Essay Example on Narcos and The Big Short Netflix series Narcos and Movie

Final Essay Narcos and The Big Short Netflix series Narcos and movie The Big Short take place in very different settings Narcos takes place in Columbia in the 1970s through 1990s Narcos focuses mainly on the informal economy The informal economy consists of jobs sales and markets that aren't regulated by the government The Big Short takes place in America in the early 2000s and focuses on the formal economy The formal economy is regulated by the government and for the most part legal Although the story lines are very different there is something they have in common Money leads to larger impact criminality As we see in both the more money Escobar and the men of The Big Short have the greedier they become As their greed increases as well as their money their impact increases The crimes started off small nationally and directly As the men gain more money greed and power their actions begin to impact more people indirectly The men of The Big Short and Escobar symbolize money differently Escobar symbolized money with power In Columbia most of the people surrounding Escobar are poor 

The more money Escobar had the more powerful he becomes The men of The Big Short work in the financial district Therefore they are surrounded by similar lifestyles and incomes Although the more money they had the more power they gain their level of power was not as drastic as Escobar In Narcos money determined social class In The Big Short they were all apart of the same middle upper class Money was symbolized as a numbers game for the men In the financial district money is constantly flowing it becomes a game In the beginning of Narcos the crime was national Escobar was mostly selling cocaine in Colombia In the first episode Descenso Escobar smuggles cocaine past the D A S Colombia s intelligence agency The smuggling of cocaine begins only in Columbia As the series continues the crimes get bigger and more people are involved The more money Escobar has the more of an impact he is able to make Escobar begins to smuggle the drugs into America therefore having impacts on the American people As the series continues Escobar becomes more powerful and is able to have people do his dirty work In episode 6 Explosivos Pablo recruits a young man named Jaime Escobar assigns Jamie to blow up an airplane that Gaviria the presidential candidate will be on Jamie ends up blowing up the airplane killing one hundred and seven innocent civilians In The Big Short Michael Burry and later a few other men realize the housing market is being backed by subprime loans This means people are paying back less Burry predicts there will be a giant crash in the housing market He uses this knowledge to go to many banks and shorts stocks Shorting stocks is a way to make money off of the misfortune of others Burry gets greedy and buys a billion stocks in multiple banks 

As people got a hold of the information others such as Mark Baum Charlie Geller and Jamie Shipley also started to short stocks These men became greedy they went to Las Vegas to meet with bankers and try to get as many shares as possible When they go to Las Vegas Ben Rickert really emphasizes the size of impact As Jamie and Charlie are celebrating the biggest deal they have made Rickert quickly informs them of the truth You just bet against the American economy he then continues if we are right people will lose homes people lose jobs people lose retirement savings people lose pensions Although the men will be profiting every time there is a 1 increase in unemployment 40 000 people die There is a large amount of fraud in our banks government and education systems Some may profit off of the fraud but there is a large indirect impact on the American people In The Big Short and Narcos money shapes the representation of criminality In Narcos the more money Escobar obtained the worse his actions got and the more he was demonized As Escobar increased his income his crimes were worsened However in The Big Short the men were perpetrating fraud on a massive level The men of The Big Short weren t demonized such as Escobar The men of The Big Short were just seen as outsmarting a corrupt housing market The men outsmarted the banks mortgages loans and stocks Escobar was making money from illegal substances whereas the men in The Big Short were making money legally They were just betting on the failure of the economy Money had a large impact on both of Narcos and The Big Short As income increased so did the impact of the crimes The severity of the crimes increase as well as the number of people impacted References Narcos First Season Netflix Series Director Jose Padilha 2015 The Big Short Film Director Adam McKay 2016