http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vT8OU5WtfkQ
I went ahead and solved that Thursday Night Fight y’all we’re having. It’s Giorgio Moroder’s “Push It To The Limit”. I frankly can’t think of another song that more accurately what it is that we do here. Especially the tiger-tied-to-a-tree-part there at the end of the video. Nothing screams “Ordinary Gentleman!” louder than a tiger-tied-to-a-tree.
Now that I’ve solved that, can we briefly discuss the movie Scarface? And not the topics that you’re imagining we might discuss: not the obscene amount of violence, not the casual cruelty, not the glorified criminal lifestyle (see the video above), not the fact that the main character seems to take his direction from an omnipresent blimp, not the fact that Robert Loggia was hired to play a Latino character, and not the fact that two great characters from Breaking Bad also appeared in Scarface.
None of those.
What I’d like to discuss is the oddity of Tony’s apparent sexual attraction to his own sister, a topic which is hinted at throughout the movie and yet ignored by the film’s biggest fans. I get why it would be ignored – because, again, weird, but also, ick, and finally, gross – but it is impossible to miss the subtext throughout the movie. Frankly, the fact that Tony is repeatedly violent toward those who express any interest in Gina would be evidence enough. He murders his own best friend Manny after discovering his affair with Gina. It’s the film’s final scene though. That’s the one that tells the real story. That’s the scene where Montana famously encourages his attackers to “Say hello to my little friend!”* Tony though makes that declaration after everything below has occurred:
And now I’m quoting, “Is this what you want Tony? You can’t stand for another man to be touching me, so you want me Tony, huh? Huh? Is that it? Here I am Tony. I am all yours now Tony, you see? I’m all yours now! You’re better come and get me now. Come and get me Tony, come and get me Tony, do it now before it’s too late…”
I’m also not quoting the part where Gina starts screaming, immediately after saying everything above, much more graphic demands. Because seriously…seriously?!? It’s not that I necessarily mind it being in the movie; Tony Montana’s a bad, insane man, hellbent on having the world as he wants it, his detractors be damned. That’s within the world of the movie. But those who cheerlead the character? How do they explain themselves? How do they put aside the fact that their hero is apparently obsessed in every (un)imaginable way with his own sister? Am I to assume that Oedipus had his own cheering section too? That there were ancient Greek teenagers with Oedipus statues carved into their bedroom walls?
So, to recap: “Push It To The Limit” should be our website’s song, Tony Montana is extra-gross, and what is seen cannot be unseen.
*Not as good a pick-up line as you might imagine.
Does it strike anybody that the music in the first click is very like Montage from Team America: World Police?
Tony acknowledged how “dirty” the life he was engaged in was, & didn’t want Gina to end up deep in it. Bankrolling her salon was one thing, but being with Manolo put her too far in. Manolo corrupted her in his eyes.
Not saying there absolutely wasn’t the above mentioned ick factor, just that it ain’t necessarily reason #1 for that ending.
BTW: I always found his comment about capitalism interesting in context.
There are people in the world who are attracted to members of their own family through no fault of their own. It’s one thing to discourage them from acting on it due to the elevated risk from recessive genetic disorders, but there’s no need to be gratuitously mean about it. They have it tough enough as it is. You wouldn’t say that homosexuality makes a character especially gross, because that’s offensive to real homosexuals. Same deal here.
Brandon,
There are those people in the real world. This was in a movie. There’s no particular reason for Tony’s sexual attraction to his sister; it’s just oddly there, never specifically address, but just hinted at throughout until that final moment of exposure. That the film’s fans rarely comment upon its obvious presence only makes it all the stranger.
Remember that Scarface was a remake.
The dynamic you spoke of came from the 1932 movie, but was made a little more explicit, for its era. If you want to blame anyone, blame Howard Hawks.
There’s a similar dynamic in Sweet Smell of Success, where most of the dirty tricks the Walter Winchell character (played by Burt Lancaster) orders Tony Curtis to perform have the aim of getting his sister away from her boyfriend (Martin Milner as a jazz musician. Seriously.)
So, I guess we’re supposed to then see this as some attempt to reference earlier historical works in which family members sleep with one another? Was it something specific to these individual characters or the individuals they were based on?
Apparently the 1932 one is based on a book, has anyone read it? Maybe it’s originally from there.
This has turned from a Friday afternoon snark off into a genuine interest: does anybody know the answer to Glyph’s question?
The sister romance angle first appears in the ’32 film. It’s not in the book.
For the record, Hawks and Ben Hecht, the writer, sought to tell the story of the Borgias in a Warner Brothers “modern,” “urban” context. Reportedly the orginal (1932) script was considerably more explicit in this them than the resulting movie, but Hawks was rather uncomfortable with how it all played out–all explicit references were removed.