>> For the audience, I think the discomfort comes not from a sense of
>> being complicit in Tony's crimes, per se, but from a more basic sense
>> of being complicit in the corruption of the US as a society. As has
>> been abundantly illustrated, we live in a country that, like a mob,
>> gets its way in the world through main force, and one way or another
>> we are, like Carmella, beneficiaries of the exercise of force.
>
There's something to be gained from following the Godfather/Sopranos
thread, so let's start there.
"Godfather," the book, was a kind of mobster "Valley of the Dolls": a titillating insider's look to the mafia, spiced with thinly disguised revelations about Sinatra and the unsavory underworld connections of otherwise "respectable" characters. If it claimed any wider reach, this emerged from its characterization of immigrant/family-based life as both aggressive and atavistic. The book describes how the attempt of mobster families to monopolize the protection markets creates inter-family conflict and results in the actual destruction of those families. As under capitalism, the conflict you engage in to "protect your family" results in its destruction. In the Godfather book, this is presented in the light of violence sowing the seeds of its own destruction. To claim that the book actually shows how the feudal relations of Sicily must necessarily result in the destruction of those relations in a capitalist context, would be reaching too far. I don't think Puzo had that reach. The Godfather movies succeeded because of the talent/work of Brando, Pacino, and Duvall and, while they deepen the book's nostalgia for the days of virgins, strong families, and wives-who-stay-home, they do nothing to further analysis. The book and the movies are about the Mafia as the "other" and the Mafia never becomes anything other than the "other." Reading the book or seeing the movie is offered as a bit of exotic slumming.
The Sopranos works very differently. Tony Soprano is presented as an American everyman who stands for everything that America worships: success and power. Each show, uses the credits, to replay Tony's social ascent, from the armpit of New Jersey into the gated communities. His "arrival" is punctuated by his brandishing his gun, so that we are not mistaken about what has actually gotten him there. Every episode underlines the way in which every established insititution: the catholic church, the ivy league schools, the professional classes, the unions, and the politicians kiss Tony's ass and do his bidding despite their mouthing platitudes about his "immorality." Everyone in Tony's world is complicit in Tony's crimes because everyone takes a little of what Tony dispenses: money, influence, and power. In short, I completely agree with Carl as to what this show is about.
Tony's problem is that he doesn't just want power. He wants to be loved. He wants his children to have a good life without having to be mobsters, but without having to struggle either. He wants to keep what he has gained through violence and corruption without having to deal with the attendant anxieties....So, he pops his Prozac, and stumbles to the next day. His "problem" is also what makes him the hero of this show. We like him because he can understand that there is such a thing as love, as integrity -- when everyone around him responds only to power and money. We like him because he recognizes bull shit and because he does not like himself very much.
Since this is a television series that is now in its fifth or sixth year -- there is much that is flawed in its pacing and in its overarching development. So i'ts best to watch it for the vignettes: the mob tackling the Hassidic jews...and losing. The mob getting lost in the woods of Jersey and feeling less than manly and powerful. Carmela getting shaken down for $50,000 by an administrator at Columbia. Tony's son agonizing over Kierkegaard. Tony's son refusing to worship Columbus' Day. There's lots of good stuff and a pretty solid, unvarnished look at contemporary U.S. I was very disappointed that they kept 9/11 out of the show though.
Joanna