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Apparently, the most popular shirt worn by people getting their mugshots taken are pictures of Tony Montana:
So, what do these people have in contact with their cinematic icon? Like their hero, they aren't very good at being criminals.
This particular post isn't against Scarface. I like the movie quite a bit. What does mystify me about it are the legions of little wanna-be hoodlums who walk around the food court at my local shopping mall, wearing their Tony Montana tee-shirts with pride, as if trying to communicate to me thus:
"I am a gangsta. I am opportunistic, ambitious, and amoral. I reject the societal notion of working full time for modest wages, but I shall instead strike out for fortune outside the realm of contemporary laws and morality."
This is what I read:
"I am a person who chooses to admire a moron with poor self control, no planning skills, and an incestuous streak a mile long."
Let's get the obvious out of the way; Tony Montana is not a very good criminal. He's impulsive, reckless, foolhardy, and dumb enough to get addicted to the very drugs he sells to people. These aspects of his character aren't a mystery, but they're clearly worked into the storyline and inform the character's thought process.
I suppose we're supposed to see these traits as being an exaggeration of the ambition necessary to reach the American Dream(tm) but I don't think the fan base thinks that deep into this stuff. Tony Montana is himself something of an exaggeration. His accent is broad to the level of parody, he behaves like some barbarian thug king, he's childish in his temperament. The point of the movie is that he lives at such an extreme pace he is doomed to flare out into self-destruction.
All this is well and good for a tragic hero. But he's not exactly someone to emulate if you're into the *cough* thug life.
I could go on and on about this, about how successful drug dealers need to be more discreet than he chooses to be, about how you can't chose a life of crime and murder and suddenly balk at the notion of murdering innocent people, how you can't go through life pissing off all your connections, and how gross it is to want to fuck your sister, but the long and the short is that some of these cats walking around wearing Scarface clothing missed the point of their movie.
However, I won't say it to their face. They'd probably kick my ass.
So, what do these people have in contact with their cinematic icon? Like their hero, they aren't very good at being criminals.
This particular post isn't against Scarface. I like the movie quite a bit. What does mystify me about it are the legions of little wanna-be hoodlums who walk around the food court at my local shopping mall, wearing their Tony Montana tee-shirts with pride, as if trying to communicate to me thus:
"I am a gangsta. I am opportunistic, ambitious, and amoral. I reject the societal notion of working full time for modest wages, but I shall instead strike out for fortune outside the realm of contemporary laws and morality."
This is what I read:
"I am a person who chooses to admire a moron with poor self control, no planning skills, and an incestuous streak a mile long."
Let's get the obvious out of the way; Tony Montana is not a very good criminal. He's impulsive, reckless, foolhardy, and dumb enough to get addicted to the very drugs he sells to people. These aspects of his character aren't a mystery, but they're clearly worked into the storyline and inform the character's thought process.
I suppose we're supposed to see these traits as being an exaggeration of the ambition necessary to reach the American Dream(tm) but I don't think the fan base thinks that deep into this stuff. Tony Montana is himself something of an exaggeration. His accent is broad to the level of parody, he behaves like some barbarian thug king, he's childish in his temperament. The point of the movie is that he lives at such an extreme pace he is doomed to flare out into self-destruction.
All this is well and good for a tragic hero. But he's not exactly someone to emulate if you're into the *cough* thug life.
I could go on and on about this, about how successful drug dealers need to be more discreet than he chooses to be, about how you can't chose a life of crime and murder and suddenly balk at the notion of murdering innocent people, how you can't go through life pissing off all your connections, and how gross it is to want to fuck your sister, but the long and the short is that some of these cats walking around wearing Scarface clothing missed the point of their movie.
However, I won't say it to their face. They'd probably kick my ass.
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