Pop Culture Icon Tony Soprano: Why the Audience is Attracted to his Endearing Character
Tony Elia
Tony Soprano is an “everyman.” Tony Soprano is a societal parasite. Tony Soprano struggles with his family’s moods. Tony Soprano is absolutely ruthless. How can a man who is so layered coexist in the same identity? This is a man of many contradictions; a man who genuinely loves his family, but a man would like nothing better than eat a plate of rigatoni and sleep with his mistress. He is treacherous, glib, and gregarious within the same personality. No one is more aware of his complexities than he, but in spite of his melancholy introspection, it is Tony’s flaws and his midlife crisis that is so addictive to the audience’s imagination. 1
The persona of Tony Soprano is fictitious and probably represents an amalgamation of ideation and experiences from creator and rhetor, David Chase. Literature is boringly pointless without a protagonist and an equally viable antagonist, and villains like Tony Soprano are usually earmarked as antagonists. The rhetor turned that stereotype on its ear, and consciously made a murderer and racketeer into a focal of endearment. Tony is allowed to act in ways the audience never could, and despite an internal clarion warning the audience to condemn Tony for his transgressions, no one can resist his appeal or the energy flowing from choices no one else would dare make. The audience becomes complicit in Tony Soprano’s drive to fulfill all the urges from the collective Id. Tony is the audience alter ego, and it is outside their reality how a lost temper could logically result in a corpse floating in the East River. 2 The audience knows their limitations in a nation of laws, but it would be more gratifying to impose our will like Tony. This paper looks to explore the dichotomy that is Tony Soprano and why the audience embraces his way of life, if only for an hour a week. In traditional drama, the audience was prone to still want justice to prevail in the end, but Tony is a sharp break from that formula; he reveals an opening that invites all to unite in his idiosyncrasies. Bad guy or not, the audience is invested.
There are several episodes substantiating the thesis. The series pilot exposes that Tony’s
self-esteem issues are attributed to his parents. 3 This situation is not unusual, and the rhetor’s creative license uncovers an era of unhappiness due to his mother’s scorn, “you think you’re so high and mighty.” This is the same woman who verbally reduced his father to a, “squealing little gerbil,” before he died. The audience is simpatico with the genesis of Tony’s trouble; maybe the audience as a societal cross-section has embarrassing relatives too. The audience is just as ready to overlook that his father was mobbed up and Tony joined the Mafia more than willingly.
The audience and Tony Soprano are so close they could be soul mates. The introduction to Tony could not have been more transparent because his sociopathic side was unmistakably exposed with his wife’s meltdown on how wrong it was to make their living in from crime. However, the real window into Tony Soprano’s mind is his panic attacks and ensuing therapeutic sessions. His discontent with job and family is captured during the pilot episode by the ducks in his pool that can fly away and change their lives. Tony detects “things are trending downward nowadays,” but the paucity of solid values in his workplace pale in comparison to the home front drama. In the acclaimed episode, “College,” the duck theme reappears right after Tony kills an informant, and overhead, a flock of water fowl migrates south. 4 His therapist interprets the ducks as Tony’s fear his line of work is leading to him to lose his family; the ducklings will learn to fly and they’ll leave. When Dr. Melfi says, “hope comes in many forms,” she is reassuring the audience too. If his therapist conveys she cares, the audience is going to care right back.
The audience, as a group, probably aspires to the “American Dream,” but they realize that ideal is increasingly elusive, especially for the next generation, and the trend disturbs them. If Tony is conjured up in the audience’s thoughts and unleashed, he will take care of things and create a world where the audience can escape from a society in decline and not cower to outside authorities. The audience can’t match testosterone with Tony, but it is implicit the audience wants their lives to be different; it would be easier to cope with modern chaos if Tony was real.
