The Early 2000’s hit TV show Sopranos was a major success in the TV world and has millions of fans all over the world because of its relatability and story-telling. Known as the greatest TV show of all time to many, the themes of this classic production varied. Some would say its about the Italian Mafia, or suburban lifestyle or infidelity. It is true that those are themes throughout the show but those themes don’t paint the entire picture. The main thesis of the show is that America is in Decline in every facet. Family dysfunction, diminishing ethnic identity, the decline of faith, a collapsing economy and a decadent society all create struggles for each and every character. The assimilation to the suburban lifestyle was a crutch for most characters including Tony and Carmela Soprano and Christopher Moltisanti the most in my opinion. The trio of characters represent the struggle of maintaining ethnic pride vs melting pot-patriotism. This can be seen in Episode 1 of Season 1 where Tony says to his therapist Dr.Melfi “lately, im getting the feeling that I came in at the end: the best is over.” Tony then compares his life to his father’s life, who also had an arm in organized crime comparing the two. Admitting even though Tony is richer than his dad financially, his father had it “better.” “They had their standards.. what do we have today?” The characters are stuck in a dilemma weighing the importance of business and efficiency vs family and loyalty. Because these characters live in a declining society , loyalty and family usually get put on the backburner.
The erosion of traditional family structures and cultural values will always slowly diminish in an everchanging, melting pot society. This diminishment of family can be felt strongly throughout the entire show simply in the way the characters treat each other. Starting with the Matriarch of the family Livia Soprano who set the tone of generational trauma with poor parenting, undiagnosed personality disorders and manipulation/gaslighting tactics. Once calling a greenlight to have her own son (Tony) murdered in season 1, episode 12, that set the tone for the entire show. The annoyance of Livia can be seen early as we learn Tony has 2 sisters Barbara and Janice who live on the west coast because they wanted to get as far away from Livia as possible. To be fair, Tony’s dad more than likely caused a lot of stress on Livia, which she probably carried for decades, but that doesn’t give her the right to treat her family members how she did. Hurt people, hurt people. And that is exactly what Livia did when she said yes to an attempt to murder her own son. This flame of emotions can be felt and passed on to Tony. Who in theory, was supposed to be the moral leader of the family but was far from it. Starting with Tony’s infidelity. Tony had 16 romantic encounters outside of his marriage in the 6 seasons of the show. This double life was impossible to keep secret and his relationship with Carmela (Tony’s wife) was fractured and created a stressful, tension filled household that everyone on the show felt, especially the kids of Tony and Carmela (AJ and Meadow). Although, Tony was the one engaging in infidelity, Carmela turned a blind eye to most of it which allowed Tony to live this lavish lifestyle of not being at home when he should have been taking care of his kids. This distant parenting from Tony did not hurt Meadow as much professionally as she went on to an Ivy league school and became a lawyer but in my opinion it ruined AJ because he became a delinquent and had a total lack of direction. Throughout the show he can be shown skipping school to smoke cigarettes, got awful grades at school, got into fights at school and had an overall rebellious attitude towards his parents. AJ saw the hypocrisy in his dads lifestyle and in his parents relationship and it drove him away from them. This is similar to Tony and his parents. In theory, AJ had the perfect upbringing. 2 parent household, private schools, million dollar house in the suburbs, all the access to resources to be successful. But he had an awful relationship with his parents and was never able to overcome that in order to be as successful as Meadow. This plays into my theory of how family dysfunction and the diminishing of family values impacts someone negatively. Tony is not the only one who struggles with infidelity and relations with their spouse/significant other. Most of the mob members had “Goomahs’, which is just a fancy way of saying side chick. The idea of this word becoming popular in their everyday life is total irony and is in total contrast to family values. How is having a side piece just socially normal like that? Because family values are diminished. Most of the characters are pretending to have this high moral code of defending family but Christopher (Tony and Carmela’s nephew) cheats on his fiancé at least 3 times throughout the six seasons and also physically beat her multiple times throughout the show. Doesn’t sound like a loving, caring and protective partner at all. These characters all carry generational trauma that as generations pass, the unspoken trauma gets worse and it shows in societal decay. More divorces, or in some cases like Christopher no marriage at all, smaller family units and generational differences creating fallouts between family members all help paint the picture of a morally failing society and the Sopranos relationships between characters is the epitome of that. I’d imagine many American families today feel this same hardship. One of my favorite books of all time written in the 1950’s, “a Raisin in the sun”, speaks to this same dynamic in Black culture of how a failing culture is parallel to a failing family lifestyle. Fighting for dignity and self worth while also trying to create a status quo feasible enough for everyone to understand and align with creates conflicting visions and creates problems between members of a group or family.
