussing on the cocaine business, the political fight against it and the interference of US America in that war and in that region, are the main topics shown in a narco-telenovela or narco-drama (Cano, 6). Depicting these countries in a rather bad light became a theme in the 1980s where telenovelas started to establish “a general attitude of cynicism and pessimism about the country (Porto, 60). Mauro Porto mentions the different point of views of authors who either support the argument, that narco-dramas have the power to change current social patterns and were a reason, for example, in the case of Brazil, why the unexpected winner Fernando Collor de Mello became president in 1989. Or are, on the other hand, the ones who believe that “telenovelas [are] ‘mirrors’ of reality“ without a progressive function for political change (Porto, 61). Not just Mexican or Colombian series are showing corruption as a main part of the content but also Brazilian ones, like Porto detects. As a result, the already existing doubt in governmental truthfulness is further enhanced and political progress may also be impeded through this strongly negative image (Porto, 64). Narco-dramas can, therefore, be seen as cultural assets that have the
power to influence the society and reflect on the general national identity (Porto, 64) in a good but also in a bad way. The fact that corruption is still an immense issue in the Latin American states makes the portrayal of it even more meaningful and intense. The gap between the upper and lower class only slowly reduces and the rich who inhale the positions of politicians often don’t even understand the needs that the poorer population has (Passage, 2f).
The thought of Pobutsky is also relevant at this point who argues that one should see any Latin American film production about a narco story as “a form of national self-reflection”. When comparing them to US productions one has to take into account their national identification in respect of the international representations (Pobutsky 2010, 34). Statistically, the main connection that the world has to Colombia and some other Latin American states is the drug trade, which suggests a one dimensional and mediated view that is supported by the wave of new narco commodities (Pobutsky 2010, 33). This wave also supported the Colombian market and its new option of producing narco related-shows:
In the struggle to find an internationally saleable and relevant Colombian voice in telenovelas, producers found a genre that addresses the vicious nature of some con- temporary socio-economic and cultural problems as a key source for narratives: narco telenovelas. By focusing on drug trafficking, producers found a narrative that could touch upon realities affecting both the rich and the poor, the urban and the rural, and the different countries across the region affected by a growing criminal web and its corrosive socio-cultural, economic, and legal implications. Narco telenovelas emerged in the search for the right strategy to reach hemispheric audiences and proved to have appeal around the world. (Piñón, 664)
By focussing, on the one hand, on the failure of Latin American countries in the suppression of drug production and drug trafficking and, on the other hand, making it into a film production that is attractive for a global retail by mixing it with Hollywood features allowes this genre also to be valuable for the US market. Hence, this attractiveness of the narco topic for the US had the consequence of increasing US American productions that illuminate the historical events from the perspective of the “guardians” who were involved in the drug war as well but did not have to fight this war in their own country. This perspective will be representatively analysed with the following case study of the US American Netflix series Narcos.
Narcos and its depiction of Colombian’s incapability
Having focussed on the theoretical approach about the different national and international depictions of state fraud in the first part of the chapter will now be followed by an analysis of the series Narcos. This US American television show portrays the hunt for Pablo Escobar from the perspective of the US American DEA officer Steve Murphy, who moved to Colombia in order to stop the drug trafficking towards the United States.
Cover picture of the series Narcos (Netflix, 2015-present) (2)
Based on a study that Maria Alejandra Cano conducted, the average Colombian viewer that watches Narcos does so to only fill leisure time. For the audience that classifies itself as a US American citizen, this show enabled more than half of the study’s participants to actively engage with other people (Cano, 22). Cano suggests with this estimation that the reason for watching such an US American production is different for viewers who are connected to the cultural heritage of Colombia compared to the ones who have rarely or none personal connection to it. This opening point suggests, that the docu-drama has different purposes for different nations, which may also be due to the fact that the representation of cultural facts is depicted from an US point of view.
It is one of the main differences between this series and Latin American versions that it tells the story of the hunt for Pablo Escobar from the perspective of the US American police officer Steve Murphy, who moves from Miami to Colombia with his wife, in order to restrict the massive drug trafficking of cocaine to the United States. Murphy states in the first episode that: “This was my war. This was my duty. I was ready to fight it. And my wife was ready to fight it with me, too” [00:54:11]. But also admitting at the same time a few seconds later, that “all that patriotic bullshit was right out the window”. This is an exemplifying statement for the show,
where the hero underlines his “Americaness” and his connection to the homeland but at the same time confesses that this can change under certain circumstances. This split between nationalism and self-reflection about the own mistakes is a tool, which is used in Narcos a lot and especially in the first episode “Descenso”.