The episode “Funhouse” intimates there is an overriding syllogism pertinent to the assertion that Tony is above mortal judgment, but the audience winks and understands his self-aggrandizement is for what it is. 5 The more outrageous the premise, the more it is compelling. The head of the family is to be responsible for the fortunes the family. The weakness for Tony is that his love for family doesn’t extend to anyone else’s family. In the same episode, he executed a friend turned informer but he paid a “mob annuity” to his widow as compensation for her loss. Tony stopped providing for her when he gambled away a sizeable payment on a football game. Tony does not seem to sustain decency for longer than a few weeks before he reverts to his old, tactless habits. Ethos is predicated on the personal character of Tony Soprano, which in this case is negligible. However, his stubbornness redeems himself to the audience as his daughter, Meadow, amplifies Tony’s philosophy with this declaration after seeing him in handcuffs, “my friends don’t judge me and if they do, f*ck them, I will cut them off.” Her refreshing candor is made indelible on the audience by the actor’s memory and delivery, including nonverbal gestures, to attain the rhetor’s goal of focusing on Tony Soprano, “the man.” The audience is almost giddy that Tony’s children support him so unconditionally.
Tony’s braggadocio is unchecked and his tendency to flaunt his prestige obfuscates his soiled, illegal enterprise. The episode, “From Where to Eternity,” is a hodgepodge of distractions masquerading as wisdom. 6 Tony doesn’t understand the truth, so the first casualty in the episode is the logos proof. Without logos, the story bypasses the invention speech element and goes directly to the “do you believe in God,” conundrum. No one is 100% positive about their belief system, so the audience is engaged out of curiosity. The audience adores analogies like: “I saw my father in hell; hell is an Irish Bar.” The notion is incredulous and Tony Soprano would be better off trusting what is not hypocritical and satisfies the collective good. This is a lesson Tony is not about to grasp.
This parody melts into an inferior drama since Tony’s telos or end-purpose means he has to always be right, “I’m not the type who deserves hell – the “Hitlers,” the “Pol Pots”, they’re the f*cks that deserve to die.’ The rhetor uses telos to show Tony’s moral authority is irreconcilable with his dearth of an honor and the foul residue his cheating and verbal abuse leaves on his family. This is an entirely pathos proof and plays on emotions like anger, shame, and greed. The audience may be empathic to Tony’s delusion about his superiority because family dysfunction is so normal. Naturally, its likely Tony’s career and disjointed religious traditions would not project him to be in a state of grace any time soon, so purgatory may be in his future: “I figure I gotta do 6,000 years; that’s nothing in eternity time, I can do that standing on my head.” The audience may be humored because they share an edginess vis-à-vis their own afterlife prospects.
The audience is so acclimated to Tony Soprano as a contagion they need no foreshadowing that the wife, daughter and son’s demise is inevitable with Tony’s bad influence. It’s common sense that Tony can flourish, but not mature, as a protagonist with his destructive personality. His penchant for guns, casual sex, and gluttony meshes with the rhetor’s vision of Tony as an abhorrent boor, and Tony’s values and story elements merge for high “probability” adherence. When the audience learns to trust how a character will act, they develop affection for that character. They should be appalled, not amused, that Tony has a need to take care of himself first and foremost, and this selfishness is corroborated when he mistreats a new mistress. Later, he has the audacity to say to Dr. Jennifer Melfi, “she makes me happy, happier than all your Prozac and therapy bullsh*t combined.” Tony just wants her to be available, but his appetites are so reckless they corrupt everyone around him. The more corrupt, the more the facts in the story are harmonious. When he saves his close friend from being stranded in the woods Tony reminds him, “that c*cks*cker crawls from under a rock, he’s your problem.” A death threat usurps a good deed. The narrative discourse is validated in the “Pine Barrows” chapter because Tony doesn’t fathom how his values were fundamental in the causation of those pathetic events. 7 His oblivion seals the audience’s adherence with, “why does everything got to be so hard, I’m not perfect, I do the right thing by my family; doesn’t that count for anything?”
