Posted on 05/06/2006 12:03:25 PM PDT by Chi-townChief
I see by the papers, as Mr. Dooley would have said, that Crazy Uncle Junior tried to put Tony Soprano down. The paper was in fact what Jimmy Breslin is pleased to call New York Times Newspaper. Since there apparently are no serious national or world problems about which the wise men and women of the Times could pontificate, they decided to discuss Tony's apparent downfall. Surely, they would not use the space to admit how drastically they have reversed (waffled) their stance of three years ago on the war in Iraq -- just as their predecessors had never admitted they were wrong in their early support for the Vietnam War.
The editorial reinforced the image of "The Sopranos" series as a thoughtful story of mob mayhem for those who think they are sophisticated academics and/or intellectuals -- the people who, like me, read the Times editorials. After all, Tony has his own psychoanalyst, doesn't he? When you make it into the Times editorials, you have become official. There are a number of unprintable words that are used in every other sentence that Tony and his thugs utter that are appropriate to describe such a supercilious reaction to the series. Its basic appeal is to sex and violence -- and violent sex, at that. The underlying suspense is always who's going to get whacked in this episode. (Add your own unprintables.)
In fact, despite the excellent scripts, acting and direction, the series is trivial, infantile, male chauvinist trash that glorifies vicious, nasty, evil, ugly criminals. It is "The Godfather" all over again, with more explicit sex and more foul words.
Moreover, it stereotypes Italian Americans, bigotry which many Americans seem to enjoy. The Soprano family, it is implied, is a typical Italian American with high regard for the virtue of their wives and daughters and no hesitation about wanton murder.
I'm exaggerating, you say?
Yeah, well, just imagine a similar series about African-American or Jewish criminals. Fuhgeddaboudit!
When the infamous Dillingham Commission in the first decade of the last century tried to justify the restrictive immigration laws Congress would enthusiastically enact, it reported that Italians are innately criminal types. This stereotype has lurked for 100 years at the limen of American consciousness.
Hence, many Americans believe that former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo decided not to run for president because there was some mysterious link between him and the Outfit (as we call it in Chicago). It was also said that an Italian wouldn't do well in the South. Nativist stereotypes are not limited in American culture just to Mexican-American illegals. The bigots are still among us.
The latest conflict among the Sopranos is about poor Vito, who turns out to be gay. Will Tony become politically correct, as he seems inclined to do, and say that Vito may be a fag, but he's our fag? Or will he remember that he is a "very strict Catholic" and assign someone to whack poor Vito? I don't think I'd want to hold Vito's life insurance policy. Tony, after all, has to think about his family's reputation and his strict Catholic morality.
Part of the phony myth surrounding the series is that ''The Sopranos'' is "edgy" or even "transgressive." In the world of New York culture, a gay Mafioso is supposed to be "edgy." I suppose the series is better than most of the so-called reality shows. There is perhaps some comedy in a group of overweight, filthy, foul-mouthed Italian killers agonizing about the morality of sexual orientation in the appropriate obscene language.
Just when one thinks that the vulgarity of American TV has reached an all-time low, it shows amazing resilience. Maybe if Tony has to retire, he could apply for a role as an apprentice to Donald Trump. However, I think someone will whack Tony in the last episode of the series (not so definitively that he can't live again next year). The killer will be his daughter Meadow at her wedding. Such a conclusion should be edgy enough for the folks who market the series.
Bigots are everywhere. Italians, I am told, who watch ''The Sopranos'' say that the series is not about Italians but about Sicilians who are Arabs, descendants of the Saracens who once occupied the island.
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Is this guy still a RC priest?
Evidently from what I hear.
They should bring back the Ryan Chapelle ("24") actor who played Carmella's priest. He was great.
I think you've misunderstood his point, which I tend to agree with.
The Sopranos is very well done trash, which I frankly haven't watched that many times. It sterotypes Italians in a way that wouldn't be acceptable for any other ethnic group. This is probably because many Italians seem to enjoy and appreciate the sterotyping.
Many central and northern Italians do indeed look down on Italians from southern Italy and Sicily, from whom most Italian-Americans are descended. There was even a political party a few years back of northern Italians who wanted to secede to get away from the southerners.
Is this guy aware that the Sopranos is practically over? I don't pay for premium channels so I've never watched it, and I've always been bored by all the attention paid to one TV show.
"They should bring back the Ryan Chapelle ("24") actor who played Carmella's priest. He was great."
