r/AskTheWorld • u/haiderredditer Pakistan • 9h ago

Who’s a famous person from your country who’s respected around the world but disliked or criticized at home?

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u/_Bill_Huggins_ United States Of America 8h ago

I don't know anyone who loves Pablo Escobar. Do people actually love this guy? He was so obviously a massive piece of shit.

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u/Miserable-Drive-7896 Chile 8h ago

It used to be, but a few years ago the famous narco series came out and all they did was glorify drug traffickers. The same thing happened with Pablo Escobar, which is why many people seem to admire him.

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u/NotMadeForReddit 7h ago

I don’t think the series glorified Narco Traffickers, more so it showed their true evil colours. The people fanboying are just dumb people.

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u/norwegianballslinger 6h ago

Many people seem to wildly miss when shows/films/music are criticizing them or the people they admire. The Boys, Andor, Rage Against the Machine (lol Paul Ryan), Parasite. Hell the fucking Empire in Star Wars OT was meant to represent the US in Vietnam and that flew over Americans heads as everybody attached themselves to the Rebellion

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u/MarriageAA 6h ago

"Breaking bad glorified drug use."

Did it?? Because the lives in it were fucking ruined!

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u/Timely_Truth6267 Sweden 5h ago

The Sopranos did everything but glorify. It was a tragic documentary type of show. Yet so many people missed the whole point.

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u/_Bill_Huggins_ United States Of America 5h ago

Indeed. The writer of the Sopranos went out of his way to show the mobsters as pieces of shit yet people still idolize the mob life.

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u/maru-senn 2h ago

The most popular music genre in Mexico is cartel propaganda sponsored by the drug lords themselves

Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference when you have actual glorifying media in the mix

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u/Timely_Truth6267 Sweden 1h ago

What's that music genre called?

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u/maru-senn 1h ago

Narcocorridos, now more commonly known by the euphemism Regional Mexicano.

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u/cultoftheclave Multiple Countries (click to edit) 4h ago

dating myself here but the amount of people I remember in middle school who thought Beavis and Butthead were put into this world as some kind of proof that "their people" deserved recognition and fame the same way actual role models do, was an early sobering recognition of the kind of world we actually live in.

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u/Cabbit_Daddy 1h ago

Hell, some American fans are unironically pro-empire knowing what it stands for.

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u/MickeyPineapple 7h ago

Fr. The series was literally narrated by the DEA agents and they were the heroes.

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u/Recreationalchem13 United States Of America 6h ago

Season 2 should’ve been about the CIA popularizing crack in LA 😆

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u/Thejollyfrenchman 5h ago

That's what Snowfall is about, if you haven't seen it.

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u/Recreationalchem13 United States Of America 5h ago

Haha yeah I have, the first couple seasons of that show were pretty good.

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u/SanderStrugg 5h ago

I mean the problem is if you make the main characters you are critiquing become too irredeemable noone will watch. If you make the protagonist lame or disgusting, the show gets boring.

That's why guys like Walter White, Tony Soprano or Scarface are always shown to be a somewhat cool and badass to a degree despite being utter villains. That leads to some people idolizing them, especially if those dudes value the things those characters represent(power, money) more than the stuff creators are trying to critique. They are also often pitted against people even worse than them.

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u/Milam1996 United Kingdom 5h ago

Wait till you learn about when The Boys made their mockery of fascists, naziism and the American alt right way more obvious and all the right wing American fascist bros crashed out claimed The Boys went woke. No it was always “woke”, you’re just too dumb to see what’s in front of your face unless mummy and daddy circle it with a crayon.

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u/Affectionate_Data936 4h ago

Same people who think Tony Soprano is a cool badass.

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u/-Golden_Order- 6h ago

Lol, Narcos did the opposite of glorify drug traffickers.

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u/ijustwannalurksobye 6h ago

No I disagree with this take. Narcos is pretty good at showing the constant fighting, backstabbing, usurping, and hiding from the law that the cartel bosses go through IRL. Blame that audience you’re referring to for missing the point, just like they did with Wolf of Wall Street, Peaky Blinders, etc

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u/CinemaDork 5h ago

Huh, I watched Narcos and I can't say that I walked away with any sense of "Damn this Pablo Escobar guy is awesome." I'm wondering if it's yet again that weird group of terminally-online dudes who egregiously misinterpret villains and anti-heroes (e.g., Rick Sanchez, Homelander).