The real power of Tony Soprano on those who surround him is his ability to bring them down to the bottom rung of societal propriety. For instance, when Tony’s family protector role emerges in its full extent in the “Employee of the Month” episode. 8 His therapist is “a rock,” while Tony is unstable. A dilemma is created over whose value system the therapist allows to win, Tony Soprano’s sad behavior or the audience’s desire to “egg him on” with their appetite for gratuitous retaliation. Dr. Jennifer Melfi is a rape victim and she has a dream which features Tony as a black Rottweiler metaphor. Being a trained psychoanalyst, Dr. Melfi realizes she’s on the precipice of sweet vengeance. The audience wants justice, and would beg her if they could to tell Tony, but the therapist is altruistic and “does the right thing.” The rhetor lauds her for not going down the path where she would become an enabler. The audience has a double standard – the one attribute despised more than murder is passivity. That’s not Tony Soprano; he’s a man of action. The audience telepathically gives him permission to follow his instincts and be a better man later. Ergo, Tony Soprano is worth redemption, just not yet. One commenter took exception to Dr. Melfi’s reaction. He refuses her praise for not succumbing to temptation, because she withdrew her suggestion Tony see a “behaviorist” and keeps him as a safety net. 9
Money is the root of Tony’s values. He buys his crew’s loyalty, he buys family “love,” he buys his mistresses. The audience relationship with Tony’s weak values like vanity, pride and avarice, is tested by whether there is hope for his bad behavior or if the family can survive his shallow nature. The answer for both questions is negative. The story’s dimensions of audience, theme, and temporal relations are clearly identifiable. The audience judges Tony via Nielsen ratings, and the series longevity is dependent on those numbers. The theme the audience will recognize is the “me first” attitude the rhetor has everyone see. The rhetor wants Tony Soprano to stay incorrigible as he linearly interfaces with a steady parade of old and new characters.
“What could I do?” That resignation epitomizes a remark most impotent, a remark made possible by Tony’s corruption seeping down to his son when he shares a hate crime he witnessed with his counselor and this was the entire son, A.J., could muster. Tony Soprano presents a fine example for healing later when he tells his A.J., “Bury you head in the sand; I’ll bury your head in that wall instead.” So much for the next generation; the whole imperfect spectrum is manifest when he heroically rescues his A.J. in a suicide attempt. Afterwards, Tony misses the opportunity to stay heroic when he twists the event as one A.J. devised to hurt him, “stupid F*ck, when did I lose this kid; what did I do wrong.”
In the episode, “The Second Coming,” Meadow, is swept up in the spectrum net. 10 She abandons pre-med to study law due to her misinterpretation of the Italian-American harassment by the FBI. Tony’s civil rights aren’t being abrogated, he is a thief and murderer, but he also defends his family by breaking the teeth of a rival gangster after he made risqué comments to Meadow. Tony Soprano’s personality is like a mambo; one step forward, one step back, and he persists resolute throughout the course of the dance. He maligns his family and then improvises his rationale. He demonstrates this uneasy balance in the spectrum with two quotes. The first involves his family’s shortcomings: “Why me? Doesn’t every parent make mistakes; I’m a good guy basically. I love my family; there’s a balance – a ying and a yang; you’d think you’d learn something.” The second quote channels the rhetor on how Tony is all things to all people with this insight, “mothers are bus drivers; they’re the vehicles that gets us here - they drop us off and they go on their own journey, but the problem is we keep trying to get back on the bus.” Even in a moment of personal catharsis, his wife shows him he can’t live in a binary world as she blames him for the botched suicide. He resigns to live in the spectrum when he retorts bitterly, “so it’s all on me, our sonny boy, you had nothing to do with it … Got the whole world by the balls, every f*cking advantage and he hits one little pothole – I’m not taking the rap, not completely.”
The audience likes playful arrogance, spontaneity and charisma; it’s a volatile mixture few people could pull off. Tony’s contradictions inspire a full range of mirth and menace from which the audience cannot retreat. In “The Mr. Ruggerio’s Neighborhood,” the FBI meticulously sets up a federal wire tap process. 11 The G-men comply with very specific rules, while Tony’s mastery of technology is pithy, “you know the coffeemaker’s got to be plugged in for it to work.” The ramifications of surveillance could be terribly grave for Tony, but he resorts to sarcasm to thrive in the spectrum of all emotions. Sarcastic witticisms are typically insincere and Tony Soprano uses it as a carte blanche to be affable or grotesque on a whim. Inherent in the contrast between spectrum and binary is impulse or congruity. Tony can deny or swagger as well as a professional gambler holding two pairs. Tony Soprano exemplifies his two-faced disposition with, “don’t say you’re sure if you’re not sure.” Tony Soprano is such a perfect character contaminant he has a way of corrupting even the lesser people in his life as well as his family. The Polish housekeeper is discussing civics and liberty with her husband, such as voting being the greatest right and the importance of Martin Luther King’s contribution to Civil Rights, but when her husband confronts her about stealing the Soprano’s steak knives, she rationalizes about their wealth and how tomorrow she will abscond with champagne glasses.
