In a recent interview with MTV News, Al Pacino thanked the rap community for their longtime support of Scarface – that familiar gangsta’ favorite where Tony Montana rises from humble beginnings as a Cuban refugee to a powerful cocaine lord – only to be split open by machine gun at movie’s end. The cult classic has just been released on Blu-ray, for all who must – in super high definition – watch Montana “represent” for the underdog. Pacino’s character was unforgettable – the tragic anti-hero who only wanted the best of everything for his family. He was like you and I, except for the killings and the coke dealing, and the mansions and car fleets, and the servants and the wardrobe and the jewels, and a couple of other things, but yeah forget about it. Forget those details. No one could deny the guy lived by principle. Right? I mean, even the original MTV Jersey Shore house has a big ol’ Scarface poster on the wall; too legit to quit!
How thoughtful of Al Pacino to bestow such gratitude on the “hip hop people and the rappers” (his words) who really “understood” Scarface – and all its violent, gun-inflicted devastation. Acknowledging the undeniable global impact of hip-hop, Pacino added the support “has helped us immensely.” By “us” he meant others, or anyone who gained from the film in one way or another– not you and I, and probably not any rap stars … which computes because I didn’t see an influx of “hip hop people and rappers” at the party (surely, an oversight). Hip-hop is simultaneously the pop music of the day and the voice of the streets, and the streets know plenty about “choppers.” Guns infect impoverished communities across America like a mysterious cancer … they magically find their way into the hands of black youth in Anywhere, U.S.A, to the extent that blacks are dying from gun violence overwhelmingly faster than any other race. Kids in the poorest communities have better odds at getting a weapon than they do a proper education or computer literacy. So naturally, the Scarface mantra is indeed understood and echoed by the gangster rappers – who claim they’re from the ghetto, who speak for the black youth on the streets who (ironically) are the ones being killed by guns that are manufactured and distributed outside of their community.
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How and why has a genre of music that once symbolized freedom and artistic expression of a people now being thanked for essentially obliterating a people by advocating violence to already suffering communities? How did rap music’s message of empowerment and protest get flipped on its head? The fact that gangster rap even exists, that many rap stars have acted as the disciples of gangster-ism, that music industry gate keepers have been so gracious as to allow rap stars to deliver this very urgent message – matters. Don’t you think so? But instead of the messenger getting popped (keep that in the ghetto, folks), they get a check. Oh, and Al Pacino and a few Hollywood movie producers get a check, too – can’t forget about those guys. #Winning!
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Truth is, any one struggling to make it can feel Scarface. I’m not even gonna lie, I liked watching the majority of it, can’t fade the sexy clothes and great one-liners. It’s a beautiful fantasy, watching this poor, unconnected kid slide from zero to hero – there’s hope in that, in the American dream. But if the sole purpose of gangsta rap is to glorify an extravagant criminal lifestyle minus the bloodshed – who’s dream is this? Al Pacino may “appreciate it”, but I do not.If gangster rappers are the global ambassadors of a delusional dream, that’s a problem and they’re also at risk. Minorities have too many examples of non-violent great-ness, and I for one am leery of Pacino’s praise (as cool of a dude as he is, all joking aside). The story of Scarface can never be our own, modernized and marketed to our own, glamorizing the slaughter of our own.
We’re born into a mean world and forced to play our hand in spite of societal structures and seemingly impossible barriers. It sucks. When people are oppressed, denied their civil rights, manipulated by greedy corporations and mass media, or divided by their own government via institutionalized racism, the instinct is to fight back because it hurts. We do not live in a post-racial society and the residue remains. But who do we fight – our brothers and sisters, mass media, American government? And how do we fight – with violence, artistic expression, protest or education? We know the film Scarface isn’t responsible for gun violence, and we know minorities and rap stars didn’t create it, either. It’s true that people (not guns) kill people, and it is also true that the dominant power structure established their gangsta’ long before any of us came along. Tony Montana would say “The World Is Yours” – but we must survive to claim it.
GUN VIOLENCE MUST STOP.
