How Is Scarface Related To The American Dream

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The film Scarface(1932) references the American Dream. The main view of the American Dream is that someone earns money and power in society to give themselves a better life. Scarface is a gangster movie in which the main character Tony tries to reach his dream of having power and wealth. The director shows that people seeking the American Dream will not attain it if they do not go through a proper channels in life. This also goes hand in hand with the Hays Code of “Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.”. Organized crime had developed largely regarding its power and influence, especially during the 1930’s. The mob had always been viewed as a powerful organization. By killing Lovo and taking away that position of power for …show more content…
Both want to rise to the top of the gangster world and believe they will stay there because they are untouchable. This was not the case in either of their movies. In Scarface(1932), Tony ends up going out in a blaze of glory with a shootout with all the cops. Tony would rather die than to be thrown in jail because of his large overinflated ego. In Little Caesar, Rico does the same by rising up the ladder of the gangster world and his dream was that he could stay there, again not the case. Rico commits a crime by first robbing and killing an innocent cop, then by nearly killing his best friend in the film. Rico was then on the run from the cops for months and the film pans over to Rico in a homeless shelter where beds are five cents. This was a drastic change from the once large and glistening home to the bottom where he came from. Rico and Tony both were gangsters who wanted to live up to their expectations but both ended up falling short because the essential theme of both films was that “crime doesn't pay”. The directors in both films wanted this to reach all audiences hoping to deter people from that