Tony Soprano’s immorality is the genesis of his charm and resonates with the audience. Nevertheless, the rhetor has to switch the tenor of the story to communicate how that same immorality makes it possible for Tony’s inner workings to be dominated by a horrific side to his personality. The episode, “Kennedy and Heidi” is unsettling as Tony kills his nephew, Chris. 12 Tony is not wistful and confesses to his therapist, “I’m f*cking relieved, a weak, f*cking lying drug addict – that’s the worst kind of bet, the biggest blunder of my career is now gone.” What is worse than killing family? Also, A.J.’s inaction over the beating of an African student show their bond could evolve into, “like father, like son.” Later, Tony flies to Vegas to give money to Chris’ ex-girlfriend as a promise to the deceased, but they have sex, smoke pot and eat peyote. It is ludicrously hypocritical after he berates Chris for taking drugs. The tragedy is Tony mocked Chris when he was on wagon and cajoled him to drink, pop polls, and womanize like it was sort of a sick joke. He also did everything he could to derail Chris’ passion to produce his own movies. When Tony laughs, “He’s dead, I did it,” Tony Soprano is far, far away from binary.
The pinnacle of corruption is embodied in the “Blue Comet,” as it sets up the series finale. The episode is a collection of paradoxes that would generally prompt any reasonable man to seek clarity. Tony Soprano does not want to change and when his right hand man is shot and in a coma, Tony actually resolves to strengthen his grasp on the spectrum. 13 One paradox is Philly’s comparison of sacred “made man” ceremony variations and how it should be beautiful, but then he takes the low road and kills Tony Soprano’s brother-in-law, Bobby. What is ironic is that Bobby would have potentially stayed under the radar except that he dutifully agree to do Tony’s dirty work and became a bona fide target. In response, Tony hires out-of-town assassins who “hit” the wrong guy, which is truly not splendiferous either. Another paradox is when Dr. Jennifer Melfi wants to cancel Tony due to his manipulation. Tony accuses her of being “immoral” but really gender is the source of the paradox, because while he claims to love women, he deliberately offends Dr. Melfi as “menopausal.”
The rhetor is not a Tony Soprano advocate; in fact he is piqued by the audience’s delight in violence. David Chase loathes TV so he’s as least as conflicted as Tony. 14 Television story lines can have a momentum of their own and run uncontrolled. The rhetor’s frustration is illuminated with, “if you're raised on a steady diet of Hollywood movies and network television, you start to think, obviously there's going to be some moral accounting here.'' Realistic or not, the audience is loyal; they want Tony to flatten some jerk's head like dough. The rhetor champions Dr. Melfi, despite her trauma, because she made the ethical choice and shunned payback. 15 The opposite is true; the audience is happy accommodating and encouraging Tony to be Tony. This is an explicit admonishment from the rhetor that debauched values may be fun but they are ultimately ineffectual and the consequences will harm everyone Tony knows in time.
In the episode entitled, “Mayhem,” there was a potent symbol of hegemony. 16 Tony is in danger of dying in the hospital, but that doesn’t stop Tony’s crew rushing to give his wife $100K tribute because her share is a sort of “divine right.” While Tony is being given electrical shocks to revive his cardiac rhythm, he enters a dream sequence, in which he is faced with his own mortality and is given a choice - change or face damnation. Tony almost makes that fateful egress, but he fights back, largely because of Meadow’s voice. The rhetor might say that Tony’s new lease on life was his chance to rehabilitate himself and dedicate his remaining days to charitable endeavors. A penitent Tony is the ending the rhetor tries to persuade the audience to covet. The audience was tepid, and so the rhetor spends the rest of the series creating a Tony Soprano who gets progressively worse and worse. The rhetor still harbored some optimism that the audience would eventually discover the real Tony, in all his sordid cruelty, but that never happened. Some say the fans wanted to see Tony headfirst into a bowl of onion rings with a bullet in this head; “How much they wanted his blood, after cheering him on for eight years”.17 The rhetor will just have to throw up his hands in amazement over the public’s capacity for homicide, and console himself with rich syndication fees and merchandising.
