The Sopranos: Gratuitous Violence or High Drama?

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The Sopranos

Gratuitous Violence or High Drama?

Gregory Desilet

Much has been written in commentary about the popular HBO television series The Sopranos. Among the many options, Open Court’s Popular Culture and Philosophy series contributes The Sopranos and Philosophy, which presents a surprisingly readable and rewarding range of essays. The subtitle of this volume—“I Kill Therefore I Am”—cleverly situates the essays in the philosophical genre while drawing attention to the fact that violence emerges as a crucial element in the television series. This violence makes the series especially controversial. The brutal and graphically portrayed murders taking place in virtually every episode, many of them committed by the series star character Tony Soprano, provide a troubling context against which to weigh the adulatory comments of critics:

“The best show on TV” (The Wall Street Journal)

“Television at its best” (The Denver Post)

“Just plain brilliant” (Variety)

“One of the most profound dramas in the history of television” (The Washington Post) “The best drama in the last half-century of TV” (Newsday)

“TV’s richest and most intriguing adult drama” (TV Guide).

Why all the praise for a show featuring so much violence, especially in a culture where criticism of media violence has been such a mantra in the last several decades? In the words placed on the back cover of The Sopranos and Philosophy, “Is there something ethically or psychologically damaging in the fact that millions of TV viewers regularly identify with a murderer?” Perhaps those who enjoyed The Sopranos have some answering to do. If so, this commentary may help. And even though the series has now come to an end, many who did not subscribe to HBO or who let it slip past them in the multitude of media choices can now access the complete series on DVD.

Although most of the essays in The Sopranos and Philosophy volume complement each other, two in particular establish an interesting tension between ways of characterizing the series as a genre. Mike Lippman (2004) argues that The Sopranos contains the elements of classic tragic drama consistent with Aristotle’s famous definition. Kevin Stoehr (2004, 2006), however, argues that the series takes its inspiration from and conforms to the primary features of classic noir dramas of the pre- and post- World War II era. While there may be room to debate some overlap, these two genres are not thoroughly compatible. This incompatibility prompts the question: which better describes the kind of drama presented in The Sopranos? And how does the answer to that question inform concerns about the portrayal of graphic violence and its potential effects on audiences?

The Case for Tragic Drama

In making the case for tragic drama Lippman argues that Tony Soprano fits the profile drawn by Aristotle for a classic tragic hero. To qualify as tragic the hero’s plight must succeed in arousing emotions appropriate to tragedy—emotions Aristotle names as eleos and phobos (usually translated as “pity” and “fear”). In order to arouse such emotions in the audience the hero must possess certain traits for eliciting identification. These include especially a quality of character that permits the audience to sense that the hero, while starting from high station and fortune, is similar to themselves with respect to virtues and vices and that what befalls the hero is disproportionate to what is deserved. Furthermore, the tragic “fall” the hero undergoes transpires through events set in motion by the hero’s own actions—actions rooted in a character flaw clearly distinguishable from simple depravity. Consequently, the hero follows a trajectory neither of a good and innocent man going from good fortune to bad nor a purely evil man going from bad fortune to good. The tragic hero corresponds to what Lippman, following Aristotle, refers to as “the man in-between”—a man of average virtue experiencing a fall in fortune and having a hand in his own demise. With these conditions met, the audience can fear for the fate of the hero, as they would for themselves in a similar situation, and they can pity the hero insofar as misfortune is underserved. These circumstances, according to Aristotle, produce a strong sense of the tragic.

Having set forth these parameters of tragic form, Lippman then proceeds to show how Tony Soprano fills the requirements. As a mob boss, Tony qualifies as a man of “high station and fortune” but he also has qualities that invite common comparison. Lippman explains, for example, that “Despite being a cold-blooded killer, Tony does have a set of values that distinguish him from your typical Mafia psychopath and that permit the audience to look upon him with compassion” (149). These values include the “family values” of honor, loyalty, and responsibility associated with his two families—his wife and children and his Mafia brotherhood. As the audience, we see Tony provide and care for his family. He presides over traditional Sunday family dinners, attends his daughter’s soccer games, worries about his son’s lack of motivation for school, and generally attempts to be a “responsible” father. He also attempts to be a dutiful son for his mother. Sensing her limitations with advancing age, he makes plans to establish her in a senior community apartment where she can have prepared meals and be more closely watched. Similarly, Tony respects and at times even appears to love his business associates, especially his nephew and top “soldier” Christopher, whom he treats like a son and the heir-apparent to Tony’s station as mob boss.