Yes, he was great in both those parts, but esp. as the Priest.
Isn't this supposed to be the final season? At the rate they are going they are going to end up with more loose ends than a plate of spaghetti.
Yeah, I'm 1/2 Napolitan' myself so I know the whole story about how "all Sicliani carry knives" and how the Marchegian folks in Chicago Heights were from a better part of Italy: "We weren't no peasant dagos!" But Greeley is always an a-hole and he should go back to worrying about his beloved Irish who "saved civilization."
"But Greeley is always an a-hole and he should go back to worrying about his beloved Irish who "saved civilization.""
ROTF!!!
ROFLMAO!! If I recall correctly, didn't Greeley write a series of trashy, sleazy, stupid "novels" back in the '70's and '80's? I remember reading the first few pages of one and throwing it in the trashcan at the Rock Island station downtown.
He is a moron of the first order, and is typical of one example(out of many) of why I am embarrassed to acknowledge my Irish ancestry.
Yeah, Greeley is somewhat of a soft porn aficionado. But "How the Irish Saved Civilization" actually exists >>> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385418493/sr=8-1/qid=1146944097/ref=sr_1_1/002-0338003-2363215?%5Fencoding=UTF8
They never quite get to the part about how they hid behind their English "oppressors" in World War II.
I know it exists and that's why your comment was so funny!
Simply the title of the book makes me lol!
the priest did show up in one of the "tony in the hospital" episodes, Carmella spoke to him.
I've been watching "Deadwood" on DVD, and have to wonder just why that show was ever made. To me it looks like either the creator hates the era he's depicting, or he loves it for perverse reasons, that it's hard to share.
It's sort of a "Sopranos" western, but without the humor and contemporary social commentary that makes "The Sopranos" more enjoyable than it ought to be. Of course, with both shows there's always the "what's gonna happen" element that keeps people watching.
Yeah - I don't mean to sound overly harsh but that book title really sets them up like ducks in a row.
The Irish are fantastic when it comes to claiming "moral superiority" over everyone else, telling them what to do, and they rival France in the bravery department.
As far as "saving civilization", they think nothing about letting the rest of it get destroyed just as long as they get their shot at the Brits. Again, that goes back to WWII.
I could go on and on and on...
It's not stereotyping, it's presenting 1 of many subsections of 1 of many racial mixes. There are indeed Italian/ Sicilian organized criminals in this world, there are also Italians and Sicilians who have nothing to do with crime. Problem is from a TV/ movie perspective Italian bakery owners that have no ties to crime are boring. That's why the movies and Sopranos are about the criminals. Though in Sopranos you also have Italian shrinks with no ties to crime, Italian FBI agents whose only ties to crime are trying to put the main characters in jail, and walk by Italians of just about every other profession with no ties to crime other than occassionaly unknowningly serving mobsters as customers. The whole stereotyping claim is BS, always has been since the Italian anti-defamation people first started whining about the first Godfather movie, and will continue to be BS.
Greeley is a bore.
Puzo’s characters will long outlive Greeley’s: in fact, no one remembers Greeley’s even now.
I've tried watching it but give up at around the 10th F-Bomb which appears in less than five minutes.
My theory: the scriptwriters are wusses who try to show their "manliness" by causing the characters to F-bomb constantly for an hour.
Like prior years, I'll cancel HBO when the Sopranos' season ends.
Actually the script writer is trying to establish how uncivilized Deadwood was at that point in history and how rapidly it changed. If HBO gives him enough seasons the intention of the show is to DRAMATICALLY clean up the language and look.
It could be worse. Greeley could be in Congress like that 60s Irish-American left-wing priest whose name, like Greeley's characters, is unrecallable.
I like your sense of humor.
Just quoting the producer of the show. That's why he picked that town and that time in that town's history. Civilation came to Deadwood fast and hard. If you want to show an area getting civilized the first thing you have to do is show it as very uncivilized, basic dramatic techniques.
Andrew needs to get wacked.
Was he ever priest?
The Sopranos isn't as good this year as past years, IMO, but over time it's been innovative and quite brilliant. It also paved the way for the whole current slew of "gritty" more true-to-life TV dramas on the free networks, a welcome change from the pablum of yesteryear.
Tony Soprano would say that any self respecting journalist who used an AOL email address was an effin' pansy.
And he'd be right.
LOL!! Do you mean Kennedy?
