Home Remembering Pablo: Escobar refuses to be forgotten
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Remembering Pablo: Escobar refuses to be forgotten

  • Anna Maria Karczewska EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: November 10, 2020
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

Synonymous with Colombian cocaine and narcoterrorism, Pablo Escobar (1949–1993) was despised by the leaders of nations and became the primary target of the US government’s war on drugs. At the same time, Escobar gained fame and adulation, he entered popular culture through television and cinema, and became romanticized, idealized and turned into a myth. The aim of the paper is to analyze how Pablo Escobar became a legend and attained immortality, why this mythologizing occurred and how cultural industries added to the mythmaking process and his shaping as a folk hero.

Zusammenfassung

Pablo Escobar (1949–1993) ist ein Synonym für kolumbianisches Kokain und Narkotika-Terrorismus; er wurde von Regierungsoberhäuptern verachtet und zum Hauptziel des Drogenkriegs der US-Regierung. Gleichzeitig erlangte Escobar aber auch Berühmtheit und Anerkennung; er trat durch Fernsehen und Kino in die Populärkultur ein, wurde romantisiert, idealisiert und in einen Mythos verwandelt. Das Ziel dieses Aufsatzes ist zu analysieren, wie Pablo Escobar zur Legende wurde und Unsterblichkeit erlangte, und der Frage nachzugehen wie diese Mythologisierung stattfand und wie es der Kulturindustrie und Medien gelang ihn zum Mythos umzugestalten.

Award Identifier / Grant number: 009/RID/2018/19

Funding statement: The project is financed from the grant received from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education under the Regional Initiative of Excellence programme for the years 2019–2022, project number 009/RID/2018/19, the amount of funding 8 791 222,00 zloty.

References

Barthes, Roland: Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. New York 1991.Search in Google Scholar

Bird, Elisabeth S./Dardenne, Robert W.: Myth, Chronicle and Story. Exploring the Narrative Qualities of News. In: Media, Myths and Narratives. Television and the Press (Sage Annual Reviews of Communication Research). ed. James W. Carey. Newbury Park 1987, 67–86.Search in Google Scholar

Boswell, James: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Hertfordshire 1999.10.1093/owc/9780199540211.003.0001Search in Google Scholar

Bowden, Mark: Killing Pablo. The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw. New York: Kindle Edition 2007.Search in Google Scholar

Brooke, James: A Drug Lord Is Buried As A Folk Hero. In: The New York Times, 4 December 1993, http://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/04/world/a-drug-lord-is-buried-as-a-folk-hero.html (Accessed 30 March 2017).Search in Google Scholar

Chepesiuk, Ron: The War on Drugs: An International Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara 1999.10.5040/9798216033769Search in Google Scholar

Combs, Cindy C./Slann, Martin: Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Revised Edition. New York 2007.Search in Google Scholar

Dégh, Linda/Vázsonyi, Andrew: Does the Word “Dog” Bite? Ostensive Action: A Means of Legend-Telling. In: Journal of Folklore Research, Vol. 20, No. 1, May (1983) 5–34.Search in Google Scholar

Ellis, Bill: Death by Folklore: Ostension, Contemporary Legend, and Murder. In: Western Folklore, Vol. 48, No. 3, Jul. (1989) 201–220.10.2307/1499739Search in Google Scholar

Escobar Gaviria, Roberto/Fisher, David: The Accountant’s Story. Inside the Violent World of the Medellin Cartel. New York 2009.Search in Google Scholar

González del Pozo, Jorge: Pablo Escobar, ese hombre. Narrativa y mitología del capo del narcotráfico. In: Latin American Literary Review. Jan–Jun, Vol. 39 Issue 77 (2011) 80–100.Search in Google Scholar

Herlinghaus, Hermann: Violence Without Guilt. Ethical Narratives from the Global South. New York 2009.10.1007/978-0-230-61793-3Search in Google Scholar

Hobsbawm, Eric: On History. New York 1998.Search in Google Scholar

Hobsbawm, Eric: Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Manchester 1959.Search in Google Scholar

Knight, Stephen: Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography. Ithaca 2003.Search in Google Scholar

Knight, Stephen (ed.): Robin Hood in Greenwood Stood. Alterity and Context in the English Outlaw Tradition. Turnhout 2011.10.1484/M.MISCS-EB.6.09070802050003050400050402Search in Google Scholar

Landsberg, Alison: Prosthetic Memory. The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture. New York 2004.Search in Google Scholar

Lee, Hermione: Biography. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford 2009.10.1093/actrade/9780199533541.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Meder, Theo: Crop Circle Tales: Narrative Testimonies From the Dutch Frontier Science Movement. In: Reframing Dutch Culture. Between Otherness and Authenticity. eds. Peter Jan Margry/Herman Roodenburg. Burlington 2007, 135–157.Search in Google Scholar

Roldán, Mary: “Cocaine and the “miracle” of modernity in Medellín. In: Cocaine. Global Histories. ed. Paul Gootenberg. New York 1999, 165–182.Search in Google Scholar

Safford, Frank/Palacios, Marco: Colombia. Fragmented Land, Divided Society. Oxford 2002.Search in Google Scholar

Salazar, Alonso: La Parábola de Pablo. Auge y caída de un gran capo del narcotráfico. Bogotá 2001.Search in Google Scholar

Seal, Graham: The Robin Hood Principle: Folklore, History, and the Social Bandit. In: Journal of Folklore Research, Vol. 46, No. 1 (2009) 67–88.10.2979/JFR.2009.46.1.67Search in Google Scholar

Thompson, David P.: Pablo Escobar, Drug Baron: His Surrender, Imprisonment, and Escape, Studies. In: Conflict & Terrorism Vol. 19, Iss. 1 (1996) 55–91.10.1080/10576109608435996Search in Google Scholar

Zapata, Esteban: Interview, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu8MKvhny08 (Accessed 4 April 2017).Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2020-11-10
Published in Print: 2020-11-25

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 25.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/fabula-2020-0013/html?lang=en
Scroll to top button