The conflicting visions of the characters can be seen in the religious faith of the characters. In season 4, episode 7, Tony takes AJ to Newark (inner City), to a church that Tony’s grandfather built many decades ago in order to wow AJ and teach him some family history and create a sense of pride in the church for AJ. Instead of being inspired by the lesson, AJ is the opposite. He immediately calls out the hypocrisy of his father by asking him why they never go to that church on Sundays? Not impressed at all, the generational divide can be felt in the scene. Tony isn’t the ideal religious follower but he personally feels the need of showing AJ his “history” and the importance of the church his own ancestors built. AJ, in return has zero interest in the church and doesn’t care at all. AJ criticizes the material the church is made out of and basically says it doesn’t look good. AJ himself has an existential crisis. In Season 2, episode 7 AJ can be seen struggling with the purpose of life. He questions the purpose of God, and death claiming that “Life is Absurd” and that he maintains this feeling of existential dread instead of a religious filled existential joy. During this time of the show, AJ has a total rejection of faith, saying that life is “meaningless”. In the very same episode AJ is caught smoking weed in his garage and his only explanation is “what does it matter? even grandma says there is no purpose?” AJ’s rebellious attitude and struggle with authority cannot be saved by his parents “moral beliefs” because AJ sees how his parents use faith as a transactional tool or comfortable delusion. So the ability to relate is diminished.
Tony is clearly desperate in trying to instill traditional values into his kids who seem to not care because they know their dad is a hypocrite. As Meadow grows in age, she often pointed out how her fathers criminal and moral-less behavior is in direct contrast with the Church. In Season 4, episode 2 while in coma, Meadow reads a poem to Tony called “Pater Noster.” The poem is basically an “anti religious” piece that mocks the traditional “our father” prayer. By reading this poem, Meadow is showing her lack of traditional religious rituals. Wanting to keep her father alive but not wanting to use a traditional prayer because she believes her Dad has many earthly flaws and his afterlife status is questionable. In contrast to Meadow not wanting to be super religious to try to fix Tony and his short comings, Carmela’s approach is much different. Carmela is very delusional in the sense she uses her faith to justify her and Tony’s lifestyle. Married to man who engages in adultery, many violent acts such as murder, loan sharking, gambling and stealing. Carmela uses the church as a scapegoat for those guilty feelings. She is a stay at home wife with little to no income. She isn’t naive, she may turn a blind eye to Tony’s dealings but she knows every dollar she spends is “dirty money.” This guilt destroys her throughout the show. Carmela convinced herself that as a good Catholic wife, no matter Tony’s actions, she cannot leave him. In Season 1, episode 4, Carmela seeks counsel from the priest Father Phil. She tells him how she is compromised morally because of Tony’s income and his affairs and even calls herself a hypocrite. In this tense scene, Father Phil reassures Carmela that she should stay by his side and use the church to help Tony become a better person. Carmela is not equipped enough to have this type of influence over Tony. So nothing changes for 5 more seasons. In Season 3, episode 7 Carmela visits a therapist named Dr. Krakower. Only seeing the Doctor once because she got a reality check from the Doctor about her lifestyle and how she is complicit to Tony’s actions and how she uses the church to ease her conscience of living a luxury life on the doorsteps of “blood money.” Carmela uses the church to wash over Tony’s career and it makes it hard to take them serious as religious followers and believers when they don’t even have a clear conscious themselves. In many instances in the show, the double standards of evangelicals makes it hard for others to respect their opinions. For example, Carmela turns a blind eye to Adultery, murder, cheating, but draws the line at LBGT support. In Season 4, Episode 12, Meadow and Carmela get into a debate over a Melville Book. Meadow defends a gay character in the book and Carmela loses her cool about it saying that their is now a “Gay” agenda in education and society. Carmela was okay or could manage Tony having 16 affairs throughout their marriage but once she learned AJ was reading a book with a gay character she would not accept that. Lastly, Vito (one of Tony’s Capos) in Season 6, episode 6 it is found out that Vito is gay and has been for a long time. Vito is eventually ran off from the group and many of them want to kill him.. over his sexual preference. Any objective thinker can see the problem with that. What Vito ate did not make them shit. But the characters were so outraged that one of their members could be gay, they threatened him with violence and shunned him from the community. Because of “religious beliefs.” But these same peoples beliefs allowed a plethora of actions that added to their religious decay but homosexuality for Vito is where they drew the line.
