Why do some people idolize the movie Scarface? The movie came out more than thirty years ago, and we’re still seeing posters, t-shirts, and other merchandise related to the movie.

When I think about that movie, the image that pops to mind is Al Pacino’s character, Tony Montana, snorting a huge amount of cocaine from the massive piles of cocaine on his desk. Montana is a drug boss and this cocaine is his merchandise.

It’s odd that some people should worship such a character. Could it be that gangsters and antiheroes have always seemed to be a part of literature, movies, and television shows? Do people celebrate Tony Montana because he’s not playing by the rules of normal society?

If Tony Montana’s world is outside the bounds of normal society, it’s still not much of a world. Drug dealing, drug abuse, betrayals, violence, and untimely deaths are all a part of this world. None of it’s too pleasant. Montana does find money and power, but the money is based on all these betrayals and violence. His power is unstable. He earned his power through questionable means, and his power is threatened by other people willing to use the same sorts of questionable means.

Clearly, Scarface doesn’t present a rosy picture of cocaine use and cocaine dealing. So it’s odd that the movie is so beloved. Interestingly enough, the person who wrote the screenplay for Scarface, director and writer Oliver Stone, was allegedly using cocaine when he wrote the screenplay. If Stone was using, could this cocaine use have colored his ideas about the substance?

Maybe we should start viewing the movie in that light. Scarface isn’t a celebration of rebellion and power. Instead, it’s a cautionary tale about power, greed, excess, illness, and violence.