The funny thing is that Mary Jo Buttafucco has been back in the news lately, and she is so like Carmela Soprano in style and attitude it's uncanny.
There should be a HBO series centered around the Lavindar Mafia in a Catholic seminary including an episode of Cardinal McCarrick, another modernist POS, sleeping with young seminarians. The perverts.
Greeley's own mystery novels are full of sex and violence.
What a hypocrite!
He claims to know who killed a Milwaukee priest and that it was a "hit" ordered by an Italian cardinal.
But he never went to the police or the FBI with his information.
Silly old woman, he is!
(There is something perverse about the show. It makes us -- or a lot of us anyway -- cheer on the evil characters, and that's disturbing.)
I can't speak for others but I have a theory that the reason this show is so popular because these 'people' live by a very strict code of honor which is missing in everyday life and when it is broken, there is swift justice, which is something else that is missing. They also put a lot of stock in loyalty and family, something else which is in decline in this country.
They believe a man's word should never be taken lightly and if it is broken, there is a price to be paid, just ask the kennedy's.
Also no commercials. That alone makes it far more watchable than network crap. But I think Rome has replaced it as my favorite HBO drama series.
Really! .. "glorifies violence" .. since when were the liberals upset about glorifying violence - WE SEE IT ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE PAPER EVERY DAY - and that's all we see - violence in Iraq - but then "Iraq is a quagmire and is about to descend into civil war" .. isn't that the mantra ..??
Fat, unnattractive middle-aged people leading lives filled with danger, power and sex?
No wonder the Sopranos is like crack for baby boomers.
As far as I know it still exists, and is still led-to the best of my recollection-by Umberto Bossi.
Best thing about the Sopranos are the promotional posters. Photos by Annie Leibovitz
He is kidding, right? Hasn't he seen most of the "gangsta" movies, videos, and hip hop style around us? Does this guy live on a farm in northern Siberia?
If I remember correctly, she even looks a bit like Edie Falco!!
I LOVE Deadwood, although it did take a bit of time. It's an acquired taste. But you're right, alot of HBO series now is the SOPRANOS with different accents and scenary...DEADWOOD (Sopranos in the old west), ROME (SOPRANOS in ancient times)...etc.
I've been watching "Deadwood" on DVD, and have to wonder just why that show was ever made. To me it looks like either the creator hates the era he's depicting, or he loves it for perverse reasons, that it's hard to share.
I haven't seen Deadwood, but I love westerns. Like jazz, rock and roll, etc. they are an American artform. As such they evolve. You can pretty much imprint anything on a western you want. Discuss any topic in American life or American mythology...
You've got that right. My wife and I keep watching this final season sitting through the turgid episodes hoping something will happen. Usually nothing does. There's absolutely no tension in any of the scenes. Why isn't anybody wondering what happened to Adriana? All we're getting is Vito the homo stories and Tony Jrs. drug life. Where the heck is Paulie Walnuts? Oh yeah, he had a story about his mother who was really his aunt. Why aren't we getting more stories about Phil Leotardo, with sanctions from Johnny Sac, challenging Tony's empire? Did creator David Chase simply phone these stories in?
Most east coast/CosaNostra types I've bumped into have remarked that had a good guy been known to be layin around down by the river with another fellow rubbed his chest, he'd soon be known as that guy lying down by the river.
Right. Thanks. BTW the Polish Pope ordered him to quit politics.
Funny stuff, I'd like to see a non violent version of the mafia!
He is Stugots!
I am FBI, Sicilian in fact, and I agree 100%. I have often said that if I had to compose a self serving stereotype, it would look a lot like the Italian/Gangster stereotype. Many Italian American's don't mind it at all, and indeed ham it up a bit.
I have never been bothered by the stereotype at all, notwithstanding my looks, downtown Manhattan pedigree, and notorious family surname.
Chicks dig it. ;-)
It's said that there's such a code in "The Godfather," and you can see it there, at least in the first movie of the series. Whether it's still there in "The Sopranos" is harder to say. Sure, Tony couldn't have his crew find out that he was in therapy and everybody still hates a rat, but I wonder if he and the others have broken an awful lot of the code of honor. You could view a lot of the episodes as "morality plays" in which characters struggle not with the outside society's strictures about what's right and wrong, but with the code of the mafia and their own inclinations, but a lot of the series seems to be saying that Vito Corleone's world, real or legendary, is gone.
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