Letters to the Editor
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Somebody please explain
why people who don't watch the show take the time to log on to bitch about it and complain to Salon writers for writing about it. If you haven't watched the show, you have no idea of the nuances of the plot lines nor the context of the action. But most of all, you cannot possibly appreciate the brilliance of James Gandolfini's portrayal of Tony Soprano- he brings it, and how. JG has imbued Tony not only with the cold calculatedness of a mob boss, but the tender vulnerability of a man who loves his family, the seductive allure of a functioning voluptuary, the explosive fury of an unloved son, the frustration of an uneducated man striving for knowledge of himself,the instinctive cunning of a born survivor, and the aching regret of an essentially blue collar schmoe who would rather have been born the son of a bricklayer.(as was JG)
James Gandolfini, and James Gandolfini alone, is the reason we love Tony and regret right along with him that his father was not a bricklayer. Things would have been so different, but then we wouldn't have The Sopranos.
So if you don't watch the show, stop reading the frickin' articles about it, and for God's sake, stop treating us to your holier-than-thou, childishly judgemental comments.
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A late convert
I was a late comer to the Sopranos. I too was a critic, but then when I started watching the show I realized the nuances of the plot lines, the ironeis, the humor mixed with sick violence. I loved the ironies and analogies society..the "mafia family" dealing with the usual family issues; the mafia killer seeking therapy for his depression; Christopehr the drug addict seeking recovering. The brilliant analogies,hypocracies, personal life issues and violence very much reflected our American culture.
The Sopranos is a mirror and some did not like what they saw,others got it.
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Wish I Watched
I never have watched more than five minutes of the Sopranos or Godfathers or any Mafia movies since Elliot Ness. Before you dismiss me as a male freak or heretic, here me out.
Mafia violence on the screen or in real life always seemed to me to be a meaningless cop out from reality. You needed a moral code that drove feelings below consciousness. Real violence can be very necessary, yet it’s use should start you walking on a tight rope of uncertainty even though you may not realize it.
My exploration of violence, other than cowboys and Indian movies, began in earnest when I visited my grandparent’s farm in North Dakota in the ‘50s. My grandfather and uncle needed violence to stay alive, whether killing game for food or familiar cattle, chickens and pigs. It didn’t bother me laughing at chickens running around without heads. But when I threw for silly fun some soon to be hatched hen house eggs against the barn wall, that decision greatly bothered my grandparents and my behind.
Because they had no TV, one escapist violent amusement when my grandfather or uncle had some rare down time from farming was riding around in the Ford pickup shooting gophers. We killed at least 40 each time and left them to die without bothering to even examine the corpses. I kind of felt sorry for those gophers and also felt they were stupid for not stuffing their curiosity and staying in their holes. Then one day a robin changed everything about my view of gratuitous violence.
I was not on the farm but home in Grand Forks in my back alley and had just nailed a robin perched on phone line with my Roy Rogers Daisy BB gun. This time I went over to the kill and saw the robin writhing on the dirt alley. I couldn’t save it. That was my first reality look at death. From that moment on, although I have watched innumerable human death in movies and TV shows, I see unreal death for what it is, nonsense. I want my deaths to mean something. I want to understand the human condition that causes and can prevent it. I want to be sure violence is my only recourse.
Before I read Gary’s explanation of the Sopranos, my brief sojourns into Mafia movies only showed me a boring king-of-the-mountain game that ends up with the deaths of people I didn’t care much about. Now I wished I would have watched the Bravo re-runs. I hope the people who support our president and his “ends justify the means” ignoring of real human consequences watched it. I hope Tony finally started them to question their moral certainty like I did when I watched that robin. Judging from Gary’s explanation and Bush’s polls, he may have.
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We don't watch TV either
I always doubt those whos say "we don't watch TV".
My response to that statement is. "I don't watch TV, I watch HBO.
(of course I watch PBS too)
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morals and taste
Early on in the series, immediately after Tony had gleefully beaten someone to a pulp, the scene shifted to his shrink's office and I heard her ask him, regarding that event or something else: "How do you feel about that?" I switched it off and have not watched it since. I thought at the time that I'd rather watch cancer. These things are, of course, a matter of taste, as is what we choose to gloat about, or not. If I were this Kamiya bimbo, I would not choose to gloat about mine.
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Tony Soprano for President
Great article Gary! Keep those synapses firing on all engines, and pay no attention to those who would actually take the time to post a comment complaining about your use of the royal "we." (I think it's like a rhetorical device or something, guys, chill out). Although I have to agree with the guy who says Tony wouldn't have invaded Iraq. No way. He'd have been more prudent.
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great show, goofy politics
The stuff about the Sopranos being great is true. But the show isn't about Iraq or Bush, and our enjoyment of it has nothing to do with Iraq, or Bush.
Maybe Iraqis weren't the pilots on 9/11, but that was never why we went into Iraq - check out Bush's speech of September 2001, and not the endlessly repetitive half-thought tripe that pases for anti-Bush journalism these days. The speech that Americans universally backed laid out an explicit rationale for entering Iraq, and oh, by the way, didn't we also see the end of Libya's unambiguous and undisputed nuclear program as a result?
We went into Iraq to disarm Hussein, which we did, and to find weapons of mass destruction, which we did -- unless only nukes are WMD, in which case bio-terror poses no threat, which would be really nice! If it were true.
As far as not understanding the War on Terror, that's a choice, and to some, a compulsion. Just remember that Hussein paid the families of suicide bombers, which alone makes him the most legitimate state target of a War on Terror, after the Taliban, never mind the actual friendly communications between Hussein and Al Qaeda that the 9/11 Commission did find (it's all in their report). Hussein in 2002 was as contained than the still at-large BTK killer, who hadn't killed in twenty years, but still had the option to kill the next morning. We also went into Iraq to enforce UN resolutions that the UN was not just not enforcing -- the UN fed Hussein over $2 billion in cash graft just since 2000. No one even disputes this, though Bush bashers appear to know for certain that Hussein would never have used those billions to contraband nukes. We wrecked the country, even though by ANY math fewer people are dying there each day than each day under Saddam's 25 years of rule, and thousands fewer are being tortured? Each day.
Twice, in 1979 and then again in 1990, Hussein tried to take control of Arab Gulf oil. If you think the oil companies are gouging at plus $3 a gallon, isn't it slightly foolish to suggest that a man who twice, 12 years apart, sought to impose $60 a gallon gasoline on the entire world was no threat? (Liberals remember, the burden of $60 a gallon gas would fall primarily on poor people.)
So on Iraq and Bush, we can disagree; and if we can disagree, then this piece is a waste of our onscreen fonts. The critical points are excellent, but the politics make it childish.
I love the Sopranos, and hoped to read an article just once that didn't contain a gratuitous Bush bash. Would it have been so hard to just write about the show and leave the politics, and the lame sociology about entertainment is society, for another day?
Oh, and The Godfather story wasn't Coppola's - Mario Puzo wrote the novel, the first screenplay, and co-wrote Godfather II with Coppola. Writers (and editors) should know enough to at least include mention of the person who created the characters, and the conceptual framework the Sopranos employs.
The Sopranos is wonderful because on top of everything else, it's not predictable -- as opposed to this piece, which was so predictable I could have quit halfway through and dictated the rest of it with my eyes closed.