Theme Of Women In The Movie Scarface

The movie ‘Scarface’, starring Al Pacino, is a classic film to many. The movie revolves around a Cuban immigrant who goes from poor to rich, creating a vast cocaine dealing empire. There are numerous violent power struggles between the main character, Tony Montana, and other kingpins in Miami. ‘Scarface’ constantly objectifies women, sexualizing them and giving them little importance. All women in the film are portrayed as weak, uneducated, and irrational, common stereotypes associated with females. The women, all skinny and long legged, wear only revealing dresses designed to show as much skin as possible. There are several instances of violence towards women in the movie, along with a constant barrage of misogyny from males. ‘Scarface’, is …show more content…
Tony’s sister and mother live in squalor and have very little to their names. The movie portrays the women as if they absolutely need Tony to provide for them. These two women are also uneducated and speak broken English. While Tony still has an accent, he is represented as being more educated than the women in his family. Another woman who ‘needs’ Tony is his eventual wife Elvira. She is characterized as having seemingly no skills besides spending money and abusing cocaine. Elvira is made out to be a helpless addict in need of saving by Tony. None of the women in the movie have stable jobs, and constantly rely on men for monetary support. The females are also morally weak; all end up abusing cocaine, drinking copious amounts of alcohol, and becoming burnouts. These stereotypes are only furthered by how the women dress and present …show more content…
There are several very graphic instances of violence against women. One such occurrence is Tony beating his own sister. All that his sister, Gina Montana, did to evoke the beating was flirt with a man within earshot of Tony. This sets a terrible precedent for women, making it ‘ok’ for men to flirt with women, but if a woman is flirtatious in response, she needs reprimanding. Tony also beats his wife for abusing cocaine, both an ironic and terrible scene. It is ironic because Tony himself is the reason for his abuse. He is a cocaine kingpin after all. This scene is also sad because Tony does nothing to help his wife deal with her substance abuse, but instead assaults her. There are misogynistic undertones throughout the movie, women are never given any role in the ‘business’, and are usually just background characters. The women do not earn anything on their own, but are barred from ever achieving anything. The women in ‘Scarface’ are treated like second-class