Pablo Escobar and Colombian Narcoculture

How the legacy of Pablo Escobar inspired the development of narcoculture in Colombia and around the world



In

the years since his death in 1993, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar

has become a globally recognized symbol of crime, wealth, power, and

masculinity. In this long-overdue exploration of Escobar's impact on

popular culture, Aldona Bialowas Pobutsky shows how his legacy inspired

the development of narcoculture--television, music, literature, and fashion representing the drug-trafficking lifestyle--in Colombia and around the world.



Pobutsky

looks at the ways the "Escobar brand" surfaces in bars, restaurants,

and clothing lines; in Colombia's tourist industry; and in telenovelas,

documentaries, and narco memoirs about his life, which in turn have

generated popular interest in other drug traffickers such as Griselda

Blanco and Miami's "cocaine cowboys." Pobutsky illustrates how the

Colombian state strives to erase his memory while Escobar's notoriety

only continues to increase in popular culture through the transnational

media. She argues that the image of Escobar is inextricably linked to

Colombia's internal tensions in the areas of cocaine politics, gender

relations, class divisions, and political corruption and that his

"brand" perpetuates the country's reputation as a center of organized

crime, to the dismay of the Colombian people. This book is a fascinating

study of how the world perceives Colombia and how Colombia's citizens

understand their nation's past and present.



A

volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in

Latin/o America, edited by H?ctor Fern?ndez L'Hoeste and Juan Carlos

Rodr?guez