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Betrayal, Murder, And The Lust For Quick Riches In Colombia

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombians do not like outsiders portraying their country as a cocaine nation, but that's not keeping many from watching a smash local soap opera about their multibillion-dollar narcotics trade.

Betrayal, murder and the lust for quick riches, while not the stuff of national pride, make for gripping television in "Cartel de los Sapos" (Cartel of the Snitches) about the powerful Norte del Valle drug smuggling organization.

Tracing how the cartel supplanted the once-mighty Medellin and Cali gangs, the series is the first to spotlight Colombia's drug lords, their surgically-enhanced girlfriends, violent lackeys and the dirty politicians and police who permit the world's biggest cocaine trade to flourish.

The No. 1-rated show is tinged with nostalgia for the early days of cocaine trafficking and the explosion of wealth it brought Colombians willing to use crime to escape the country's rigid class structure and dead-end economy.

"We identify with the story," said Diana Ramirez, 24, a waitress from Cali and fan of the show. "Sure it's ugly and violent, but it also has its charm."

The series puts the flamboyant characters of the 1980s and 1990s into historical context and shows how deeply the cartels have corrupted Colombian society, a taboo subject in the popular media until now.

The show accurately points out that many of the founders of the Norte del Valle cartel were former police officers.

Names are changed and the fun for many viewers is in identifying which characters are based on real-life criminals and their cronies, such as a top fashion model whose trafficker husband was famously chopped into pieces by a rival gang.

"SAY NICE THINGS"

The show's success does not mean Colombians would tolerate the same from outsiders. Moviegoers still hiss at foreign films showing the country's cocaine trade and news accounts portraying Colombia as a nest of drug violence are angrily dismissed here.

"The idea is that we are allowed to criticize our country, but foreigners are only allowed to observe and say nice things," Bogota-based TV critic Omar Rincon said.

"This idea is typical of Mafia families, not modern democracies," he said. "We remain in an epic state of denial."

The show premiered in June, days before the United Nations reported that the planting of crops used to make cocaine in Colombia increased 27 percent in 2007. Exports of the drug hover at about 600 tons per year, the United Nations says.

The country is attracting record investment as its cities and highways grow safer under a U.S.-backed security push. But many rural areas are still controlled by cocaine-funded groups including left-wing rebels fighting a 44-year-old insurgency.

Focused on a middle-class Colombian named Martin tempted into the drug business by promises of easy cash, the series touches on the story of the country's first cocaine king, Pablo Escobar, whose Medellin cartel was dominant in the 1980s.

It takes viewers through the war between the Medellin and Cali gangs, which started when a member of one group seduced the girlfriend of a member of the other. At least one character is killed off in every episode as Colombia's best-known actors play its most notorious cocaine personalities.

But not everyone is a fan.

National police chief Oscar Naranjo, whose brother is in prison on drug charges, says the series unfairly paints Colombian law enforcement as corrupt.

Those who want to change the channel might have trouble finding anything more upbeat. The country's No.2 show is about an accountant who steals the lover of his drug-smuggler boss and enters a witness protection

By SUERTE GRINGO on Sep 19, 2008, 16:38 in Friendly Talkzone.

RUV says on Sep 19, 2008, 16:42:

I posted this a while back.

http://poorbuthappy.com/colombia/post/cartel-of-the-snitches-scores-on...

Sounds like an interesting series.

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davidslc46 says on Sep 19, 2008, 18:27:

Just watch the Sopranos series and I think you will agree that it has all the same elements and had it been on a major channel other than HBO it would have been an even greater success.

I am never going to be Tony Soprano. He is an actor. He is just like the actors playing the parts in Cartel. But like good westerns, or good war movies, it is a great diversion from everyday life for many of us.

It's not real. It is fantasy.

Those are actors acting like badasses.

People claim also that the violence depicted in the grand theft auto video game creates violence in the people that play the game. Something about desensitizing the individual over time to violence. Normal people can seperate fantasy from reality.

Now I bet the violent history of Colombians has desensitized them to much violence. It is still a place where you can not really trust that the police will show up, let alone put their life on the line to protect your ass.

Violent lifestyles always produce the same and there are few exceptions. It is a self limiting behavior for the most part although a few innocents may get killed along the way.

At the lower levels ( blue collar ) there may be alot of violence in the culture and it reveals itself and self limits itself. But get up a little higher to ( white collar ) and most players wouldn't think of drawing attention to themselves by acting out violently.

These tendencies will always be in there somewhere till the very end in my opinion short of a miraculous intervention from God..

Political power is temporary as is all the benefit of ill gain. You reap what you sow. There is always somebody, smarter, stronger, bigger, better connected, better looking than you. if you never figure this out you will not live very long.

They are actors and to make that show anything more than actors acting is not helpful. They are not the cartel and have never been through the fire that may actually reveal if you are a man of your word or not.

In reality, the soft spoken guy who everyone assumes will act one way under pressure acts the other and the big talker who most assume won't compromise, compromises. Go figure!

You can't really predict very accurately who will and who won't.

There is no easy money!

David

What a bunch of psycho BS!!! It was fun putting it down though.

David

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Cheers Terry says on Sep 19, 2008, 22:00:

"... Just watch the Sopranos series and I think you will agree that it has all the same elements and had it been on a major channel other than HBO it would have been an even greater success..."

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Excuse me? It was one of the greatest financial/critical/popular successes in television history.

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davidslc46 says on Sep 20, 2008, 06:33:

Terry you are excused,

My point was that it would have been an even greater succes had it been on National TV channel like the Cartel. You had to have HBO to see it.

I did not mean to imply it was not popular / appealing or through the roof succesful for HBO and everyone associated.

It is my all time favorite series,

But my mother, my sister, and many others in the USA have never seen one episode.

The Cartel however, at my house is watched, by my girlfriend, her daughter, her brother, and any Colombian friends who may be visiting.

I have yet to see anyone take offense to the content of Cartel and everyone seems to be interested in watching it.

David

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