These family values are tribal values that are clearly reserved for the Mafia tribe and relations and contrast sharply with the relative devaluing of the larger society beyond the tribe. This contrast results in a stark “us vs. them” division between that larger society and the organized crime of Tony’s mob tribe. The tension between “family” and the social norms of “society” repeats itself in the knot between Tony’s two “families” and the tension surrounding his attempts to reconcile them. As Lippman points out, this tension is especially evident in the episode titled “College” from the first season. Here Tony accompanies his daughter Meadow on a trip for interviews at several New England colleges. His sweet paternalism turns somewhat rancid, however, when, unbeknownst to Meadow, he spots a man hiding under witness protection for having ratted on the family, stalks him, and eventually brutally strangles him.

The division between family man and crime lord creates cognitive dissonance in the audience—a dissonance further fueled by Tony’s strengths and likable qualities weighed against disturbing shortcomings Lippman lists as including, philandering, hypocrisy, racism, bullying, narcissism, and a proclivity for using deadly violence remorselessly whenever necessary. Nevertheless, the combination of these qualities leads Lippman to assess Tony as neither good nor evil and to conclude: “Clearly, Tony fits Aristotle’s model of the tragic hero as a ‘man in-between’” (150).

According to Lippman, Tony also fits Aristotle’s tragic profile with respect to the tragic flaw. Lippman rightly understands that this tragic flaw must not be confused with Tony’s obvious moral failings. Were Tony’s “fall” associated with these failings, the audience would not feel much sympathy for him. Instead, his difficulties must be seen to emerge from a more admirable side of his person—an aspect of character that also, through his own actions, contributes to his troubles and demise. Lippman argues that while “physically manifested in his panic attacks” Tony’s flaw “is his inability to successfully live up to his conflicting moral roles and responsibilities” (151).

In season one, for example, we see the vulnerable side of Tony in his nurturing attitude toward the family of ducks that have taken up residence in his swimming pool. When they fly away he feels (without fully realizing it) an unusual sense of loss that, combined with his panic attacks, drives him to consult a therapist. The psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi, prompts him to see that the ducks represent his family and their departure signals his fear of the loss of his family. These fears are fueled when Tony’s efforts to gain rapport with his mother and uncle are met not only with contempt but eventually an attempt on his life that fails only by a stroke of luck. Additional complications presented by his nephew Christopher and his wife and kids (Meadow is preparing to “leave the nest” for college) exacerbate Tony’s sense of alienation and mounting potential loss. His “morality” of dutifulness toward his families, both “professional” and domestic, meets challenge and resistance at every turn. Consequently, he begins to feel himself on the edge of failure in every aspect of life that has meaning for him.

As it turns out, the choice of getting therapy only contributes to the crisis between himself and his mother and uncle. When they accidentally learn of his treatment sessions they perceive this to be a sign of weakness and a possible security leak that could threaten the family business. Lippman interprets Tony’s tragic conflict with his mother and uncle as something that could have been avoided were it not for his own choices—choices that, ironically, were motivated by his attempt to avert such a crisis. Much like Oedipus, argues Lippman, Tony contributes to his own family conflict through an act designed to forestall such conflict.