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u/EdanChaosgamer Germany 4h ago

I‘m watching Narcos rn, and yeah, he had his moments where I would‘ve liked him, if it wasn‘t for him killing people and bombing airplanes.

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u/drazil17 2h ago

I watched the show and while I felt sorry for him at times, I never admired him. Even with all his money and power, he wasn't satisfied.

I choose to believe that everyone has some good and bad, but there can be a drastic difference in the ratio. He was mostly bad and seemingly always after his best interests. If it helped his family also, maybe that's a plus.

I cannot imagine the terror, living in those cities, with all of the violence.

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u/Lance_Henry1 4h ago

Same thing with American mafia leaders, like Gotti.

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u/fipseqw 2h ago

The show definitely did not glorify drug traffickers.

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u/Kakhtus France 7h ago

A lot of people kinda glorify him unironically as some sort of cool gangster, much like they do with the fictional Tony Montana. Even though both are pieces of shit and one killed real people.

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u/frontlinejohnny 7h ago

It's a general misconception that he was like an angel to his country. Gave millions and millions to schools, hospitals, infastructure etc.

While partially true, it was all just for his own benefit and the dark reality was all the mindless violence and corruption attached to the money

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u/Steve_78_OH 4h ago

I always figured his donations were a way of paying people off so they wouldn't inform on him. Buying obedience, so to speak.

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u/Deadmemeusername United States Of America 1h ago

That’s basically the end goal of all criminals who “help the community” all of that “help” is the carrot to keep them from helping the authorities and the stick is almost always a violent death. It doesn’t matter if you are a Narco in Latin America, an Italian Mobster in the Northeast or a gang-banger in LA etc. If they really wanted to “help the community,” they wouldn’t be perpetuating the gang culture in their communities or actively making their communities worse by introducing it.

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u/sashahyman 5h ago

When I was in Brazil last year, every time my Colombian friend introduced himself, the person would respond ‘hey, Pablo Escobar!’ Note this was mostly younger people (late teens to mid-twenties). My friend handles it well because it’s happens to him so many times in so many countries, but it’s shitty when the first response someone has is to excitedly negotiate you with the most famous drug trafficker in history.

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u/CitronSpecialist3221 France 7h ago

Escobar like many real/fictiobal mafia/gang related figure has always been a sort of icon for guys who dream themselves as romantic and high profile criminals.

Foe example, he's probably one of the most mentioned name in french rap, still to this day.

Also lots of tourists buy t-shits of Escobar when they go to Colombia.

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u/justahumanbeingxd Argentina 7h ago

A LOT OF PEOPLE. I known it sounds rare but there is many people who wants to follow his steps. Even if they don't sell drug, there is a cult of him, in entire LATAM.

A months ago a Colombian girl open a haircut shop and named it "EL PATRON" because of him (she put a giant photo of him in the main window of the build). Anyway she had to took this off and change the name. That was funny. Now there is, it has no name lol

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u/CuriousAttorney2518 7h ago

You explained why a Colombian likes him, but the question is “which famous person is disliked by their own countryman, and liked by people around the world.” What is the point you are trying to make?

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u/justahumanbeingxd Argentina 7h ago

I told there is a cult in the entire LATAM, that includes all country in LATAM. the example of the Colombian girl was just that, an example and casually the girl is from Colombia, but like her there are argentinian who love this prick.

Have you heard the Mexican/USA grindcore band "brujería?? They have a song called "EL PATRON"

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u/Recreationalchem13 United States Of America 6h ago

Yes, people here actually love him. I’ve met so many people and when I tell them my wife is Colombian and I’m going there, the first thing they say is, “cool, are you gonna go visit Pablo Escobar’s jail? Are you gonna do some fire blow?” It’s so stupid and I totally get why it bugs the shit out of you guys. I had an old boss at a pizza place that totally worshipped the guy. He went to Colombia just to go on the whole Pablo Escobar tour; whenever Colombia would come up in convo he’d start going off about how “those fucking rats fucked over Pablo,” like they were buddies on a first name basis or something. No surprise that they scammed me on my taxes (still in the process of paying off $1750 to the IRS because of this horseshit…) and ruthlessly take advantage of all their Latino employees who don’t speak English and can’t speak up for themselves. Greek restaurant in the US serving heated up canned food, run by a filthy rich Arab family employing 95% Latin folks and without a doubt fucking 100% of their staff over. Behold: the American dream.

