May 12 2009
Cartagena and the Pop Culture
Beautiful and Romantic, are some words that can describe the views of Cartagena de Indias, a city that has inspired many artists over the centuries and well a city with a colorful past and well as a colorful present (truly a good setting for an adaptation of Gossip Girl); is know that Cartagena as well as some other points of the coasts had been subjects to illegal narcotrafic sea ports, to the point that that problem became the kidney stone in many cities but that wasn’t a huge dilemma to put a halt on the tourist industry, in fact the city as always enjoyed a good reputation world wide as one of the best destinies for newlywed or childless coupes (fact: the city is not planned as a family oriented, so don’t expect that children will have a good time) as they can find romantic getaways in almost every corner of the old city ; is really fantastic and if you are into history and visiting museums this is the place to be, but if you like bars and clubs you will find a lot of places as the nightlife is really vibrant and can compete with cities like New York and Tokyo, and even better you can go and have a drink in a 300 years old house, there are not many places in America where you can do that, but beside as a well known tourism destiny is a well know city in around the pop culture.
Probably around pop culture buffs, the most popular piece that contains references about the city is the 1984 action/adventure movie Romancing The Stone with Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Dany Devito about a novelist who travels to Cartagena (In reality Mexico and I think Guatemala) to deliver a precious gem called The Heart but in the process she finds herself in the middle of an adventure like the ones she writes about. The movie is extremely cheesy and even if it wasn’t filmed in Cartagena and portrays a weird view about the city (not only in the poster, but in everything because Cartagena don’t have valleys like that, not even in the county line) the movie caused a hit and became a sensation around movie goers of time and put Cartagena in the map (Think of this movie as an Indiana Jones for girls). Other meta-reference came a few years ago in the popular hit show Family Guy, Barely Legal, where mayor West sends the Quahog police to Cartagena to help Kathleen Turner character. There are other movies as well and in a terrible example there is the interpretation of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie Mr and Ms Smith that makes Bogota looks like a Mexican village; pure ignorance because Bogota is a city similar as New York and not a city where everybody are charros but in a good example away from Mr and Miss Smith there is Love in Time of Cholera who shows the beauty of the city adapted into Garcia Marquez book of the same name.
But recently there has been some controversies about a possible movie with Keanu Reeves that says that a movie in development with name of the city, will portray the city in a negative light and the government is seeking action to prevent damage against the name of the city, I say is something extreme because the gossip goes that is going to be a narc movie (hey San Francisco and Miami and NYC are doing ok after several gang movies, take a look at Scarface or the Epic Godfather) and after doing a research I couldn’t find any information about this movie in any of the entertainment websites beside that is in preproduction; that is why I say that is a mere gossip and the local government is acting apprehensive against the movie makers (but I guess after Collateral Damage any action taken is a good action to prevent any damage) but still I want to know who was the source that said that Cartagena is going to be a narc movie? but if is going to be a Narc Movie the best thing that can be done, is to change the plot as the city hasn’t been with that problem in a large scale like other cities in the world, and at the end the double standard of Hollywood is trying to keep the image of a dangerous place that isn’t Colombia Today .
