Scarface: Theories Of Social Deviance

Sociology behind Scarface
In 1980, 125,000 refuges were able to join their families in the United States from Cuba; Fidel Castro had forced the boat owners to carry 25,000 refuges of the 125,000. Cuban refuges Tony Montana or also know as Scarface, Manny Ribera who was Tony Montana’s best friend and also two other friends Angel and Chi-Chi. They are sent together to a detention center, where Manny makes a deal with a drug lord, Frank Lopez in Florida to obtain green cards in return they have to kill a former government official Emilio Rebenga, who was shipped out by Fidel Castro because he wasn’t trusted. After they had assassinated Emilio Rebenga they received their green card and later received a drug trafficking related job from Omar Suarez, who was Frank Lopez’s number 2 men. This job went haywire which related to a death of Tony Montana’s friend Angel, but they job was over achieved by keeping the money and also attaining the cocaine that was needed to be purchased, which
impressed Frank Lopez and offered Tony and Manny a job to work for him, Later, Frank sends tony and Omar to Bolivia to make a transaction of cocaine with a powerful drug lord named Alejandro Sosa. When tony goes back Frank was angry at Tony for making an unauthorized deal which jeopardizes they’re relationship and Tony starts his own operations and he also asked Frank’s Girlfriend to marry him. Tony attends a night club and see’s Elvira to discuss his proposal and frank walks up and tony insults him and frank leaves the club then tony see’s Gina dancing Manny, sympathizing with Gina, takes her home. Gina reveals her attraction to Manny, but he tells her off, fearful of Tony's wrath should he catch them together. Later at the club Frank orders hit men to kill tony but luckily he survives and the next day tony goes and visits Frank because he knew that he set the whole thing up, frank begs for his life and tony kills him. Tony takes over Franks Empire and marries Elvira and becomes ridiculously wealthy and also him and Elvira become addicted to cocaine causing them to drift apart and tony starts being paranoid about everything. Tony makes his way they’re and he see’s Gina and Manny together and out of rage he kills Manny before letting them tell tony that they got married 2 days earlier and they were going to surprise him and then Tony takes the widowed Gina back to his house and there Tony is snorting large amounts of cocaine and then Sosa’s men surround him and kill him.
The first theme I will be talking about is Poverty and violence. Poverty is defined a state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions, Poverty is said to exist when people lack the means to satisfy their basic needs. Violence is defined a behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something. The culture of poverty constitutes a design for living that is passed on from generation to the next. Individuals feel marginalized, helpless, inferior, and adopt and attitude of living for the present. They are fatalistic. Families are characterized by high divorce rates, with mothers and children abandoned; they become matrifocal families headed by women. People adopting this culture of poverty do not participate in community life or join political parties. When children are growing up in a low-income environment and where there is a lot of street crime, which tends to influence them that street crime is socially accepted in their environment. Also, education in some neighborhoods is very terrible and teachers fear for there lives by being there therefore children don’t get the education they need, which makes them take a easy way out to a live of crime because Its more appealing to them. Don’t get me wrong they’re are few who get away from this, for example my mom and her sisters moved to America at the age of 15 without a father, and they could not afford to live in a good neighborhood but they kept there head up and got through it well and decided not to go into the life of crime. Relating this to Scarface, Tony Montana was from Cuba, which was under a communist rule he was told how to think, what to eat, and also mostly everyone had lived in poverty. When he came to America he had a job a dishwasher boy at a restaurant in a low-income area, he could have fought through it and get an education but he got opportunity for making drug deals and he took that because the money, drugs, and power was very appealing to him. The second theme is Power and struggle. Power is defined the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events. Struggle is defined strive to achieve or attain something in the face of difficulty or resistance. Max weber’s idea of social class, weber defines power as the ability of a actor to realize his or her will in a social action, even against the will of other actors. Power relates to the ability to command resources in a particular domain. Economic power then is the ability to control material resources to direct production, to monopolize accumulation, to dictate consumption. In the Scarface, Tony Montana wanted to monopolize the cocaine industry; he wanted to command his own gang army to become one of the biggest gangster that anyone has ever seen. Tony Montana wanted the world, which was the money, the drugs, and the women and finally the power. He took it too far and started distrusting his friends, getting into arguments with his wife, which caused her to leave him, he ended up killing his best friend without understanding the situation. Basically he was taking his life to ruins because he had too much power that he could not handle which had caused his death. The third theme is the theories of deviance, deviance is any behavior that violates social norms, and is usually of sufficient severity to warrant disapproval from the majority of society.
Every individual has there own way of making a living to him or her it might be a great profession but in the eyes of society it might violate a social norm. In society individuals who are considered deviant are they ones who participate in activities relating to alcoholism, excessive gambling, stealing, lying, etc. the anomie theory refers to the confusion that arises when social norms conflict or don’t even exist. Everyone desires having tremendous amounts of wealth, but not everyone can be wealthy so few; individuals use deviant behaviors in order to achieve their goals. In Scarface, Tony Montana wanted everything but he achieved it by using deviant behavior, he was selling cocaine, which is an illegal substance in the United States. He wanted power so bad he decided to do it the wrong
way. In conclusion, Poverty and violence, power and struggle, and theories of deviance are related to tony Montana, or Scarface. Its also related to society, poverty and violence occurs in bad neighborhoods but the individuals in those neighborhoods have big dreams like everyone else but not everyone could achieve the same so they tend to become deviants in order to try to accomplish there goals and if they end up receiving more than they have they have a tendency of losing there ground and end up making the wrong decisions.