“Sol Prendido” for Borderland Beat
For the northern neighbors the bad guys are always others, the worst always happens in other countries.
Their young people are exemplary, their police and justice system impeccable and efficient, or at least that is what they sell us every day in their newscasts. But the dark side of U.S. society is nowhere to be seen.
Except in the world of fiction, or something similar, a reality disguised as fiction.
Well, and precisely in the United States, there is still a lot of talk about drug use and addictions. Topics that have been the motive for some television fiction series, if you will, but they portray part of what is lived in that country. For the neighbors to the north, the bad guys are always the worst. It always happens in other countries. Their young people are exemplary, their police, their justice system impeccable, and efficient. Or at least that’s what they sell us every day in their newscasts. But the dark side of American society is nowhere to be seen except in the world of fiction or, in other words, a reality disguised as fiction.
Let’s go back to the main characters of the 80’s when Brian de Palma and Oliver Stone gave life to Tony Montana. A Cuban migrant who arrives penniless in Miami and quickly becomes a bloodthirsty and powerful drug dealer. There we see murders, drug consumption, corrupt police and the ostentatious luxury of those who decided to live outside the law. In the 90’s Brian de Palma told us again the story of Carlito Brigante, a former heroin trafficker who has become forever ensnared in the networks of the mafia along with his coke addict lawyer.
Once again the regular use of drugs is present. So were the protection fees, violence, and murder. In the first decade of the 2000s came Breaking Bad. A high school teacher becomes the biggest synthetic drug manufacturer in New Mexico. The TV series showed money laundering, methamphetamine production and consumption, and of course the blatant violence of drug dealers. Breaking Bad won Emmy awards and was nominated for Golden Globes. Finally in 2019 the series Euphoria shows us one of the real problems afflicting American society. The consumption of drugs in adolescents who get younger and younger.
The narrative is already well known. Family disintegration, bad company, and a new lethal drug. Fentanyl. In Euforia every song and every color has a meaning. But the decline of the protagonist is so evident that no one wants to see this in their newscasts, much less in their streets. Such is the double standard of the American society that outwardly sells itself as the country of the American dream. But inside this is also the reality of a society victimized by its own hypocrisy.