The theme of family conflict, especially involving murderous intentions and actions, lies close to the heart of most Greek tragic drama. Aristotle believed conflict between family members heightens the tragic emotions of eleos and phobos because everyone can easily identify with the family and because the conflict festers within what normally serves as the primary zone of comfort and support. As Lippman points out, the dramatic tensions in the The Sopranos feature conflicts within the “families” rather than between the “families” and the larger society. The series focuses on growing conflicts between mother and son (Livia and Tony), uncle and nephew (Corrado and Tony; Tony and Christopher), father and children (Tony and A. J., Tony and Meadow), and an assortment of tensions and feuds within the business family (usually playing upon the theme of sell-out or betrayal as in the case of “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero at the end of season two).

Given the combination of the elements outlined above, including especially the arousal of eleos and phobos, the “man in-between” stature of the hero, the tragic flaw, and the family conflicts, Lippman concludes that The Sopranos is best understood as an instance of classic tragic drama. Even though the first season ends untragically with Tony apparently having overcome his most pressing conflicts and difficulties, Lippman nevertheless rightly presses the point of tragic undertones:

For Aristotle, a tragedy does not need to end badly. The mere intention of family members to do violence against each other is enough to make a tragic plot. . . Despite the fact that Tony’s career continues to rise, the climax[es] of each subsequent season . . . all emphasize Tony’s failures to succeed in his non-business life. He fails as a friend, father-figure, and husband. His Mafia lifestyle will not allow him any way to avoid disaster . . . Therapy may allow us to pretend that Tony is redeemable, but even from season one we learn that Tony’s personality and lifestyle will make it impossible for him to escape his destiny. In the end, Tony is bound to fall (155-156).

Even though this assessment was published before the final season of The Sopranos it remains accurate regarding the trajectory of the series and especially so on at least one interpretation of the last episode. The abrupt cut to black at the restaurant as the immediate family (Tony, Carmela, A. J., and Meadow at the entrance) gathers suggests “lights out” for at least Tony if not the entire family.

Although Lippman’s case for placing The Sopranos in the genre of tragic drama seems on the surface to be adequate and persuasive, it nevertheless contains a number of holes and loose-ends that suggest something less than an ideal fit. For example, does Tony really exhibit the stature of a classic tragic dramatic hero? Are his broad moral failings so easily swept aside in favor of the tragic flaw theory of his impending “fall”?

The Case for Noir Drama

In describing one of the defining elements of film noir, Kevin L. Stoehr points to a creeping “devolution or dehumanization” of the main protagonist—a devolution “usually characterized by an internal descent into immorality and even amoral indifference” (40). He goes on to note, “Such a descent is almost always occasioned by external forces (such as victimizing villains or the cold whims of fate), but the suffering or fall of the protagonist is amplified in most cases because of his or her own moral ambiguities and psychological weaknesses” (40).

Though this description closely parallels the description of the tragic hero’s “flaw” and “fall,” an important difference exists in the quality of the noir hero and in the dominant features of his or her world, or the world as he or she sees it. Rather than a person of high stature and average moral virtue, the noir hero belongs more properly to the category of “anti-hero,” having, at the outset of the drama, already suffered a kind of “fall” into average or diminished status while also having slipped into questionable moral virtue. Furthermore, the noir anti-hero understands the milieu, the world in which he or she operates, as essentially threatening and inhospitable to life—a milieu in which traditional social values, including the value of life itself, are diminished if not entirely lacking. As Stoehr puts it, life becomes a struggle of “sheer survival in a world gone wrong” (40).

Tony Soprano fits the description of the noir anti-hero. While having the stature of a mob boss, he nevertheless belongs to the “fallen” criminal fringe of society. And, contrary to what Lippman claims, Tony falls short of being a man of average virtue. Rather, he continually appears as a man of badly compromised virtue accompanied by few if any feelings of remorse. His apparent “good side” consists of haunting desires to have the American dream of a happy family man in a successful business and a willingness to abide by certain “family rules” to achieve that dream. He fails to see the hypocrisy in his decision to break broader social rules and laws while expecting those around him to adhere honorably to the narrower family code. This is not mere moral relativity or ambiguity. It amounts to egotism cum tribal centrism that divides the world into a sharply defined struggle between “us and them.”