Each episode of Narcos is introduced with the same statement:
This television series is inspired by true events. Some of the characters, names, businesses, incidents and certain locations and events have been fictionalized for dramatization purposes. Any similarity to the name, character or history of any person is entirely coincidental and unintentional. (Narcos, Netflix, 2015-present)
With this disclaimer, the creators of the show are declining any responsibility for the historical accuracy and at the same time know that by mixing real historical figures with fictional ones, that the audience is in most of the cases not able to distinguish between fact and fiction.
Showing the private life of the US American police officer and his family suggests the attachment of the viewer to the protagonist and underlines the US point of view on the political situation in Colombia during that time. Next, to this position, the show starts depicting Pablo Escobar and his growing involvement in the drug trafficking business. Already in the 15th minute
of the pilot episode, the first bribe is depicted, as a young Escobar convinces frontier police officers to accept money in order to let a hand full of trucks with illegal content through the blockade. The corrupt and venal Latin American states are introduced here for the first time, showing what the US has to deal with in exchange for the safety of their citizens.
The story line of Narcos starts to unfold when Escobar is ordered to the police station where he walks in with a smile on his face because he knows that he already owns the police officers, but he is still arrested soon after because the policemen are not satisfied with the amount of money they earn by helping the smuggler ring. Knowing that he has enough wealth to buy his freedom, Pablo grins into the camera while they take his arrest picture. This scene then is underlined by the real and famous mugshot of Pablo Escobar from 1977, again blending the borders of fact and fiction in order to convey the message that the show wants the audience to believe. Creating plots towards a well-known and well-documented real event, the series tries to convey a feeling of truth. Mixing fact and fiction makes it difficult to separate the two things from each other. By including archive footage, the feeling of truth is believed of being reinforced and the goal might be that the US Amercian perspective is questioned less than one would a purely fictional story.
But Narcos is also critical towards the US American liability on stopping the drug flow into the northern countries through the Mexican border. Showing the disasters of the US involvement in Chile during the Nixon reign or calling Reagon a businessman who started to fight the drug trafficking only because it started to affect the US American economy are examples
where the audience also is confronted with US mistakes. By stating the first ridicules undertakings of the United States law enforcement when setting bail for any little drug trafficker at an amount that was easily paid by the drug cartels in Colombia, the series includes failures of the US American government and how much time passed by until real efforts were taken to undermine the drug business of the south.
Referring back to the “patriotic bullshit” that Murphy mentions at the beginning of the show, Narcos creates a counter picture to the DEA force and their noble policemen when showing Javier Peña, Steve Murphys’ partner, sleeping with prostitutes in order to get information and together with Murphy bribing a police officer in exchange for leads. Nevertheless, all that happens under Peña’s control who is depicted as a Latin American officer who speaks and connects with the Colombian people, whereas the real Javier Peña was born and raised in Texas. Hence, letting the uninformed audience believe that the Latin American officer is willing to use illegal ways in the interest of achieving his goals and that the decent US American citizen Steve Murphy just gets trapped in the middle of it all.
The show not only depicts the police as corrupt but also the press. When Pablo Escobar decides to run a political campaign in order to be elected in Congress and stabilise his position as a wealthy man and his drug business, he starts an affair with Valerie Velez, a television news anchor, who is supposed to create a positive image of him and to undercut any bad press for him. She also acts as his adviser in the race of his candidacy where following dialogue was staged:
Valerie: “You need a proper political campaign.”
