[lbo-talk] Warm summers or dark ages?/ (An offer you can't refuse)

Marvin Gandall marvgandall at rogers.com
Tue Oct 5 04:44:09 PDT 2004


Dennis Perrin wrote:


> If anyone finds "The Sopranos" uplifting or otherwise inspirational, I
don't
> want to meet them. The show is well-done, one of TV's better dramas at
this
> time, but I've never gotten the impression that it celebrates gangsterism.
> Who in their right mind would wanna be around these people in real life?!
> "Sopranos" gives us a fictional glimpse into a world few of us would ever
> see or could stand to experience. There pain, misery, death and moral
> corruption are part of the deal and acknowledged as such (as Lee Strasberg
> put it in "Godfather II," this is the life they choose to lead).
Fascinating
> to watch, for you know that even worse exists in the real world (start at
> the government level and work down). But "celebration"? Maybe to those who
> wish to be gangsters themselves, but not to anyone I know, or would wanna
> know.
----------------------------------- Actually, anyone who grew up in this kind of immigrant community -- Irish, Italian, Jewish, Greek, etc. -- is likely to consider it a very realistic portrayal of the striving first- and second-generation types who peopled it. I can recognize at least some of my old relatives and friends among the finely-drawn secondary players who form the backdrop in the series. Each of these communities had their crime bosses and petty racketeers whose newly-acquired status and comfort were widely admired by the greater number of their more cautious and law-abiding compatriots. It's a sociological commonplace, and you'll find the same range of characters in today's black, hispanic, and Asian ghettoes. Tony Soprano and his Mafia associates engaged in quite extraordinary activity, but he, his family and friends were quite ordinary products of their upwardly mobile culture. The Sopranos explores this contradiction and the surrounding working class and suburban environment more fully and effectively than even The Godfather, which covered the same terrain. This is the basis of the enormous popular appeal of each. There are and have been many other TV and film vehicles which are simply about "gangsterism, pain, misery, death and moral corruption", which treat the subject in a way that is far removed from the experience of everyday life.

Marv Gandall



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