Tony struggles against the persistent attitude projected by his mother “. . . it’s all a big nothing” (as Livia expresses to Anthony Jr. in the second season episode “D-Girl”). But the emptiness of his life—the arbitrariness and meaninglessness of his daily interactions—constantly asserts itself into conscious awareness. As a physical manifestation of this awareness, his panic attacks drive him to therapy where Dr. Melfi challenges him to unearth his deeper insecurities and growing dissatisfactions. Tony’s mob life is a symptom of, as well as an ongoing contributor to, his contempt for lawful society and the creeping hopelessness he feels that life has anything of quality to offer him.

Taking a cue from 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Stoehr defines this broad negative attitude toward life as nihilism. For Stoehr, nihilism of character and scene—the alienation from a set of values in the anti-hero and the corruption of traditional values in society—comprise the key elements of film noir. This individual and collective disintegration operates for the noir characters in their perceptions, regardless of what the truth may be about themselves or the larger society in which they live. In Tony’s case the encroachment of this general nihilism into the fabric of life does not stop at the boundary between society and his tribe. The pressure from the society in the form of law enforcement (however corrupt and arbitrary in its application) combined with the in-fighting of mob family factions leaves Tony with an incessant anxiety about the presence of a “rat” —a betrayal from within the tribe. This concern on Tony’s part emerges in the first episode of season one when Tony speaks to Melfi of his admiration for Gary Cooper as “the strong silent type.” Tony laments the corruption of values within the mob. In times past “made men” would take jail time rather than rat on an associate. Now, according to Tony, guys “have no room for the penal experience” (Yacowar, 22, “On the Couch”). This fear of betrayal becomes reality when Tony discovers that “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero has been cooperating with the FBI. His termination aboard Tony’s boat in the last episode of season two (“Funhouse”) reinforces the need for vigilance among the remaining members of his crew and confirms their strong sense of encroaching corruption.

As already mentioned, the fear of corruption and betrayal extends not only to business associates but to the blood family. In season one Tony is betrayed by his mother and uncle and in the remaining seasons he experiences constant concern about his immediate family as Carmela seeks divorce, Meadow pursues law school (and potential further disillusionment with his criminal ways), and A.J. slips into apathy and indifference toward him and everything else. At every level of life—society, business, family, and self—Tony experiences alienation, disintegration, and loss. The accumulation of events through the final season takes him eventually back to the empty swimming pool at his house that the ducks abandoned long ago in the first episode. The inability to achieve any form of healthy community imparts a profound sense of nothingness. His trajectory through the series leads Stoehr to conclude, “Tony comes to revel in his own resentment, self-loathing, alienation, duplicity, fragmentation, and general life-negation. Like mother, like son” (46).

Tony’s “fall” transpires through forms of blindness that are self-imposed and flawed reactions to events that are conscious decisions. For these reasons Stoehr finds that Tony and The Sopranos conform nicely to the tradition of film noir—with perhaps a postmodern flair for self-fragmentation and semi-conscious capitulation to decay:

If Tony had been consistently unaware of his moral failings due to sheer ignorance or irrationality, then we could fault him at most for being little more than an instinctual animal, wreaking havoc whenever his appetites are aroused. But with a growing recognition of his need for therapy and reflection, Tony shows himself to be worse than a merely savage animal. Tony’s increasing neglect of his moral character and its required cultivation is done self-consciously, with an awareness of the conventional importance of values as well as the traditional difference between right and wrong. Therapy has taught him to strive for self-knowledge, but he has instead become true to the very worst aspects of himself . . . He substitutes psychology for ethics to suit his own selfish purposes. Subsequently he continues to feel lost amidst the moral wasteland (47).

Stoehr’s analysis of Tony’s character as a morally bankrupt anti-hero with a dash of anxious self-reflection in a bleak and corrupt social landscape exposes the weakness of Lippman’s account of The Sopranos as classic tragic drama. But Stoehr’s assessment also leaves nagging questions. Is the social landscape of The Sopranos entirely nihilistic? Do all the main characters fit the description of moral compromise and corruption?