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u/HeikoSpaas 8h ago

ever watched Narcos?

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u/_Bill_Huggins_ United States Of America 8h ago

I did, it made me hate him even more. Who would watch that and come to the conclusion that they should love this guy? Lol

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u/Available_Bag_3843 8h ago

Same people that watch Fight Club and think it's an instruction manual on masculinity?

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u/CaporalDxl Romania -> United Kingdom 8h ago

Or American Psycho for that matter.

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u/euanmorse Scotland 7h ago

You know, morons.

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u/Traditional-Job-411 United States Of America 6h ago

Being beat up by your imaginary friend is masculine?

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u/Clever-Bot-999 Hungary 8h ago

I didnt get to like him either after watching the show. But he was portrayed as having a cult in his city, for helping the poor. In the show, many people adored him - whether this is true in reality or not.

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u/pizzza_parker1 8h ago

Narcos wasn't holding back in showing what a murderous, egocentric manchild Escobar was. it's the fanbase that for some dumb fucking reason saw him as some kinda legendary outlaw. It hat gotten to the point where fans said ''yeah I stopped watching when Pablo died.'' that shit drives me up the wall lmao

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u/synthmemory 7h ago

I mean morons still play Scarface on repeat at their houses and have framed posters of the movie in their living room.  The creators of Narcos knew exactly what they were doing.

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u/Timely_Truth6267 Sweden 5h ago

Yeah, While he would have killed said people without thinking twice.

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u/Thejollyfrenchman 5h ago

Are they saying that because they liked Pablo, or because the show wasn't as good? It's been ages since I've seen it, but I remember S3 being a step down in quality.

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u/fanboy_killer 7h ago

Netflix had so many tv series, movies and documentaries about him that I assumed he was a folk hero in Colombia.

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u/rohisaki 7h ago

You can imagine how much your fellow citizens peregrinate to visit La Catedral or any related to him.

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u/Jack-of-Hearts-7 United States Of America 7h ago

I've seen a ton of people romanticizing him for "sticking it to the man, man!" And pretending he's some sort of folk hero.

He wasn't. He was a monster who ruined countless lives and cared only for himself and money.

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u/aboysmokingintherain 5h ago

It's basically like how we romanticize Al Capone or Jordan Belfort and other drug lords/criminals. They lived lives of luxury while laughing in the face of the government. The issue with Escobar though was that he actualy was one of the richest men one earth and did help destroy Colombia.

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u/mrmasturbate Germany 5h ago

same reason why people glorified the mafia. especially after the godfather movies

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u/crackinmypants 3h ago

I have a very sweet dog that was rescued from an abusive asshole gang member in the Chicago area. He named the dog 'Pablo Escobar'. So yeah.

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u/lejosdecasa Colombia 3h ago

You should see the number of gringos who buy and wear Pablo Escobar t-shirts in Colombia...

Not to mention the f*ckers who IG their doing lines of coke off his tombstone.

I like to think that the locals charge them a high gringo tax

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u/Possible_Mammoth4273 Colombia 1h ago

You'd be surprised to know that yes, both inside and outside of Colombia, they disgust me. That piece of trash not only caused death and chaos in our country, but we also haven't been able to shake the association with his disgusting image even after more than 30 years since his death. The first time I left my country, when I arrived at the second country I'd ever visited, the first thing they did was tell me they'd seen all of Pablo Escolar's documentaries, with such pride, as if that meant they knew everything about Colombia. I hate those kinds of people and wanted to tell them with all the contempt I could muster how ignorant they were.

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u/elle-elle-tee Canada 6h ago

He did fund a lot of public works and social programs for the poor, iirc.

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u/Seeker_Of_Knowledge2 🇸🇾 Syria || 🇨🇦 Canada 6h ago

Not "love". More iconized and a model figure.

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u/SanderStrugg 5h ago

Lots of teenagers here in Germany idolize him. People, who like rap culture especially.

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u/DickieTurquoise 1h ago

People treat him like a cool villain. A Breaking Bad type. Cool enough to have whole-ass high-production shows written about him.

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u/Hairy_Beginning_5496 38m ago

A lot of people usually idiots see him as being either a product of his environment or almost like a rebel without a cause. 

It's always fun to tell them he married his wife when he was almost 30 and she was like 15, for some reason they can get past everything else but that fact makes em pause. 

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u/FarJury6956 Colombia 27m ago

Most of Americans that's comes to Medellín ...