Tony Soprano was not the first media character to be both infamous and beloved. J.R.
Ewing in, “Dallas,” became a pop culture sensation in the 1980’s, and Don Corleone from “The Godfather” was personable and not without allure as a protagonist. The audience was endeared to both, but they were “old school” villains and they projected a more elegant ambience. Tony is more of the mobster stereotype of “undershirts and yelling.” He’s crass, a bully, and violent, but the audience still wants him to vanquish his enemies. So why is the viewer willing to absolve a felon? It’s no secret the audience doesn’t mind visuals derived from the popularity of Casino or Goodfellas, but is that enough for decent folk to tolerate criminals among their peers or associates? There must be something in Tony Soprano in which we are cognizant in ourselves? Tony Soprano incurs familiar complicated interpersonal dynamics as husband or father, and the rhetor purposely stresses this aspect of life over his mob function. The audience recognizes the explicit narcissism and scandal expected from a full spectrum gangster, but in spite of being “king of the castle,” Tony Soprano is vulnerable about who he is, about who he wants to be.
Most people given the same set of circumstances would avoid trouble, but the adrenaline rush of getting away with something or “beating the house” is part and parcel of a culturally romantic act of defiance. The hidden dark side, where Tony Soprano festers, links the audience. A society should emulate realism and ethical values, but that predictive thinking also produces uneventful, stale lifestyles, so at least we can vicariously shadow Tony without being constrained by mores, fear and culpability. 18 Tony Soprano is a corrosive force and his tastes are extreme, absurd and vacuously materialistic. In this environment, Tony’s masculine hegemony style and pathos have to be comparatively enticing because the audience relationship is not based on esoteric principles. The fact that there is an almost cult-like following with the artifact on the Internet for so many years after its run on cable is indicative the audience is still not about to forfeit a trail of crafty adages that on the surface are so entertaining and timeless, “in the end your friends will let you down – family, they’re who you can depend on.” Families are difficult and everyone, including Tony Soprano, is flawed. For a family to endure, forgiveness must be a daily exercise. The audience is that forgiveness and they are liberal with its dispersal.
References
1. Dougherty, Robin,” Chasing TV,” Salon, (1999, January 20), <http:www.nj.com/sopranos/ledger/index.ssf?/sopranos/stories/030401chase.html>. Doughtery on Tony Soprano: the author offers an explanation on how a mobster like Tony Soprano is compelling us because he shares common travails that average people recognize including midlife crisis’s and family relationships.
2. Martin, Brett, “’Sopranos’ Creator Takes on Angry Fans,” EW.com, (2007, October 18), <http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20152845,00.html>.
What devices did the writer choice to make a fictional character real: the creator purposefully crafts Tony Soprano to serve up justice that the mass audience could relate to in that it may have been abhorrent by societal standards. It is a simplicity that allows the audience to choose a mobster as our personal alter ego.
3. <"Pilot">, < The Sopranos>, <David Chase, Producer>, <David Chase, Director)>, <Season 1, Episode 1>, <Home Box Office (HBO)>, < 10 January 1999>.
S1,E1: The Creator, David Chase, wants the emphasis for The Sopranos to not be on racketeering, but rather on Tony Soprano, a man with family problems and entwined in an emotional morass. There is the perfunctory phasing in of cast members in every pilot, but when the first family scene starts off with, “what no f*ckin’ ziti,” the audience breaks the fourth wall and not the actor.
