Task 4 - gangster article

The typical gangster film is focused around ruthless characters with loose morals in their pursuit of a glamorous façade of the ‘American dream’. Most gangster films show the protagonist through their quest for more power, which often leads to a downfall, whereby the protagonist (almost always) ends up dead. These films always contain some sort of violence, use of drugs and sexual objectification of women. Although, many question ‘what is it about this genre that had captivated millions of viewers and world-wide critical praise?’ But since this genre is laced with an abundance of crime and brutality, what more can we expect? A typical modern day genre film contains a desensitising amount of violence and sexual references, whereby the audience expect to see this and would be less interested if shown anything less. The gangster genre has remained very successful throughout the years, gaining critical approval for the films such as Scarface, City of God, Goodfellas and Pulp Fiction. Scarface is a 1983 American gangster film starring Al Pacino, which was directed by Brian De Palma. Most gangster films are single strand narrative although you get a couple that are multi-strand or alternative narrative such as City Of God. They do this to captivate the perspective of different characters or to establish previous events. Most of these films have some sort of enigma whereby the audience are left trying to figure out why something in the film has happened, just like in City of God. The film starts off with a group of people chasing a chicken! you just have to think to yourself, what the hell is going on! why is the chicken so important? But, It all becomes clear in the end. 

Scarface is one of the most violent and humorous: yet one of the most controversial films in its genre due to the explicit content shown in almost every scene. The use of drugs/selling of drugs in Scarface is very significant as the film is solely based around the selling of drugs to gain the power, money and respect Tony Montana is trying to achieve. The majority of scenes in Scarface consist of the characters taking/selling or discussing drugs (in this case, cocaine.) Just like Scarface, most gangster films are based around the involvement of drugs. For example, drug culture in City of God is expressed through many ways in the film. It is represented as a common trade, which is accumulated with wealth in the City Of God. This is because of the lack of education and the selling of drugs is also the quickest way to make money in the City of God. A significant scene in this film that expresses the importance of drugs would be the war between the two drug lords Carrot and Lil’Ze. The war shows a divide in the city, which results in a break out of war as they are competing to be the wealthiest drug dealer and have the most power of the city. Although, this gives the audience an insight to see the lifestyles of these real-life characters and that the drug use is not as exaggerated as they may have thought it to be.  The use of drugs in gangster films, are just as expected to see as the violence. The violence is influential on the audience. Ever heard about the Jamie Bulger case? No? Well it involved two ten-year-old boys who kidnapped, tortured then murdered a 2 year old boy, just after watching Child's play 3. Now, the hypodermic needle model would suggests that the two boys passively received the information transmitted via the film, without any attempt on their part to process the data, But who would expect a 10 year old to do so? Children copy anything they see! But can their upbringing be at fault here? 

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