Pablo: “I buy the press, my love. And as far as a political party, I am quite sure that I can buy one of those as well. I don’t want to be good. I am going to be great.” [Episode 3, 00:05.58]
Still from Narcos (Netflix, 2015-present), Episode 3, [00:05.59] (3)
He is talking about the New Liberalism party, that he is going to bribe in exchange for fulfilling his dream of being a politician and even the president one day. He is putting the corruption of the media and the politicians on one level and suggests to the viewer that during this period of time one could absolutely buy everything one desired. Visually this scene is presented with Pablo sitting in a tub smoking a cigarette. Valerie, on the other hand, is sitting outside of the tub and nealing next to him. She is naked and exposed to the viewer’s eyes. Valerie is helping him to achieve his dream of becoming president and at the same time is supposed to fulfil his sexual desires. Whenever Pablo is talking, the camera captures Pablo’s face and Valerie’s back in order to present the audience some part of Valerie’s body. When it is the other way around, one only sees Valerie alone in the picture with a close-up of her face. This opens up space for interpretation that Pablo’s male body is not as desirable as Valerie’s female curves. It suggests that the audience rather sees women naked than men and the exposed position of Valerie underlines the hierarchical structure of a kingpin and his suppressed mistress, which will further be elaborated on in chapter three.
Steve Murphy’s voice comments this dialogue soon after with the words that a drug lord running for the presidency was “the embodiment of the Colombian dream” [Episode 3, 00:06:34]. That Pablo Escobar bought houses for the poor in exchange for nothing. But one could also actually say that he bribed them in a clever way. With their support, Pablo was able to create a big voting net of loyal people, who saw him as one of them but who made it to the top and still did not forget the less fortunate Colombian people.
of Luis Carlos Galán and Rodrigo Lara, who are fighting against Pablo Escobar with all their political power. The rest is presented as villains, which is how the common society assumes politicians to be. When one of Pablos’ men is filling the car with many machine guns, Pablo argues: “You are meeting up with politicians, not with gangsters.” And his gunman Poison counters: “Aren’t they the same thing, boss?” [Episode 3, 00:15:50]. One can see, that the common public represented by the character Poison sees no difference between politicians and criminals.
After being named Minister of Justice, Rodrigo Lara talks to the American Ambassador about the situation with Pablo Escobar who might win the poll and she states: “It is not America’s role to get involved in other countries elections.” To which Lara ironically reacts: “Once again the hand of the United States remain invisible” [Episode 3, 00:31:35]. Narcos uses this scene to reinforce the picture of the good United States, which are not getting involved in any illegal machinations to prevent democratic elections. With Lara being the only one in the Congress who dares to speak out against the kingpin Escobar, he is able to push him out of the Parlament soon after and becomes Pablos enemy number one. The “good” police officer Steve Murphy, therefore, asks Lara to wear a bulletproof vest just in case, but in the end, Lara does not wear it and gets shot by Pablos’ men.
The fourth episode of Narcos deals with the new law of extradition that the United States enacted in order to convict drug traffickers in the US itself and not their origin country. Steve Murphy discusses that issue of catching the bad guys with Horacio Carillo, head of the military:
Murphy: “With our help, you will.”
Carillo: “Oh, that’s right. Gringos to the rescue.”
Murphy: “It’s one fucking man against the United States of America.” [Episode 4, 00:03:50]
Still from Narcos (Netflix, 2015-present), Episode 4, [00:03:50] (4)
Steve Murphy declares with his statement, that drug trafficking and the kingpins are the biggest problems for the US and not for Colombia itself, or the rest of the world that also gets its main drug supply from Colombia. Making it a problem mainly for the US American continent, the primary audience gets addressed and is involved more personally than before. The scene visually starts with the Colonel being on one side of the table representing Colombia and Murphy and his partner Peña on the other side as US American police force. As the conversation goes on, Colonel Carillo starts walking around the table and the DEA officers, which symbolises to some extent the centre position of the US. With spending a high amount of money and creating a special police unit to help Colombia fight the drug war, the US positions itself as the helping hand that wants to decide how this battle is dealt with. According to Matthew Hill, US Americans, but also the general audience, must be enhancely critical when it comes to films and series depicting US interferences in other countries politics. By representing them as the good people who fight against the bad ones, the audience must realise that:
[US] America is a global force in the world that exerts its will over other nations and peoples—as do all great powers —when its political, economic, or national-security interests are at stake. Narratives that obscure this fact and suggest to Americans that they are still, always and everywhere, the friend of the oppressed, are corrosive to an informed citizenry that cares about human rights, equality, peace, and security. (Hill, 1306f)
Acknowledging, that there were also a lot of good cops in Colombia, which is stated by Murphy, is supposed to even out the big gap between the countries and their representations. Because this testimony is followed by the description of General Jaramillo, who is, nevertheless, not part of the “good cop group” the show, therefore, tilts back to represent yet another corrupt and at
the same time high ranked Colombian. This technique becomes an inherent part of Narcos’ narrative form.