4. <"College">, < The Sopranos>, <David Chase, Producer>, <Allen Coulter, Director>, <Season 1, Episode 5>, <Home Box Office (HBO)>, < 7 February 1999>.S1,E5: This episode is concerned with the interaction between Tony and his daughter. They tell each other how they can be honest with each other, but the lies come way too easily. It is an interesting study of Tony Soprano’s concentration in which he can compartmentalize the demands of both of his personas; he can be nurturing in one and vindictive in the other, without overlapping boundaries.
5. <"Funhouse">, < The Sopranos>, <David Chase, Producer>, <John Patterson, Director>, <Season 2, Episode 13>, <Home Box Office (HBO)>, < 9 April 2000>S2,E13: The story elements, invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery,
channels the defeatist “it’s all a big nothing – life,” renunciation, that was inspired by the
damage done by Tony Sopranos borderline mother, and is further explored by the “dark” dream sequences attributed to food poisoning, to the triumph of eliminating the threat to the family and the family’s refusal to be bullied by the outsiders. The ending celebrates life,
family and purpose at the end is the rhetor’s message that endears the audience to Tony.
6. <"From Where to Eternity">, < The Sopranos>, <David Chase, Producer>, <Henry J. Bronchtein, Director>, <Season 2, Episode 9>, <Home Box Office (HBO)>, < 12 March 2000>. S2,E9: Creator’s work examines the dichotomies between ethereal strength versus
worldly resolve, guilt versus accepting the business stakes, and mercy versus duty and how
these invoke, or do not invoke, pathos, ethos and logos proof.
7. <"Pine Barrows">, < The Sopranos>, <David Chase, Producer>, <Steve Buscemi, Director>, <Season 3, Episode 11>, <Home Box Office (HBO)>, < 6 May 2001>.S3,E11: This is an episode that attempts to define that proverbial narrow line between trust and distrust in the South Jersey woods and how a series of disastrous event draw on the artifact’s values. It features a narrative that teases the audiences with several possible outcomes since the probability is that the audience will accept anyone of these story threads it finally advances because all are characterological cohesive.
8. <"Employee of the Month">, < The Sopranos>, <David Chase, Producer>, <John Patterson, Director>, <Season 3, Episode 4)>, <Home Box Office (HBO)>, < 18 March 2001>.S3,E4: Important episode because it portrays a rape and the post-rape degradation. Bad things happen to good people, but what options do good people have to survive. How confident can one be about their own character until they actually face extraordinary misfortune? Can two wrongs make a right? This is a classic dialectic that has tested many people and the answer still evades.
9. “The Sopranos,” A.V. Club, (2013), <www.avclub.com/tvclub/tvshow/the-sopranos,107/>.What do participants on a blog think?: Everybody has an opinion and blogs are new forums for both solicited and volunteered input. One commentator for the “Employee of the Month” episode takes a contrarian view from the producer and exposes a key character’s personal agenda as blatant manipulation.
10. <"The Second Coming">, < The Sopranos>, <David Chase, Producer>, <Tim Van Patten, Director>, <Season 6, Episode 7>, <Home Box Office (HBO)>, <20 March 2007>.S6,E7: Tony Soprano is still unsure whether to manage or love his family, so he does a poor job of doing both simultaneous instead of jettisoning his judgmental side and living in a binary world. He is still affected by the poisonous environment established by his mother that has spread to the second generation when his daughter quotes her classic adage, “Life is a big nothing.” While family should be taught as the bulwark against all outside threats, the children suspect that in the end their friends and family will let them down and they will die in their own arms. It’s a cautionary tale in which Tony Soprano becomes the mercurial, untrustworthy cad.
References cont.
11. <"Mr. Ruggerio’s Neighborhood">, < The Sopranos>, <David Chase, Producer>, <Allen Coulter, Director>, <Season 3, Episode 1>, <Home Box Office (HBO)>, <4 March 2001>.S3,E1: One of Tony’s men comments how his brother was “a sweet, gentile man,” in front of Tony Soprano when it was no secret who gave the order. It sets up the contrarian motif thread so prevalently in the series.
