Description:

It does at it says on the box - I am not reviewing a the series, or parts thereof. 

If anything, I use a part of it as social commentary in the broader sense.  

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Narcos - Not a Review

Back when Narcos was released - roughly 5 years ago - a bunch of friends told me to watch it - for any number of reasons. Admittedly, the thing that put me off was 2 things:
1) as someone who abandoned telly years prior - paying for an online subscription to watch more of it, felt kind of odd.
2) supposedly a lot of it was in Spanish (my Spanish is considerably worse than my friends' English... ) and if I feel like reading sub-titles, I would rather watch art-house movies.

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Yes there would have been the option to just download the series... but I never got round that... there always were more pressing things, like work and friends and stuff... 

 

Re-watching Breaking Bad a little while back, one thing struck me - one thing I missed or forgot from the first viewing... Uncle Hank gives a book to his nephew, like as a present.
It was then that I wanted to read that book; the story of the supposedly good guys catching the most probably a lot worse guy(s). 

Instead I did what everyone else does - I chose to watch the series - the easier option... still going to read the book - no worries... 

I also wanted to watch Top Gun again - as preparation for this review here - but then figured that's not exactly necessary. The connection between that film and the series is probably flimsy at best, 
and it's not really needed to make this point:
There's most probably some love scene in that movie (if there's not, take another film, like The Room, instead...) - the type of scene that made you shift around in your seat or on the sofa when you watched it with your parents.
Most of us know that feeling - watching a sex scene on TV with your parents in the same room is definitely more comfortable than watching your parents having sex in the same room (for most people, I'd argue...),
But while you're in that living room - there's a million other places you'd rather be. 

What's changed? 

 

Well, we got Team America - who recreated the magic with marionettes... there might even have been something similar to it in Being John Malkovich... 
And, yes, there's the internet, too... let your imagination run wild - or just google search the result... 

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Either way - Narcos is full of sex. It had to be... I really adds to the story, it's both the foundation of their strong family ties; and what drives character development throughout the 3 seasons.
(I have not watched the 4th one yet, and seeing that it's released as a Mexico spin-off - I don't see it as relevant here... 
Note: I will add my comments either here at the end or in a separate piece if that seasons adds anything new... )

Anyways, do you think Pablo would have trusted the TV reporter/mistress if he didn't get to do her up the bum early on?

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I don't care what you think. It does not matter - in this regard...

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Lots and lots of fucking later... 

 

Enter Pacho - making out with his lover on the dance floor - before brutally murdering his main spectator - brilliant. 
It also shows how our species evolved from using horses to using horse power. Fucking gorgeous. 

For a guy who's getting buried in pussy that's a kick-ass move. 

And his dad told him to get fucked instead... shipped him off - out of sight, out of mind... 

There's lot of more fucking to go about... married couples, betrayal & intrigues... the kind of shit we know and love and have seen time and time again - and apparently the entertainment industry never gets tired of it.
Neither do we...
I never watched GoT - so I don't know how 'good' it would be without all the sex in that... maybe one day I'll find the time to see about making some time for it... after reading the books...

At some point it is implied that Pacho found another special person to spend a night with... 
Now, I don't know what exactly his relationship with his coloured partner was... but the blonde kid seems like a different type... maybe Pacho does swing both ways... 

We don't even get to see them kiss... We don't know if all they did that night was drink a flute of sparkles or if there was other liquids involved.
Note: my local version is rated at 16+, there might be more adult versions of the series. You don't actually see more than a boob here and there - a few more man chests, grunts and moans would not have changed much...

And later on there's a moment or so where Pacho and his old, possibly lost love, share an other moment. 
And there's a bunch of talking around the matter - Dad told Pacho he's no real man, there's no place for him a world like this. A friend even tells him "I don't judge you for that shit..." 
It's probably representation of the environment at the time... Catholic places have always been a kinda funny about that kinda thing... 

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Watching this in borderline pagan country, in a different era, I wonder:

Maybe that's why Top Gun came to mind earlier...

Much fun is and was and will be made of just how gay that movie is... sweaty shirtless men and all that... I wouldn't think of TG is a homo flick, nor would I call it homophobic... 
I did not research that topic... Good chance there's theories online for both sides...

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Narcos on the other hands, with all the politics in the series, and its liberties with the source material and historical accuracy appears to make a statement:
It includes homosexuality - because allegedly Pacho was officially gay - and even a few years ago it might have been considered very unwoke to cut that out completely (and thus drown him in cartel whores). 

Top Gun is rated as 12+ in present day UK. I probably was younger when I watched it first. 

30 years later it's socially acceptable to portray homos and queers as such in the entertainment industry. Allegedly. It is?

Yea right - it's accepted  - but no one wants to see them fuck... TLOU2 was fucking ripped apart for depicting a trans video game character having sex - not actual people/actors doing live-action sex stuff;
but a pixelated representations of them. Like most people mad about it; I haven't played the game. I don't care for it. 

Maybe it'll take another 30 years for such topics to become actually acceptable. But if you can't show it, can't see it, can't watch it, I don't know how you'll wrap your head around it.
But as long as you rainbow your social media appearance every now and again, you're probably fine where you're at. 
Or at the very least that's what you can tell yourself and everyone who cares to listen...

I'll never know what exactly Quentin Crisp meant when he'd claimed that any man willing to sleep with someone like him - that is to, let's be clear, fuck an effeminate homosexual - would never be a real man.
Maybe that was his personal opinion - his own, matter-of-factual view of his partners-in-bed. 
Or maybe it was merely what he felt that was the societal norm of the time, or that might still be the societal norm decades later, decades after his death.

Either way - I am not going to argue that Narcos as a series, nor its creators wanted to send a homophobic statement.
I'd argue that showing that those 'suffering' from sexual perversion (that's pun on Quentin getting kicked out of the Army) are still outcasts is rather a representation of our society. 
Season 3 was released about 3 years ago - it was probably not acceptable to deny homos are part of our lives - but still no one wants to see that on screen. 
It's fucking disgusting... 

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The cultural situation is disgusting - not the watching of men being physically intimate together. 

 

You'd have to ask kids nowadays if they rather watch straight or homo couples having some softcore action going on - while watching a movie with the family.

I know I probably wont ask them that - I am too terrified about their parents reactions.

 

Y'all have to figure that one out yourselves...