By Martin Castro (The Cascade) – Email
If there’s one thing I took away from the first episode of Netflix’s new series Narcos, it’s that contrary to what the showrunners might want you to believe, there’s a very obvious political agenda at work here. When seen purely as entertainment, Narcos is a well-paced, exciting recap of Pablo Escobar’s rise to power, despite the DEA and Colombian government’s efforts to subvert the notorious drug trafficker’s operations.
The thing about Narcos, is that even though its main character is Pablo Escobar (opposite DEA agent Steve Murphy), it’s important to remember that this show was made by Americans. Why does this matter? There’s an ever-so-subtle yet always-present effort throughout the narrative some of which is actually told via voice-over in the style of Goodfellas, though not nearly as well — to portray Americans as shining beacons of truth and justice among a country more corrupt and violent than anything main character DEA agent Steve Murphy had ever experienced.
As a history lesson, Narcos fails horribly; as a piece of entertainment, it has many triumphs, the main one being that it manages to portray the growth of Pablo Escobar’s drug empire through the eyes of both a DEA agent and Escobar himself. The narration might get tiring at times (especially during the first episode, where it’s seemingly inserted at random every 30 seconds), but if you manage to stomach that, it tapers off later on in the season.
There’s no shortage of suspense throughout the show’s first season, mostly because as a viewer, you’re not quite sure who to root for: the DEA, the Colombian government (or for that matter, the Colombian people), or Escobar himself. One of the things the show gets right — and perhaps this isn’t the most interesting point to a crowd which I’m mostly sure is comprised of only English speakers — is accents and places. What this show lacks in historical authenticity, it makes up for in authenticity of the geographical variety. Most of the Colombians are played by Colombians, and the accents and subtleties of their Spanish (which is plentiful, as half of the show’s dialogue is in Spanish), are genuine to the region their character is supposed to be from — except for Escobar, played by Wagner Moura, whose accent sounds forced at times. The man looks a lot like Escobar, though, so I’ll give him that.
As the show moves on, the viewer is presented with a question: if we accept moral ambiguity at one point, saying, “Oh, yeah, that’s justifiable,” at what point do we have to stop accepting it? How many people does a policeman have to kill before he’s no longer a good guy? How many people does a drug dealer have to help before he’s no longer a bad guy? (Granted, Escobar is portrayed almost exclusively as a power-hungry killer, which, all things considered, he was).
The show answers the questions almost as soon as they’re asked though, and the answers almost always seem to verge on propaganda. But at least it’s very well-hidden, entertaining propaganda.