When in real life Pablo Escobar was being photographed in Nicaragua while loading an aircraft with drugs in 1984, Reagan reacted on live television and explaining that this was proof of Nicaraguan officials being deeply involved in the drug trafficking business as well. With this photograph, the war on drugs began and more and more evidence against Escobar was carried together in the Colombian court. The series uses this background to let one of Pablo’s allies ask their lawyer:
Gacha: “Can we buy someone in the court?”
Lawyer: “Unfortunately no. It’s the only institution in this country that is incorruptible.” [Episode 4, 00:32:55]
Stills from Narcos (Netflix, 2015-present), Episode 4, [00:32:55], (5) and (6)
Pablo’s allies are sitting together with their lawyer on a table in front of Pablo’s house. Everyone is dressed in light colours, which creates an informal atmosphere of a garden party with a generous laid buffet. In the background, one sees a handful of guards carrying guns. The scene resembles one of the Italian Mafiosi encounters and looks somehow cliché and more for the purpose of fulfilling the expectations of the audience and their thoughts of how meetings of drug barons should look like.
Minutes later the show depicts M-19 fighters who were bought by Escobar to attack and burn down the court and with it, all the proof against him and his cartel. Steve Murphy’s voice comments on these pictures: “In the United States, the Mafia makes witnesses disappear so they cannot testify in court. In Colombia, Pablo Escobar made the whole court disappear.” [Episode 4, 00:38:35]. Again, Murphy highlights the differences between the countries and how outrages the situation was in Colombia, and, therefore, tries to reinforce the acceptance and endorsement of the measures that were taken afterwards. It suggerates that because of the barbaric behaviour in Colombia and in a metaphorical sense in whole Latin America, these countries are in need of US American help and their involvement in politics and police enforcement. These examples are just a few of the situations and scenes, where the audience can detect the narratives of fraud within the Latin American state. It, therefore, represents just a brief insight in the series and its depiction of the US America as the “good” country against the “bad” and sickly state Colombia.
Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal and the shows’ national self-reflection
Comparing now the previous statements to the Colombian version of the drug war in Latin America and its kingpin Pablo Escobar will underline the differences and similarities between the two productions. Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal is a mini-series that started in 2012 and was a popular interpretation of Pablo Escobar’s life when one regards the television ratings. This also can be related to Pobutsky’s argument, that no matter how much damage Escobar created in the Colombian nation, he still seems to be a character that plays an interest in the Colombian society and also worldwide (2013, 268).
Cover picture of the series Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal (Caracol TV, 2012-present) (7)
Right at the beginning of watching the show, one can find a similarity of the two series, namely that both depict media institutions and journalists and their corrupt behaviour. Conspicuous in Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal is that it shows the employees Don Guillermo and Niky of the newspaper El Espectador, a small town paper, as particularly good who try to find out Pablo Escobar’s secrets and his clandestine machinations as a drug lord. Bigger television stations are in contrast portrayed as venal. This is shown through the arrangement Pablo Escobar makes with Regina Parejo, a television news anchor, who becomes his mistress and creates a better public image of him by not mentioning any drug related scandals. One can see the parallel narrative to Narcos where only the name of the television news anchor, Virginia Vallejo, is changed. Soon after, Pablo gets elected into Congress and his plan of becoming president one day is in reach. This impression is juxtaposed by the representation of Gloria Pachón de Galán and Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, who form the opposition against Escobar, as they are depicted as family men who rather play with their children and are faithful to their wives instead of creating plots and schemes and have mistresses. No matter how small the chances might seem, Galán and Lara don’t give up, and they attack the corruption in the political class as well as the media. With this
tenacity, Lara becomes such a big threat to Escobar, that he spins a plot that will involve Lara in a corruption scandal himself.
