Anomaly in business The authors of Griselda are Eric Newman, Carlo Bernard and Doug Miro, and the premiere took place on the Netflix platform, which presented the show “Narco” in 2015 from them.
Griselda Blanco, the godmother of cocaine, belonged to the Medellín drug organization before Pablo Escobar came to power. The peak of her power came in the late 70s – early 80s, when she launched a large-scale business in Miami, whose sales were estimated at $ 1.5 billion.
Griselda Blanco was 13 when she met her future husband, pimp Carlos Trujillo, and began working for him. By the age of 21, Blanco had three sons. After the marriage broke up (supposedly she ordered Trujillo killed), she married Alberto Bravo, a member of the Medellin cartel. Together, they began smuggling cocaine into the United States using women’s underwear. Blanco and Bravo have run a successful drug trafficking business for years, earning millions of dollars. The situation deteriorated when Griselda accused her husband of embezzling funds. The clash ended in a shootout in Bogota - Griselda survived a shot in the stomach, and Alberto Bravo died. Six bodyguards were also killed, and this showdown is rumored to have become the basis of another of her nicknames – “Black Widow”.
In 1978, Blanco and her new husband Dario Sepúlveda moved to Miami, and she quickly climbed the career ladder, becoming one of the largest drug dealers in history. In the series, Dario worked for Fernando, brother of Alberto Bravo. And Fernando ordered Dario to remove Griselda for the death of his brother. Dario, having warm feelings for Griselda, switched to her side.
In Griseld, events and their sequences are changed – something is missing, something is added. The fact that there is a dramatization of events in series on real personalities and stories is completely normal. This is beneficial to the narrative to convey as much information as possible in a limited time frame.
Much more important is not to distort the meaning. In this case, it was important to show a woman who was fighting in a male-dominated world for her right to work, and then this story illustrates equality -- that a woman can do what men can do. She arranges meetings, negotiates, sets conditions and fights back if her property is encroached.
The Griselda series is weaker than previous shows by the same authors, but it is worth noting that they themselves took this conscious risk. Director Andreas Bais (he directed 12 of the 30 episodes in Narcos) said that the hallmarks of Narcos are the narrator behind the scenes, archival inserts and coolly designed titles. None of this they wanted to include in the story of Griselda Blanco.
He is fully focused on it without switching to the political situation or referring to other leaders. Here, much attention is paid to the dramatic turns in the life of a drug baroness – betrayal of business partners, poaching couriers, harassment by the police – and her emotional reactions to this. This clearly shows the presence of a soul in her. If in “Narco” there was no talk of tears, then Griselda’s stingy tear is no stranger, she is subjected to despair and paranoia, for example, when the police are too close to her secret warehouses, and Griselda in panic calculates who in her environment is the “rat”.
To the foreground in the miniseries put forward the fact that Griselda was a woman with children and men around, who saw her first the opposite sex, and only then – the leader among cocaine dealers.
No one is serious about the fact that a woman can act on a par with a man. This line here is very bright and greasy. The nickname “The Godmother of Cocaine” sounds exotic – especially after two series about the mighty cartels of Latin America (Cali, Medellin, Guadalajara, Juarez).
Although the scale of Griseld is more modest, mainly due to the fact that she has been stripped of political lines, but the main thing is obvious and this is shown here - a woman has great power, she is able to reproduce life and resist a man / whole male society (with weapons, power and conceit). Griselda confronted a male world that underestimated her powers. In some ways, the subtext of the series is a line from the poem by William Wallace: “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” In a specific case, the world of cocaine trafficking is for sure.
Eric Newman, the producer of Narco and Griselda, calls Griselda an ‘anomaly’: “She’s an anomaly in the sense that there’s never been a woman in a drug cartel that has reached this level of fame.” But anomalies are everywhere. His anomaly could boast of the Cali Cartel in the person of Pacho Herrera, who became the most powerful drug dealer, despite his orientation.
Pablo Escobar is mentioned only once. The only man I was ever afraid of was a woman named Griselda Blanco. The only person I ever feared was a woman named Griselda Blanco.
This phrase is attributed to Pablo Escobar, allegedly it perfectly describes their relationship, their complex interaction, built on fear, respect and rivalry. But Escobar’s fear of Blanco is a matter of speculation and interpretation. It is not known what the extent of their relationship was.
There is no official evidence linking the two drug lords together, but at least they were aware of each other's existence, and the quote proves Pablo Escobar's respect for her.
The Medellín Cartel was founded in 1976 and Griselda had been in business for many years and was considered a pioneer of drug trafficking. By the time Pablo Escobar achieved his first success, Blanco was already in the cocaine market in the United States. Some people say Griselda helped Pablo when he first started by showing him how to smuggle cocaine and sharing connections in the US. Support later helped him take a leadership position in the Medellin Cartel.
In short, the Griselda series is an important addition to the existing Narcos. It shows another side of the business. The one where a woman runs.