Look I'm a drug user. I grew up in the worst neighborhood in Miami during some of the worst times to live in that city. I've been surrounded by drug use my entire life. 3 out of my 4 brothers are in prison right now and the other one is brain dead from having a bullet stuck in his fucking neck. I've done time in the can. All my friends have done time or just fucking died before they were 25. Somehow I made it out of that bullshit but why is nearly every movie about crime and/or drug use making it seem like being involved in that bullshit is fun or about loyalty and respect. Seriously name me one fucking movie about the darker sides of society that doesn't in some way glamorize low lives.
>drive >the departed >black mass >trainspotting >scarface >the godfather
Maybe Snow on da bluff or Requiem for Dream. But even still I know people who watched that shit and tried to tell me that Snow was some hero or that the characters in Requiem for a dream werent fucking dumbasses.
This so much. Literally 0 romanticization, just tells the bleak truth. The author of the book this was based on had to go into protective custody because of his book.
Benjamin Kelly
All of those movies made me want to stay away from that world because the lesson always ends up being that drugs and crime will destroy your life even if it seems cool for awhile.
OP has a weird interpretation of gangster movies or this is bait.
Dylan Bailey
Is this really it?
When I was locked up I had a black Muslim trying to tell me about how Jews were the evil on the world. But this dude also used to sodomize himself with his toothbrush at night when he thought everyone was asleep so I didn't take what he said seriously.
Julian Collins
OP, you seem like a teenager making this shit up or like a real interesting person. Care to tell us more?
Jose Campbell
Because most movie goers (in countries like America anyway) are middle-class suburbanites who have never done anything harder than weed and never committed a crime worse than speeding. They associate the criminal lifestyle with luxury and getting to live free, as opposed to the debt and wage slavery most of them are forced into. Thus, the entertainment they consume panders to their escapist desires.
Julian Miller
Yeah hard drugs in hollywood are almost always portrayed with serious consequence/loss of dignity and control/death I really don't know what your talking about.Initially They make DOING cocaine, or heroin for example look fun and feel good when the character starts using them, because that is what happens in real life to people when they start. Then the rest of it is usually a downhill slide just like in the movies.
Ayden Rivera
They PORTRAY drug use as part of that kind of life, not GLORIFY it. There's a difference. Obviously if you're an international drug-peddling kingpin, you're gonna be doing loads of blow. Doesn't mean it's a good thing, the movie is just trying to portray the extravagant life of powerful underground icons
Jose Sanchez
Yeah I hate that big dumby stuff too!! Crime is illegal and bad so there should never be movies about the bad guys :) They should all make more batman movies :)))
Dominic Flores
Okay maybe glorify is the wrong word.
Romanticize is a better word for what I am trying to say.
Like Said. They still portray the life as a life of freedom and luxury and have the death and prison usually as an ending footnote. For Christ sake you can't tell me Scarface's death wasn't fucking portrayed as glorious.
John Watson
I think it's just a matter of perspective. I see people in movies doing drugs and going to wild parties and I fucking hate it.
Luke Moore
What'd you guys like to know?
Gavin Martinez
I can't speak for all of these movies but Scorsese in particular doesn't portray drug use in a positive light (look at how Ray Liotta is very obviously not in a good headspace during the helicopter sequence in Goodfellas).
And I haven't seen all of Boyle's adaptation of Trainspotting, but in the book Rents jumps down a toilet to get drugs, a baby dies because its heroin parents are inattentive, a guy gets one of his legs amputated, and another guy gets HIV and then toxoplasmosis and dies in abject poverty. There are moments of levity but it's not shown to be exactly a pleasant life
Jackson Johnson
good choice, there isn't any bright glimmer of youthful rebellion or glamorized counter culture just the cold harsh reality
Jason Reed
Well, Tony Montana *did* end up ruining his life and then getting shot to death.
Angel Ramirez
drive? really? of all movies to use as an example you pick drive?
Daniel Thomas
Most of these movie the drug users have shitty lives, the reason you see it as glamorous is because thats just hollywood
