I don't make any judgment about how good The Sopranos is as a show. I thought the episode I saw was pretty good -- not good enough to make me seek out more. I am sorry if I did not make this clear. I don't rate the episode I saw, or the show, if the episode is representative, which I don't know, on the level of the best TV I have seen. In that category I'd put, for example, I Love Lucy. Early SNL, The Smothers Brothers. The first Star Trek shows. The Twilight Zone. The early Mission Impossibles. The Prisoner. The Fugitive. M*A*S*H. (I date myself, right?)
I thought the episode was as good as most episodes in a show about a police department in Baltimore my dad used to like -- I forgot the title -- Homicide or something like that. Pretty good. People I respect say that the show is even better than that, but I don't know first hand.
But what I was rewsponding to, perhaps with some overstatement, was your repeated statements that the show could not be any good because it had bad anti-progressive content, glorifying gangsterism, capitalism, violence, etc. Now neither of us are in a position to know first hand whether the Sopranos as a show is actually any good because neither of us has seen enough of it.
I have given a great many examples of works of art that glorify bad values and are considered transcendent. Or good. Or excellent. I guess I am frustrated because you don't seem to acknowledge that possibility -- that a work of art (even a TV show) can embody values we find hateful, and be good or great. If you think otherwise, then we have been talking past each other.
However, if not, the notion that art is only good if it is In Accord With Good Values is something I find extremely obnoxious. Whether or not it comes with the suggestion that warning labels be applied, much less more extreme measures such as censorship. I acknowledge here expressly, and hope it is clear enough now, that you do not and never have supported even the mildest form of censorship. That's great, and I'm glad of it. But censoriousness is bad, though not as bad as censorship. And so far as I can see you are censorious. I wish you weren't.
jks
--- John Thornton <jthorn65 at mchsi.com> wrote:
>
> >You don't get it. What's wrong, artistically, with
> a
> >show that glorifies gangsterism? Why do you adopt
> this
> >absurd prudish puritanical socialist realist view
> that
> >art -- yes, TV shows can be art, high or law --
> must
> >not romanticize Bad People Doing Bad Things? You
> and
> >Tipper Gore, this stuff requires Warning Labels.
> Quel
> >bore.
> >
> >I have only seen one episode of the Sopranos. I
> >thought it was pretty good, and people I like say I
> >should watch more, but my hours are limited. I'd
> >rather watch The Godfather again -- a film that
> >certainly romanticizes, if not glorifies,
> gangsterism.
> >(Godfather II does not.) Or Goodfellas, where,
> after
> >depicting a lifetime of conscienceless viuolent
> crime
> >and theft, the Henry Hill character stands down in
> a
> >fantasy scene on the witness stand to explain the
> >glories of the thug life -- no irony intended. Or I
> >might like to reread some Elizabethan revenge
> tragedy,
> >glorifying motives and actions that are hard to
> even
> >conceive.
>
> Fuck! Why does The Sopranos have to be either the
> best thing ever on TV as
> has been claimed (not by all) and anyone who doubts
> that is a "prudish
> puritanical socialist realist"? I called one of my
> students and am going to
> borrow her boxed set of DVD's and watch the damn
> show then I can make up my
> own mind rather than rely on the impressions of
> others. Remember, my
> original post was a question not a statement.
> For the record I never suggested the show should be
> banned or given a
> warning label or censored in any manner. It's great
> that you can argue that
> is a silly position but what is less great that this
> is a shitty critique
> of anything I've written. Your inability to
> understand this coupled with
> the fact that you would rather make a weak attempt
> to link my position on
> the show to Tipper Gores nuttery is quite sad. How
> is it that you, having
> seen exactly one episode just as I have, are somehow
> more able to hold any
> position on this program than I am. Maybe several
> people on this list will
> chime in about how silly you are to think the show
> is "pretty good" based
> on such little information?
>
> John Thornton
>
> ___________________________________
>
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>
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