12. <"Kennedy and Heidi">, < The Sopranos>, <David Chase, Producer>, <Alan Taylor, Director>, <Season 6, Episode 6>, <Home Box Office (HBO)>, <13 May 2007>S6,E6: There is a lot of death in this episode, which is rich ground for revealing the
antithesis correlations between Tony Soprano and his corner of the universe. Tony despises being, “the *sshole again,” and excuses that injustice with, “I had all the responsibilities.” While Tony disparages his nephew with the recollection, “I felt sorry for him – he talked gratitude but guess what pity produces in the recipient, they sh*t on your pity.” His son is the antithesis of Tony Soprano because, he doesn’t try to minimalize his mistakes and gives the cliché, “why can’t we all get along,” to his counselor.
13. <"Blue Comet">, < The Sopranos>, <David Chase, Producer>, < Alan Taylor, Director>, <Season 6, Episode 8>, <Home Box Office (HBO)>, <3 June 2007>.S6,E8: Dr. Melfi reexamines her relationship with Tony Soprano and reads the Dr. Yochelson Criminal Mind study (an actual academic paper) and considers that therapy actually helps the criminal be more dangerous which clearly establishes Tony as the quintessential antithesis to a healer. Murders channel their compassion for babies and pets and Tony doesn’t disappoint. Tony wanted his daughter to be a doctor so she could take care of sick babies and he has a palpable affection for cats, so he’s the poster boy for criminal personality. The audience loves it when Tony Soprano makes no excuses for what he is.
14. Bennett, James and Niki Strange, “Television as Digital Media,” Duke University Press, (2011), <http://books.google.com/ books?id=3cYJndq9K1IC&pg=PA113#v=onepage&q=loath&f=false>.Bennett and Strange on The Sopranos: There is a contradiction between David Chases’ “bread and butter,” as a television executive and David Chase, the moralist writer. Mr. Chase hates the way television drama can develop over a multi-year run although the longer a series lasts, the greater the individual’s compensation and syndication rights. Television is different from the specific storyboard of a movie where the audience is captive and the script is undeterred until the film’s completion.
15. “Chase 'n' the Russian,” Time Inc. Home Entertainment, (2007), <http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20038366_4,00.html>. Does the audience feel the same why as the show’s Creator?: Most people are powerless – they need a job, they cannot just change families, and they settle for less than they anticipated. As dreams are dashed, people gravitate to the idea that somewhere, someone is capable of breaking the rules and taking matters in their own hands The audience can forgive a deviation when a bad act sets the world right again.
15. “Chase 'n' the Russian,” Time Inc. Home Entertainment, (2007), <http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20038366_4,00.html>. Does the audience feel the same why as the show’s Creator?: Most people are powerless – they need a job, they cannot just change families, and they settle for less than they anticipated. As dreams are dashed, people gravitate to the idea that somewhere, someone is capable of breaking the rules and taking matters in their own hands The audience can forgive a deviation when a bad act sets the world right again.
16. <"Mayhem">, < The Sopranos>, <David Chase, Producer>, <Jack Bender, Director>, <Season 6, Episode 3>, <Home Box Office (HBO)>, <26 March 2006>.S6,E3: The story deals with the real possibility that Tony’s reign may be over. His captains clumsily scheme for top position in the aftermath and Tony Soprano’s son wants to kill the shooter, but they are not compelling, which cements the audience belief system why Tony Soprano is so dominant, and why any other power structure would be illegitimate. Tony almost gives up in the dream sequence, which is rich in symbolism like surrendering his briefcase and abandoning business to go into the Inn, but Tony Soprano fights back because the pretenders would be bad stewards of the common economic and political “good” work done by the organization.
17. Martin, Brett, “’Sopranos’ Creator Takes on Angry Fans,” EW.com, (2007, October 18), <http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20152845,00.html>.This is the second time this source was used for information with the paper’s text. The fans of the program are insatiable and want to see more bloodshed and wouldn’t mind it if Tony Soprano’s head was face down in a bowl of onion rings after dispatching the New York family of course.
18. Seitz, Matt Z., “Boss of Bosses,” The Star-Ledger, (2001, March 4), <www.nj.com/sopranos/ledger/index.ssf?/sopranos/stories/030401chase.html>.
