The depiction of Colombia in popular culture, especially the portrayal of Colombian people in film and fiction, has been asserted by Colombian organizations and government to be largely negative and has raised concerns that it reinforces, or even engenders, societal prejudice and discrimination due to association with narco-trafficking and other criminal elements, terrorism, illegal immigration, and poverty.
The Colombian government-funded Colombia is Passion advertisement campaign is an attempt to improve Colombia's image abroad, with mixed results, hoping to promote more positive views of Colombia. Aside from the Colombia is Passion campaign, association football has been a major part in creating positive views of the country.
Movies
Depictions of Colombia in foreign films
Failings in the background research and the reproduction of the country are very common in films depicting Colombia. Some of these mistakes include showing Bogotá or Medellín as sylvatic or coastal regions, using Mexican or Puerto Rican actors (with noticeable accents), Mexican costumes, anachronisms and a general inaccuracy regarding the depiction of how the conflicts between government and drug-trading cartels work.
Some examples of fictional Colombian settings are:
Bedazzled: The Devil makes Brendan Fraser´s character a Colombian Drug Lord, loosely resembling Pablo Escobar. Most of the Spanish phrases are at times very hard to make out, and with a lot of grammar and pronunciation mistakes. Traditional Spanish music is heard in the background, not Colombian. Beginning with the butler, almost everyone speaks with a clear Spanish accent and slang, and certain elements belong to the Spanish culture, like the "Bota bag", the traditional leather bag in the shape of a boot, used to drink alcoholic beverages. Medellín is depicted as a tropical jungle. Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia: 2009 war film about a brigade of United States Navy SEALs mounting an attack on Colombian special forces to clear their names and rescue a hostage. Peruvian folk songs are heard in the background including "Mi Llamita". Filming locations were actually in Puerto Rico. Blow: 2001 drama/biopic film about the American cocaine smuggler George Jung. It is based on the real-life stories of George Jung, Pablo Escobar, Carlos Lehder, and the Medellín Cartel. Clear and Present Danger Jack Ryan is appointed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Acting Deputy Director and discovers that he is being kept in the dark by colleagues who are conducting a covert war against Cali Cartel drug lords in Colombia. Filming locations were actually in Quito, Ecuador and Cuernavaca, Mexico. The Colombian drug lord lives in "Tepoztlan" Hotel (aztec word). In the backgrounds can be seen a billboard of Mexican politician Luis Donaldo Colosio, and a portrait of Mexican statesman Miguel Lerdo de Tejada. Collateral Damage: Gordon Brewer (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger), looks to avenge his son's and wife's deaths at the hands of a guerrilla commando, by traveling to Colombia. Gordy enters Colombia through the Darién Gap. This Gap is in the Colombian department called Chocó, the most Afro-Colombian populated region of the country. However, throughout the whole movie, a black person is never shown. The National Police of Colombia and army forces use blue uniforms, instead the green they actually use. The accent of the native "Colombians" is actually Mexican. There is a scene of a soccer match, between America and Chivas, two popular teams from Mexico which are mistakenly set in Colombia. Colombiana: In the film, Cataleya Restrepo (Zoe Saldaña) is a Colombian who had her parents killed in Bogotá by a drug lord (Beto Benites) and his partner (Jordi Mollà) when she was nine years old. She goes to her criminal uncle (Cliff Curtis) in Chicago and is trained as an assassin to try to get revenge. Filming was done in Mexico, Chicago, New Orleans and France and the use of the Cattleya orchid was depicted in the film. Lord of War: Nicolas Cage plays an illegal arms dealer, which during a business deal with a Colombian drug lord, gets paid in cocaine instead of cash. Again, the accent and slang words used by the 'Colombian' drug lord are Mexican. Mr. & Mrs. Smith: A couple of assassins tell the story of their first meeting in Bogotá, Colombia, where they met during a crossfire, while both were secretly on the run from Colombian authorities. The film depicts Bogotá, the capital of Colombia as a small town, when in reality Bogotá is one of the biggest and most populous cities in Latin America. Also, Bogotá is portrayed as a warm/hot city while in reality it is located over the Andean cordilleras and has an average temperature of 58 °F all year long and has an altitude of . Filming locations were actually in California. Bruce Almighty: In the morning, Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) states "I'd better manifest some coffee", and uses his god powers to conjure fictional Colombian coffee icon character Juan Valdez who pours him a cup of coffee while stating his enjoyment for fresh grown coffee in the hills of Colombia. Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection: Colonel Scott McCoy (Chuck Norris) fights against Colombian drug lord Ramon Cota (Billy Drago), the richest drug kingpin in the world, who controls the cocaine industry with an iron fist. Filming locations were actually in the Philippines. Love in the Time of Cholera: 2007 motion picture directed by Mike Newell. Based on the novel of the same name by Gabriel García Márquez, it tells the story of a love triangle between Fermina Daza (played by Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and her two suitors, Florentino Ariza (Javier Bardem) and Doctor Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt), which spans 50 years, from 1880 to 1930. It was filmed in Colombian locations. The Specialist: Ray Quick (Sylvester Stallone) and Ned Trent (James Woods), CIA explosives experts, are in charge of a mission to blow up a South American drug dealer. Filming locations were actually in Miami. Romancing the Stone: Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) is a romance novelist who receives a package from her dead brother-in-law Eduardo, who was recently murdered and dismembered in Colombia. Her widowed sister, Elaine (Mary Ellen Trainor) calls Joan and begs her to come to Colombia with the package; Elaine has been kidnapped, and the package is the ransom. Though supposedly set in Colombia, all the Hispanic actors speak with a distinct Mexican accent. The supposed Colombian jungle features non-Colombian animals such as Australian Sulphur crested cockatoos. Filming locations were actually in Xalapa, Mexico. xXx: Xander Cage (Vin Diesel), is a law-breaking extreme sports enthusiast, which is dropped in a cocaine-producing area of rural Colombia, where Xander is captured, tied, gagged and tortured by Colombian drug lord "El Jefe" (Danny Trejo). Filming locations were actually in California. Miami Vice: Posing as drug smugglers "Sonny Burnett" and "Rico Cooper", Miami-Dade Police detectives James Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs offer their services to a Colombian cartel. The topography of Colombia's northernmost peninsula known as Guajira Peninsula is basically an arid desert, quite different from the jungle backdrop used to describe the smuggler's airplane. Filming locations were actually in the Dominican Republic. Green Ice: 1981 film. American electronics expert O'Neal is visiting Latin America and gets recruited into a scheme to steal emeralds from a Colombian consortium. Filming locations were actually in Mexico. Scarface: 1983 film, depicts a Colombian gangster dismembering another gangster with a chainsaw to extract information. Superman III: Villain Webster (Robert Vaughn) wants to monopolize the world's coffee crop. Infuriated by Colombia's refusal to do business with him, he orders Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor) to command an American weather satellite to create a hurricane to decimate the nation's coffee crop. Webster's scheme is thwarted when Superman neutralizes the hurricane and saves the harvest. In the movie, Colombia is located in the Southern Hemisphere, being actually located in the north hemisphere most of its territory. There are no hurricanes in Colombia. Sicario a 2015 film starring Emily Blunt and Benicio del Toro where Del Toro portrays a former Mexican prosecutor, seeking revenge for the killing of his family. He is referred to by the Mexican cartels as "Medellín," a reference to the Colombian "sicarios," (assassins) who were often dispatched to Mexico by the Colombian cartels to shift the balance of power, when Colombia was the drug-smuggling epicenter in the 70's/80's. Mexico was at that time competing with Colombia, for prominence in the drug trade. At one point in the film, he tells Emily Blunt's character that he "[comes from] Colombia," which may allude to him seeking refuge there and training to be an assassin, after his family was killed and he fled Mexico.
Depictions of Colombia in Colombian films
The mainstream of Colombian cinema follows the trend of the foreign cinema, depicting mostly narcotrafficking related issues, hit men stories, and films with a high content of poverty and human misery. Criticism of this type of film-making argued that these films did not treat their subject with profoundness, instead taking a superficial approach to the issues. Universidade Estacio de Sa: A VIGÊNCIA DA PORNOCHANCHADA NA DITADURA MILITAR Universidade Estacio de Sa, Accessed 26 August 2007. Some examples are: Rodrigo D: No futuro: 1990 film by Victor Gaviria. Story of the life and death of addicted teenager hitmen in service for the Medellín Cartel La estrategia del caracol (the snail strategy): 1993 film by Sergio Cabrera. Adventures of an impoverished group of neighbours being evicted from their house. La Vendedora De Rosas (Little Rose Selling Girl): 1998 film. Story of homeless children victims of solvent abuse. Loosely based on The Little Match Girl. Our Lady of the Assassins: 2000 film by Barbet Schroeder. Based on the novel of the same name by Fernando Vallejo, with Colombian cast. Depicts the homoerotic relationship of a middle aged nihilistic writer and an underage sociopathic sicario boy who works for the Medellín Cartel, with the subsequent murder rampage. Maria full of Grace: 2004 film by Joshua Marston with Colombian cast. Misfortunes of a pregnant Colombian girl as a narcotrafficking mule. Actress Catalina Sandino Moreno was nominated for an Academy Award for this role. Rosario Tijeras: 2005 film based on a novel by Jorge Franco. Portrait of the violent life and death of a sicario woman (played by Flora Martínez), in the slums of Medellín.
Documentary The True Story of Killing Pablo: 2003 documentary made by The History Channel that reviews in detail the final events that led the National Police of Colombia to the killing of Pablo Escobar and the opinion of the ones behind the operation. Black Coffee: 2005 Canadian documentary film examining the complicated history of coffee and detailing its political, social and economic influence from the past to the present day. Cocaine Cowboys: 2006 documentary film directed by Billy Corben. The film explores the rise of cocaine and resulting crime epidemic that swept the American city of Miami, Florida in the 1970s and 1980s. main characters are drug lord Pablo Escobar and Griselda Blanco, an infamous crime family matriarch. Sins of My Father: 2009 Argentine documentary film about Pablo Escobar from the inside perspective of his son
Colombia in television Foreign