Sorry, I never returned to this thread.


Yeah.

I think testosterone-fuelled, drug-fuelled, sexually jealous characters like Tony in Scarface invite us into Freudian readings - incest is easy, of course, but it can probably be stretched further into homosexuality.

Irrational violence such as that in Scarface can be read as an extension of over-played ('camp') gender performance (in this case, 'masculinity'), which is closely linked to sexual repression and frustration. Look at Cagney's need to please his mother in White Heat ("Made it, Ma! Top o' the world!") or his heavily implied impotence in The Public Enemy (closely linked, in that film, to his loving relationship to his mother again).

Sexuality is pretty fluid, anyway; it's not a natural thing. I identify myself as a "homosexual male", but I couldn't for a second deny that's a product of the culture I've been brought up in, with whom I've grown up and in whom I've identified various states of desire and loss.

On a side note, I had no idea about the previous thread on Tony being bisexual until now. Blibble's pun on my "bi-product" went over my head, and I just now see the thread that was closed.

I could give a more detailed character deconstruction but would need to watch the film again, and that doesn't seem very appealing to me.