Tony Montana has a cult following of being one of the most badass characters in all of cinema. I watched Scarface many years ago, but I saw it again recently and had a new-found appreciation for it post red-pill. Spoilers are obviously going to follow.

The opening scene with Tony is great at characterizing him. Here he is in an interrogation room surrounded by cops standing above him asking him all sorts of personal questions. Despite the power discrepancy at play here, he answers the questions soundly and with an absolute minimum of submissive body language. When the authorities think he is lying, he even directly challenges them directly showing that Tony has balls of unshakeable steel.

Tony's strategy to gain power is probably the highest risk but quickest reward pathway there is. He doesn't plot, he doesn't scheme, he challenges those above him constantly and tests THEIR frame. His plan is either to go up or get out. If he doesn't overcome those above him and secure a foothold higher up on the dominance hierarchy, his relations with them are damaged to the point where he would be better off seeking money and power somewhere else. He does this to Omar by insisting upon a better job opportunity of purchasing cocaine instead of the bitch work he would have had him and Manny do, and he eventually does this to Frank by making a ambitious cocaine deal with Sosa on Franks behalf without his consent.

But enough about money and power, what about the women? What kind of alpha thug would Tony be without his war bride Elvira? Elvira is initially involved with Frank, but it is clear within the first two scenes with her that she lacks respect for him. She acknowledges Frank's requests coolly and cavalierly, and recites his "rule" of "Don't get high off your own supply" before Frank adds "But not everyone follows the rules" referring to Elvira's coke habits. Make no mistake, Frank by his own admission has more money than he knows how to spend and is very high up on the dominance hierachy, but he also seems content with the empire he has built. Why be more ambitious and risk angering the other drug lords to make more money he can't even spend? It seems that compared to the other more ambitious drug lords like Gaspar Gomez, the Diaz brothers, and Sosa, Frank does not adequately satisfy Elvira's hypergamy. Hence her ice queen attitude.

Over the course of the movie, Tony proves himself more ambitious, effortlessly crushes Elvira's shit tests and ice cold demeanour, and eventually kills Frank. At which point he wakes her up and just tells her to get her things and come with him. No grand emotional display, no tears. Just a woman trading up from a descending alpha to an ascendant one, female solipsism at it's best. Marriage soon follows.

Post-Push It To The Limit montage, Tony's empire slowly begins to deteriorate culminating in his death at the end of the flim. The reason for this is that he could no longer hold his frame and keep his emotions in check. He was becoming increasingly paranoid, even of the people closest to him like Manny. Manny remarks Tony was spending 13% of his gross finances on security. In addition he was becoming increasibly dependent on his coke habit, where eventually he just has a large pile of the stuff on his desk in plain view. Lastly he was just completely unable to control his temper and habit of violence, alienating even more people where his paranoia did not.

Elvira eventually responds accordingly to Tony's lack of frame treating him in a cavalier fashion similar to how she did Frank, and Tony takes her shit tests at face value and confronts them directly saying things like "Why you gotta say shit like that all the time?". In their final scene where Elvira separates from Tony, she explains how impractical it is for her to raise the children he wants her to have in this environment, where Tony is high as fuck and having extreme verbal and violent outbursts all the time. This highlights one of the problems with women's dualistic mating strategy of AF/BB. Tony may be the ultimate Alpha Thug with plenty of cash, but he lacks the stability of a true Beta Bucks.

In a twist of irony, Tony's downfall is not his violent or asshole behavior but rather one act of decency to spare a women and her children thanks to his personal twisted code of ethics where he doesn't kill anyone who "didn't have it coming to them". Even if this specifically motivated Sosa to send hitmen to kill Tony, his complete lack of frame probably would have gotten him destroyed by some other opportunist who could smell blood in the water sooner or later, if he didn't destroy himself first.

Tony isn't a man you should aspire to be, but his story teaches us the value of frame and balls of steel. Don't lose either of them.