Narcos, Netflix’s drug-trafficking drama, starts a new season Friday
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Will there be more compelling characters like the real-life inspired Diana Turbay or just the same tired female stereotypes?
The female characters on Netflix’s drug-trafficking drama Narcos seriously undermine the show’s “real-life inspired” credibility. While the first season got off to a promising start with such diverse and seemingly complex characters such as the sultry reporter Valeria Veléz and Pablo Escobar’s loving wife Tata, after a few episodes the show devolved into the usual parade of one-dimensional mistresses and wives whose importance depended on male characters.
Then the character of Diana Turbay entered the storyline. Played by Mexican actress Gabriela de la Garza, Diana was one of the first female characters not romantically or sexually linked to a male counterpart. Diana had given me so much hope, so much faith that she would be the one Latina character to forge a transformation on Netflix’s Narcos through her courage and coraje.
Most of the Latina female characters on the show are introduced with a sex scene or soon end up playing a part in one, save Diana Turbay and Pablo Escobar’s mother.
After the episode depicting her character’s death, I screamed and thought of abandoning this show once-and-for-all. First, however, I had to know more about the character. I found out through Wikipedia that Diana Turbay was a Colombian journalist, whose story paralleled that of her fictional counterpart. In real life, Diana Turbay was kidnapped by the Medellín Cartel and then killed during a blotched rescue attempt by Colombian forces on January 25, 1991.
Renewed for a second season, Narcos is without a doubt a show that has broken ground for Latino actors, culture and history. The show details the rise of cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar and Colombian Medellín Cartel from the 1970s to the 1990s. Granted, Narcos can be argued to be based on American-held stereotypes of Latinos as drug lords and criminals, but these characters create real human beings who cannot easily be categorized as “good” or “evil.” As a result, the brilliance and allure of this show finds its foundations, in large part, in the performances of Latino actors such as Brazilian Wagner Moura and Chilean-American Pedro Pascal who give hypnotizing performances.
The opportunities for Narcos actresses, however, do not reach the same level of complexity. Beyond Turbay, the female characters on the show are basically limited to wife or lover. According to Narcos IMDb page, the two women with the most airtime are Joanna Christie and Paulina Gaitan, who play Connie Murphy and Tata Escobar, respectively.
Christie’s character Connie is married to main character Steve Murphy, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agent. Connie and Steve move from Miami to Colombia when Steve is assigned to investigate the flow of cocaine from Colombia to the United States. In comparison to Tata Escobar, Connie is a more dynamic character with her own vendetta against cocaine trafficking as well as. Her airtime on the show does not always revolve around scenes with her husband. She also aids Steve in various situations, putting herself in danger to help others.
Unlike Connie, Tata never escapes the archaic role of wife and mother. She has few moments where she is more than Pablo Escobar’s domesticated and loving spouse, always appearing in the same scenes as Escobar or her children. Tata’s lack of character development or even presence parallels most of Narcos female characters, from the prostitutes to other wives.
What’s with the lack of sophisticated female characters? One could argue that Narcos’ creators are maintaining historical accuracy, but let’s be honest. Narcos takes many liberties with timelines and character depictions. The reality is that women had and have active roles in Colombia’s drug war and the Medellín Cartel, as well.
Take for example, Griselda Blanco, dubbed “The Godmother of Cocaine,” a real woman who was involved in the Medellín Cartel as a drug trafficker and assassin. Her story correlates closely to that of Escobar, so where is she in Narcos? Instead, Narcos almost exclusively focuses on the male perspective and relationships with violence and other men. (Griselda Blanco, however, will get her spotlight in an upcoming HBO movie starring Jennifer Lopez.)
Women, in general, struggle to find meaningful roles in the film and television industry and that is not accounting for the extra stereotyping that Latina women face. According to Alexandra DiPalma in her Fusion article “Hollywood’s Latino problem, by the numbers,” 37.5% of Latinas who appear on television could be described as “hot and spicy” or “partially dressed.” Latinas are at a disproportional rate illustrated as hypersexual and exotic when they are not being depicted as maids. Sixty-nine percent of maids on television are Latina, according to a report done by Columbia University in 2013 titled “The Latino Media Gap: A Report on the Scale of Latinos in U.S. Media.”
Narcos doesn’t escape similar depictions, particularly with over-sexualizing women. Most of the Latina female characters in the show are introduced with a sex scene or soon end up playing a part in one, save Diana Turbay and Pablo Escobar’s mother.
In season-one, there were moments of brilliance that hinted at a possible transformation for women on the show. Diana Turbay’s appearance was one of those instances.
A savvy, talented journalist who seems initially ready to confront the fear tactics of the drug cartels, Diana represents a woman not placed into positions of power or presence by a man; rather, she fights to create her own way and voice in a masculine world. Her position as a journalist, particularly, places her outside the dependent woman stereotype, as her job requires constant danger and independence in a setting of widespread violence. Her courage is outstanding as she weaves her way through Escobar’s Colombia.
In real life, Turbay’s killing was one of the more high profile assassinations carried out during the Medellín Cartel’s reign. Through out its most consequential years—1996 to 2003—Colombia was one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists, according to Carlos Lauría, the Americas program director, for the New York City-based Committee to Protect Journalists, which advocates for reporters operating in dangerous environments and tracks murders and intimation attempts worldwide.
Since 1992, the year after Turbay’s murder, more than three-dozen Colombian journalists have been killed in direct reprisal for their work, Lauría says. The numbers could have been a lot higher, however, if it weren’t for Colombian government security measures now in place for protecting journalists facing threats. While the Colombian system is not perfect, it has gone a long way toward protecting those who risk their lives to report the news. And other countries have replicated it, he says.
Unfortunately, politicians and law enforcers in many parts of the world lack the political will to protect journalists or are in outright collusion with organized criminal syndicates involved in intimidating the news media, Lauría says. Worldwide, killings of journalists and reprisals and intimidation have grown dramatically—increasingly linked to organized crime.
“In the Americas, in the last two decades, organized crime has grown exponentially and created a lot of problems for the press,” Lauría says. These days the violence in Colombia has been eclipsed by killings and disappearances of journalists in Mexico and Central American countries such as El Salvador and Honduras.
While it’s a pretty bleak reality for journalists in Latin America, including this sort of real-life drama not only shines a spotlight on the issue of press freedom that should concern us all, it also makes for much more interesting television than repeating the same female stereotypes.
Despite the odds, Diana not only overcomes the expectations for women in Narcos, but also represents a journalist with integrity and guts. Her dedication and lack of corruption in comparison to Valeria Velez, Escobar’s mistress and Diana’s journalistic rival, offers audiences a female character who goes beyond stereotypes; a character based on a real woman with thick skin and a complex personality.
When Escobar and the Medellín Cartel later kidnap Diana, she does not lose her nerve, using her opportunities in talking with Escobar to free other prisoners. And—Diana never has to take off her clothes or be used sexually by men in order to have a presence on-screen. Then, of course, she was dead after three episodes.
The sexualization and objectification of its Latina characters holds back Narcos from reaching its potential as a truly groundbreaking piece of work. Instead, it falls into a harmful cycle of stereotyping, depicting women as dispensable accessories.
With season two set to premiere on Netflix this Friday, September 2, one can only hope that it will showcase women who sacrifice and struggle as much as their male counterparts.
-Elizabeth Marin
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