Like in Narcos, the show has one of its showdowns when Rodrigo Lara Bonilla is assassinated by Pablo’s men. But instead of just mentioning it in one episode like it was the case in the US version, the Colombian adaptation presents Lara as a hero, who risked his life to save Colombia. The time between the public humiliation of being seen as a corrupt politician and his assassination is in the narco telenovela much longer and more intense. The viewer gets prepared for his death when Lara is warned not only once but twice to be careful and safe. He also gets warned by the Colombian reporter Don Guillermo instead of the DEA officer Steve Murphy like he was in the US American version. Hence, the emphasis lies on the “good” Colombian citizen who tries to make his country a better place without foreign help. When the assassination takes place, the suspense is reinforced by the gunmen who are not shooting at their first attempt but who are coming back a second time in order to finally kill Lara in front of his house. Being found by one of his little sons underlines the tragedy of him leaving three sons and his beautiful wife behind who have leave the country then and flee to Spain. With Lara’s loss, the series depicts a landmark within the media that start accusing Escobar and the cartels of celebrating the death of the Minister of Justice. Pablo Escobar is furious and proclaims: “Bullshit. Does it look like I’m celebrating? That’s how this country’s media works. They love injecting poison into the news” [Episode 13, 00:26:29]. The two cousins, Pablo and Gonzales, are depicted in front of a farmhouse that rather looks simple and not as fancy as the other luxuries places, the audience sees Pablo normally in. This scene plays in favour of his argument that the media institutions in Colombia are exaggerating and making up lies. Nevertheless, it is noticeable that this moment is breaking character because Pablo is normally really depicted with expensive objects and alcoholic beverages that would suggest that he is having a good time. Therefore, only this one time when the audience hears the radio announcement does the content not fit to the depicted situation when it would all the other times.
Still from Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal (Caracol TV, 2012-present), Episode 13, [00:26:30] (8)
After Lara’s death, Colonel Jairo Jiménez is replacing Lara by being represented as one of the honest men who are not bribable. The show spends much more time on the topic of Lara’s death than the US interpretation. The whole country is being shown as mourning for the politician and that the majority of Colombians are not supporting the drug trafficking business and Pablo Escobar’s machinations.
In the next episode, this topic is apprehended again when showing a three minutes’ retrospect of Rodrigo Lara Bonillas’ life and his good deeds. All future politicians and police officers, which are trying to fight the cartels, are compared to Lara’s bravery and the sacrifices he made.
It is noticeable that the Colonel and his men are not shown with US American police officers. One always gets the impression of Colombians working alone and the DEA is not involved in the search for the cartel members. This only changes, when the US American aircraft pilot Harry Bill is caught and turned into an informant for the police and the DEA is interrogating him on US soil. In episode 18, the Colonel Jiménez is honoured by the DEA director in a Spanish speech for his good work against drug trafficking. Hence, the DEA is adapting to the country they are in right now, not like in Narcos where most of the officers’ switch to English in order to make it easier for Officer Murphy and, therefore, for the international audience. Ergo, this version does not focus on foreign help as it seems, at least not visible because when Pablo starts negotiating with government officials about his surrender and his offer to be arrested and to be kept in a house that he builds just for his captivity, Pablo states: “I say this with honesty, sir, we may be crooks, but we aren’t stupid and we’re convinced that the Minister of Justice’s murder is the total responsibility of the USA and the DEA’s government” [Episode 15, 00:24:27]. Here, the
United States and its anti-drug program is blamed by Escobar, even though he ordered the assassination himself. It is just a plea to accuse the most dangerous country for Pablo, in which he could be arrested and prosecuted. He, therefore, needs to convince his counterpart of his innocence in this affair. Later in the plot, when Colonel Jairo Jiménez is blackmailed by Pablo Escobar and he, therefore, must move into another house with his family for their safety, he has the following conversation with his wife:
Jiménez: “Well, how do you like it [house]? Beautiful?
Wife: “Well, yes. It [assassination] will happen at the Police Club.” Jiménez: “The DEA gave us a new van.”
Wife: “The DEA? No way, it’s beyond a joke that our security is in the hands of gringos when we should be responsible.”
Jiménez: “No, no, General Uhoa is helping us. Just look at our security team. Let’s not be unfair, darling. [Episode 20, 00:03:26]
Still from Pablo Escobar: El Patrón del Mal (Caracol TV, 2012-present), Episode 20, [00:03:28] (9)
The couple is shown in their new house having a conversation on eye level and, therefore, a relationship that differs from the ones that Pablo Escobar has with his partners. They stand close to each other, not to show one own’s strength but because both opinions are equally valuable, which is also underlined by their body language. During the dialogue, Jiménez’ wife touches his arm to suggest support and he himself gives her a kiss on her head. They do not agree on how to handle the current situation but do not let that influence their marriage and their behaviour towards each other.