The most important aspect of decline I found was in ethnic identity. The show explores the loss of ethnic identity by showing how these 3rd generation Italians traded old world traditions and ideals for new suburban consumerist ideals. Suburban assimilation from inner city “immigrants” as they liked to call themselves, into the whitening identity of becoming the average American was too much of an identity struggle for the characters. All the Sopranos members for the most part were proud Italian Americans. But proud of what? The transition of being a marginalized immigrant to a white majority lead to anxiety about identity. Most of these characters relied on cultural cliche’s from movies like the Godfather or Goodfellas. They wanted to break away from the normative stereotypes placed on Italians but did not want to lose their culture at the same time. In season 1, episode 10 Tony is golfing with business buddies who know his line of work is organized crime. As non criminals themself they are enamored with Tony and continue to ask him questions about stereotypical Mob stuff. Things that Tony would have no clue about because he isn’t an Al Capone or John Gotti level mobster. But he pretends he does in order to entertain them but deep down this frustrates Tony as he is trying to portray himself as a professional businessman and not a gangster. He cannot escape who he really is. Tony is the stereotype and that’s where his problem arises. He is everything he is trying to run from. He was a gangster, he was an Italian American who lived a life of crime. He found a way to mask that in a sense by assimilating to suburban culture. But he was never fully assimilated as we can see with the identity struggle. What Tony didn’t realize, is that his actions on how he got his money kept him in that box of being an “Italian thug”. On the other hand this same culture of crime and criminal activity is DESPISED by many other Italians including Tony’s therapist, Dr.Melfi. In season 1, episode 8 Dr.Melfi and her family get into a huge dinner debate about the consequences of movies like The Godfather. Most of the room speaks about how it puts hard working, law abiding citizens like themselves in a bad light in media because it creates a stereotype that all Italians want to live a life of crime. Tony and Christopher have these same struggles but the irony is that they are criminals. They are playing exactly into the stereotype they want to get away from. They only want to be seen as proud Italians who are benefits to their community but their actions do not reflect that.
The idea of being proud of Italian descent barely makes it one generation after Tony. AJ and Meadow (especially AJ) do not carry this same sentiment about caring about Italian Heritage. In Season 4 episode 1, AJ makes humor after finding out his family is “Neapolitan” calling it “Nobbly Dobbly”. This is exactly what the elders in the show are so fearful about. The fear that their ethnic identity was losing its coherence in an increasingly multi-racial and multi-cultural nation. This cultural difference can also be scene in the different characters regarding Christopher Columbus. In Season 4, episode 3, Meadow, representing a more progressive, college influenced, Americanized view argued that Columbus was not a hero and that he was a slave trader and genocidal maniac. Tony then goes off on a tangent about Italian heritage being destroyed and says “In this house, Columbus is a hero”. Totally disregarding all the knowledge and information that Meadow has accessed to form her opinion. This clearly represents the generational clash between figures. That same episode there are Native American protests against the Columbus day parade, and Tonys crew of Capos are standing outside Satriales having a conversation about it. All of the characters except one Are Italian American. Furio is the only one who is actually born it Italy and moved to America as an adult. The rest of the characters defend their Italian-American heritage coming to Columbus’s Defense. But the actual only Italian Furio says ” But i never liked Columbus. In Napoli, a lot of people are no-so happy for Columbus. Cause he was from Genova. The Nort’ of Italy
always have the money and the power. They punish the South since hundreds of years. Even today, they put up their nose at us, like we’re peasants.” The rest of the cast are taken back by this statement like Furio was some traitor. But they are the ones who don’t understand they are holding onto a piece of the culture that doesn’t exist and doesn’t mean anything to anyone. They pride themselves on a culture that they know nothing or very little about. And they claim to be the guardians of that culture. But in all reality they are just confused and stuck in an identity crisis.
The characters are stuck in a battle of assimilation and business vs tradition and loyalty and this shows financially and economically. In Season 6, episode 8, Tony sells Caputos poultry. A legitimate, local business that paid weekly dues to the mob. Also apart of Tony’s extortion methods but it was more than just a cash cow. Caputo’s was one of the last pieces of the “old neighborhood” that Tony always spoke about. Forcing the owner Vic Caputo out of his longtime location and not warning the other business partners and workers that the spot was being sold and turned into a Jamba Juice shop, Tony sold out his friends, his old neighborhood and community. Tony had shifting priorities which did not include keeping the neighborhood traditional. His actions were much louder than his words because throughout the entire show he is seen complaining about how blacks or Puerto Ricans or any other non-Italians are “taking over” his old neighborhood but when he got the opportunity to sell, Tony did so. Tony chose sexual interest and financial gain over preserving the little community he had left. When he got the opportunity to move out of Newark from the rest of the Italians, he did so. Tony is not the specific reason for the loss of their ethnic identity but he sure made it more difficult to maintain this identity every chance he got.
The Sopranos in my opinion is the greatest TV show of all time because of the way it puts up a mirror for Americans to look at and analyze the socio-political environment that we live in today. The decline of middle class values, the materialistic battle that us consumers fight everyday and the diminishing values in faith and family are all just as relevant today as they were in 1999 when the show first aired. The Sopranos predicted what the political temperature of Americans would be as we spend more time in this melting pot together.
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