[lbo-talk] in which lbo-talk defends 'the sopranos'

[Carl Remick]

>From: John Thornton <jthorn65 at mchsi.com>
>
>      It is just possible that the rather leftish leaning people on this 
>list may walk away from a program like The Sopranos with a slightly 
>different perspective than a 19 year old student at a community college who 
>feels dumped on and mistreated and craves respect and money. Maybe not.

I'd say that student is very astute, because I share his/her perspective 
entirely.  One of the satisfactions of the show *is* that Tony and his crew 
serve as the audience's proxies in getting even for the many humiliations 
that people suffer every day in the hands of authority figures.  One of my 
favorite scenes is when Tony and his chief goon go to a fancy country club 
to put the muscle on some pompous doctor who is too busy to see Tony's 
elderly uncle.  Tony very smoothly humiliates the doctor and intimidates him 
to the point that the doctor falls back backward into a water hazard.  The 
next day -- mirabile dictu -- Tony's uncle gets a call saying the doctor 
would just love to see him, the sooner the better.  Seeing society's 
powerful get bounced around and humbled occasionally is one of the joys of 
the show.   But there is much more to The Sopranos than that.

Carl