Perfect Casting for the Remake of Miss Bala

One of the more interesting and unlikely characters to emerge in the 2016 Presidential election is the one-time Miss Universe and now Hillary voter Alicia Machado. If Machado has an agent, and I'm sure she does, I hope he or she is pitching her for the Sony Pictures remake of Miss Bala.

Miss Bala was a terrific independent Mexican picture from 2011 which was inspired by the true story of a Mexican beauty queen who became hooked up with a drug cartel boss. Machado seems perfect for the role if you credit the details in this CBS commentary on the curious case of Alicia Machado:

[T]there is little mention of how a Venezuelan judge once alleged on live TV that Machado had threatened to kill him. Or how the Mexican attorney general’s office later said she was the girlfriend of a major narco trafficker, and that she he had a child with him, according to Univision and other outlets. Or how a government witness who reportedly testified about their affair was later shot to death.

That Univision story (here) is from 2010, so it predates the emergence of Machado as a figure in the gringo election. CNN Latino also named her around then in a story about celebrities running with drug bosses. In fairness, Machado has kinda-sorta denied that her child was fathered by this guy, whom the U.S. State Department described as "a key member of the [Arturo Beltran-Leyva] drug trafficking organization ... [who] coordinated the movement of illegal narcotics into the United States and oversees the repatriation of narcotics-related proceeds" when it offered a $2 million reward for his capture.

So, what's the truth? If you google it, you can find a Miami city document - which has not been validated so far as I know - establishing the child's domicile in Miami and listing a patronymic that agrees with the name of the drug boss. There was no DNA test conducted - so far as I know - when Alicia Machado filed for U.S. citizenship for herself and her daughter, despite the legal implications of the Kingpin Act which prohibits U.S. persons, such as the then legal permanent resident Alicia Machado, from “engaging in any transaction or dealing in property or interests in property of [specially designated narcotics trafficker]s and from engaging in any transaction that evades or avoids the prohibitions of the Kingpin Act." The purported baby daddy was listed as a Kingpin by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2008. If Machado had any financial transactions with him, and I'm not saying she did, should that have prevented her from receiving U.S. citizenship this year? I don't know.

But, back to Miss Bala. It was an innovative movie about the horrible situation in Mexico today, shown entirely from the point of view of a naif waif would-be beauty queen who is snatched up by narcos. If even half of what criminal justice officials in Venezuela and Mexico have alleged is true, then Alicia Machado can understand that character.

The real-life incident that inspired the movie was reported by the WaPo in 2008: Busted: Mexico's Miss Sinaloa and the 7 Narcos.

That's Miss Sinaloa, skinny jeans and all, along with some of the seven suspected narco traffickers, $53,000 in cash, two AR-15 rifles, three handguns, 633 rounds of ammo, and 16 cellphones which were in the truck with her when Mexican police arrested her in 2008.

And that's the movie poster for Miss Bala, in a scene depicting a narco boss using her to repatriate narcotics-related proceeds smuggle his cash back into Mexico.

Alicia Machado, you were made for that role.