Mind you, the comparison to games like Grand Theft Auto is valid. There’s a certain amount of fantasy going on; while I haven’t played Grand Theft Auto and wouldn’t want to, I’ve certainly spent a few hours blowing people to bits in Unreal Tournament and Quake, and I’d never even consider owning a gun.

More to the point, though, how many of those kids *have* seen the film, and take comfort in a hero like Montana because they don’t believe their own lives have any hope of success? You’ve expressed before how the students of Appalachia (sp?) are highly unlikely to go to college, or to finish if they enter. People born into generational poverty have little chance of ever breaking into the middle class and they often believe, consciously or sub-, that their existence is their fate, not their decision. (The gangsta market isn’t African Americans, it’s the disenfranchised young poor of all races.)

Given that mindset, wearing Montana on a t-shirt is like any disaffected college student wearing Che on a t-shirt: he suspects that his life will eventually be one of conformity and trying to win the rat race, just like everyone, so he evokes a spirit of anti-capitalist anarchy as a way to “rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

The reason, I think, can be seen in this article.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23372392-details/Backlash%20against%20playgrounds%20that%20stop%20children%20taking%20risks/article.do

There was a time not so long ago in the UK when there was a concerted effort to make playgrounds as safe as possible.

The result? Denied any legitimate outlet for risk-taking or adventure, kids forsook the playgrounds for construction sites and other similar places, which were VERY dangerous.

Kids are kids. And boys, especially, are boys. Being denied any legitimate outlets for their natural aggression, they found illegitimate ones.

I believe our modern society too much tries to make humans into something they are not … and the result is that our denied urges manifest destructively. The correct answer is to CHANNEL our natural impulses and tendancies into productive venues, rather than pretending they don’t exist at all.

You can either have slightly risky playgrounds or construction sites. Which do you prefer?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

When I taught junior high, I sent a girl to the office because she wore an Eminem T-shirt for pajama day. (Why we had pajama day in Junior High is something I still don’t understand; half the kids had to be sent to the office for violating the dress code.) It would have been one thing if it had only been Eminem’s slack-jawed face, but it was Eminem wearing a hockey mask and holding a chainsaw. Why does such a T-shirt exist? Because Eminem found it amusing, maybe ironic, to pose in that way. But he little considers what sort of message this puts out. And if anyone were to complain to him about that message, he’d respond, “It’s a joke. Can’t you take a joke?” (Or maybe he wouldn’t, considering the subjects he raps about.)

But back to your post. I don’t think these small laudable moments are what kids who wear a Montana shirt have in mind. At the same time, Michael, although I agree with you that Montana is an icon for waste and destruction, I remember well the enthusiasm for the movie when it came out was for its cartoonish character and memorable lines: hamming up “Say hello to my little friend” with Pacino-esque mugging is a staple of American cultural cliches. I suspect that the kids who are wearing this icon are at best unknowingly parodying this culturally iconic status rather than Montana’s values, and are motivated by nothing more interesting than the same commodification of “freedom fighter” chic: e.g., Che Guevera t-shirts brought to you by Abercrombie & Fitch. I don’t know if the kids are really buying into this parody of the rags-to-riches story by violent conquest. There is irony, no doubt, but it could just as well be a way to express their anticipated disillusionment in that predictable cliche of all valedictorian speeches: “The World is Yours.” In other words, I’m not sure whether the kids who wear Tony Montana t-shirts are sending their warning to the world to watch out, here they come, or whether they are putting a face to their hopelessness by mocking individualism, or whether they just find him a cartoonish character and therefore funny. I tend to think the latter, that kids see Tony Montana as sort of a slightly more hot-headed Austin Powers. Even so, I don’t think this invalidates your interpretation at all.

Which is why I would go back to Wall Street to understand where the real challenges are to the icons and images young people seize upon to shape their identity. The market is god. The market tells you and sells you what you must own to be cool, to belong. Sometimes the market says thou shalt be a non-conformist or an anarchist. Here’s your logo gear; go in peace. The market is such a powerful god that it can take Che, a figure who espoused the overthrow of capitalism by revolution, and turn a profit on him by splashing his visage on clothes and accessories.