Brian de Palma: Scarface

     Hip-hop culture has often collected many of its traditions from sources that wouldn't seem likely during the 80’s and 90’s. Rappers and Hip-Hop gurus such as Run DMC and LL Cool J garnered much of their inspiration from the dominant culture of that time which was predominately Caucasian music, by turning it around to fit into a cultural music that African Americans and lower class society could enjoy. Different films like Robocop and The Terminator were also used in hip-hop culture in comparison to unfair policemen that used their power in an inequitable manner.  However, “Scarface became a cult classic among hip hop artists --- embodying, as it did, the ambivalent relationship that so-called gangsters have with capitalism” (Dimitriadis 42). 

        This research paper studies Scarface’s plot including its demographic, ethnical references and gangster lifestyle. The vulgarity of Scarface related to the current Hip-Hop Culture in the 80’s and 90’s creating a new mix between the gangster and the Hip-Hop rapper. The film’s popularity was able to reach a generation of mostly young African American men who idolized the life and riches of Tony Montana. “Tony Montana was known to flaunt his money and riches he accrued from drug dealing, which fit an archetype of the tyrannical Ruler and an image that is prevalent among rap artists” (Hadley and Yancy, 66). 

        “How did Scarface influence Hip Hop Culture in the 80’s and 90’s?’ is the research question that I will address. Because Scarface was released in the early 80’s, examining this question will operatively connect the relationship and interest of Hip Hop to not only Tony Montana but the dynamics behind Scarface.

        It is important to study the different aspects in Scarface in comparison with Hip Hop culture in order to effectively analyze Hip Hop’s artists’ common goals, much like Tony Montana’s, and how ethnicity became an important factor in determining the larger tie between the two.  “It was not until the 1970's and early 1980's that the popular stereotype of the young Black man evolved in the eyes of many from a petty thief or rapist into that of an ominous criminal predator”(Mauer, 1999).Tony Montana was a criminal, which related to African American stereotype. 

       This research is important because society’s views on minorities had a large impact on the figures that Hip Hop culture symbolized and idolized. Because ethnicity plays a large role in society Hip Hop culture, which is predominately African American, related with the Scarface film aids in recognizing that the relationship between the two is deeper than the surface scratches.