Then awards season came along and, as usual, crushed all my hopes and dreams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Barbie<\/em> lost out on nominations for Best Director and Best Actress, for Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie respectively. A backlash strong enough to rope in Hillary Clinton<\/a> followed. Much of the backlash included accusations of sexism on the Academy\u2019s part, which, given their historical and ongoing aversion to female directors<\/a>, cinematographers<\/a> and visual effects artists<\/a>, makes sense. But the backlash framed Barbie<\/em> as female in some deeper, more intrinsic sense than, say, Anatomy of a Fall<\/em>, directed by Justine Triet and with a cast led by Sandra H\u00fcller, both of whom were nominated. Barbie<\/em> was not just by<\/em> women, but for<\/em> women<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDid too many people (particularly women) enjoy Barbie<\/em> for it to be considered \u2018important\u2019 enough for academy voters?\u201d Mary McNamara questioned in the LA Times<\/em><\/a>, \u201c\u2026 Was it just too pink?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But hey, maybe McNamara is right. I tried to think of other girlish, pink movies that didn\u2019t get their due accolades on release. Dirty Dancing<\/em> doesn\u2019t count, obviously, since that\u2019s a class conflict sports movie in the vein of Rocky<\/em>. Every man I\u2019ve ever met loves When Harry Met Sally<\/em>. But of course, the girliest, pinkest movie in the world was robbed of even an Oscar nomination: Brian De Palma\u2019s Scarface<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since its release in 1983, consistent efforts from film critics, rappers, and dorm poster salesmen to assert the macho masculinity of Scarface<\/em> have failed to erase this simple truth: Scarface<\/em> is a fairy princess story wrapped in pink, purple, and cyan. Both its score and soundtrack are exuberantly feminine dance-pop from euro disco pioneer Giorgio Moroder. Can you imagine any of the many, many hip hop songs inspired by Scarface<\/em> rubbing shoulders with Debbie Harry, Amy Holland or Elizabeth Daily on the film\u2019s actual soundtrack? I cannot, and that includes the ones that literally sample music from Scarface<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The film\u2019s girliness is exemplified in the \u201cPush It To The Limit\u201d montage, which pulses to a beat much closer to a makeover montage than a rising-to-power one. It\u2019s set to a relentlessly upbeat bit of synth that would make any Death to Disco advocate throw up. And it\u2019s not creating an ironic contrast between that music and the images: it doesn\u2019t just sound like a makeover montage, it looks and feels like one, too \u2013 with images of Tony\u2019s sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) trying on outfits at the store, not to mention the opening of her beauty salon (in a perfectly pink palette, of course) and Tony\u2019s wedding to Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer), featuring his new pet tiger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tony\u2019s banker calls his wife Elvia \u201cthe princess,\u201d but he\u2019s got it backwards. Elvira is a Prince Charming: an American-born WASP, gorgeous in her slinky backless dresses, she is a conduit to and symbol of power and privilege, a cipher onto which men can project the American Dream. Tony Montana is the princess \u2013 not the kind that exists in reality, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but that kind that exists in fairy tales. Pauline Kael complained<\/a> that Tony seemed \u201cto get to the top by one quick coup,\u201d with no sense of his rise there. But it\u2019s not that it\u2019s a typical gangster story with parts missing. Tony is Cinderella. He\u2019s Evita. He\u2019s Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman<\/em>. He\u2019s plucked from the gutter to the palace in one fell swoop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And with that one fell swoop, he puts together his own Barbie Dreamhouse of material consumption, complete with a ginormous bubble bath and a pink neon sign in the foyer: \u201cThe World Is Yours.\u201d He changes outfits with the regularity of Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra<\/em>, an assortment of suits in endless colours. And when he has it all, he stares into the middle distance, alone, in a pink-lit nightclub, like a sad rich girl in a Sofia Coppola movie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Scarface <\/em>is feminine deep in its bones, even more so than\u00a0 Barbie <\/em>\u2013 De Palma would never have allowed a Matchbox Twenty song to intrude. (Maybe \u201cSmooth\u201d by Santana feat. Rob Thomas.) If we insist on gendering movies, and doing so on the basis of aesthetics, we must face up to this simple fact: Scarface <\/em>is for girls.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Scarface” is currently streaming on Hulu<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/scarface2-1024x576.jpg\")
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