"I dunno about morals, but I do got rules." - (The writers for) Tony Soprano

Exactly what sort of rules Tony Soprano, the lead character of the American TV show the Sopranos, follows is not clear. But what I suspect is that Tony Soprano follows what the average american finds acceptable. This is why the show has a huge american audience. Since these rules do not bar murder, torture or theft, the series is alarming.

The immediate justification of the Soprano family's gangster activities is that this business is not much different from the corporate world´s well-known deviations from the law. This strange argument is not so much a criticism of Enron and company as a pragmatic acceptance of this situation. If New York is flooded with insider traders ripping off senior citizens, then what is the harm of a gangster family? At least the gangsters seem exciting and romantic, and shoot from the hip.

So, with this real-politik as the background, the Sopranos set out to show the mundane quotidian lives of the New Jersey mafia. Tony Soprano runs the "business" as if it were a normal business, dealing with the ups and downs of the market with 21st century post-modernity. He even has a therapist and reads self-help books to improve his interpersonal relationships with the bosses. The show's writers make Tony Soprano seem like a normal American with the same concerns, values and worries as everyone else.

It appears that the average American follows this show with some devotion, even looking up to Tony Soprano as an anti-hero character; a maverick who loves his wife. It is easy to identify with such familiar issues such as family trouble, the morning drive to work, the problematic boss and all the other daily details the show offers up for verisimilitude. However, this transfer of identification crosses into fantasy: how many red-blooded american men would love to give out beatings to the annoying authority figures in their lives? And how many american women would love to see their lumpy husbands show some sensitivity and concern for intimate family issues? Tony Soprano is sexy because he is a man's man and a family man at the same time. The character even rents hollywood movies at Blockbuster, like we all do.

The violence Tony Soprano inflicts on characters such as lawyers, businessmen, policemen, rival gang members etc. is justified because of his individualistic virility, and the inner code (however acrobatic) he follows. He takes care of his family and friends, and he dishes out violence to those who have it coming to them somehow. We would all love to punch somebody but we normally do not to maintain a greater order. Tony Soprano acts out these desires for us. It is a typical slight-of-hand: violence and extreme force is justified by a list of known annoyances. (The man's favorite TV program should never, ever be interrupted. A rich nerd should never threaten to sue. An informant is a rat. etc.) The man who shows loyalty to family, and brutal individualism against his enemies is a creature uninhibited, manly, self-actualized, and strangely, a man of honor to be trusted as a friend. Images of Tony Soprano slitting someone's throat or beating someone in an uncontrolled rage seem to slip by unnoticed because the viewing audience identifies with Tony and his friends, not with the victim characters who had it coming to them anyway.

By sidestepping law when it is inconvenient to follow it, ruthlessly squashing resistance, and individualistically taking advantage of every situation for self-benefit (and therefore for the good of the family), Tony Soprano seems to be the American man incarnate. Fans of the show are living as gangsters by proxy. Frequent allusions to his role as a "warrior" fighting the good fight further obscures his actions which are nothing less than demonic. Morality is slippery, good does not mean lawful, and evil does not always include torture if there is some greater benefit to be had.

I don't want to get into US foreign policy, but there does seem to be some parallel with the show's "family values" and the violence, theft and torture underplayed in "Operation Iraqi Freedom".

The show is alarming.

A. Bergman