A Genre Beyond Film Noir and Nihilism

At one point in his discussion of The Sopranos Stoehr expresses the idea that, viewed from an outlaw social perspective, the series presents an ongoing tension between heroes and villains. But while external villains make their appearance and exit, the dominant tension turns inside. For example, Stoehr remarks, “While the external villains in Tony’s life change from season to season, the internal villain in his life remains ever-present: his inability to take account of his own moral decline, even while obsessing about the weaknesses of others” (46).

Drama featuring conflict between characters separated by strongly marked poles of good and evil is commonly referred to as melodrama. Classic melodrama presents this conflict between two characters. The story transforms into psycho(melo)drama when the featured conflict shifts significantly toward a struggle between poles of good and evil within the same character (e.g., Frederick March in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde [1931]). Melodrama begins to acquire “noir” shades of darkness when the “hero,” portrayed as “hard-boiled” and morally ambiguous, projects a somewhat anti-heroic image (e.g., Humphrey Bogart as anti-hero in The Maltese Falcon [1941]), which nevertheless emerges as heroic when cast against a character or characters portrayed as supremely and unequivocally evil. Psycho(melo)drama turns to shades of noir when the internal conflict in the traits of the featured character swings toward the dominance of the morally dubious or malevolent end of the scale (e.g., Edward G. Robinson in The Scarlet Street [1945]).

Weighing these varieties of melodrama, The Sopranos would appear to fit into the category of noir psycho(melo)drama insofar as the featured protagonist, Tony Soprano, qualifies as an anti-hero whose weaknesses of character contribute to increasing sociopathic decline unmitigated by redeeming actions. However, as Stoehr points out speaking in general of the genre of film noir, nihilism as a collapse of traditional values permeates not only the psychic interior of the hero but also the exterior scene, the social fabric within which he or she functions. “Nihilism [of film noir] signals not only the collapse of values (both within and without) but also the loss of personal unity or wholeness” (42). Consequently, the cast of primary characters in film noir productions seldom includes anyone who provides contrast by modeling exemplary behavior or admirable integrity. The nihilism of film noir generally projects a dark if not disturbing cynicism toward life, while providing few if any reasons for hopefulness or optimism about the human condition.

The broad nihilism of film noir, however, does not entirely mesh with the dramatic structure of The Sopranos. One of the primary characters, Dr. Melfi, offers a compelling contrast to Tony Soprano and the ensemble of Mafia characters. Melfi is a lifeline for Tony (as well as the audience) to the larger and more complex society beyond the constricted boundaries of crime families. In fact, Melfi is such an important piece of The Sopranos series that, without her, the drama would be essentially altered into something quite different—a drama more centered within the tradition of film noir.

At various points in the series, through the help of Melfi, Tony seems on the edge of a breakthrough insight that might help him turn his life around. But invariably he misses the chance, turns the insight in a way that reinforces or facilitates his old ways, and falls more deeply into the morass of his life of decadence and crime. As the series progresses, others who appear to have a chance of escaping Tony’s circle—such as his wife Carmela and his son and daughter as well as his nephew Christopher—all get sucked back into the crime life through combinations of turns of fate and poor choices indicative of weaknesses of character.

Having taken on Tony as a client, Melfi also exposes herself to the corruption of the mob. Rather than helping him toward a better life it seems possible that she may be led down a spiraling path toward her own moral decline and perhaps ultimate demise at the hands of the mob. In writing of the second season, Maurice Yacowar, for example, comments on her growing compulsive behavior and alcoholism, “Melfi’s disintegration proves Tony destructive. Under his unintentional influence even someone of Melfi’s sensitivity, knowledge, wisdom, and both psychological and moral self-awareness proves helpless. She breaks down from trying to bridge the abyss between Tony’s charm and his evil” (114).

But, with a decisive episode in the third season (“Employee of the Month”), it becomes clear who Melfi is and the quality of character she presents in the face of intense temptation. In this episode Melfi is brutally raped in the stairwell of her office parking garage. The rapist is apprehended but then released on a legal technicality (a misplaced evidence kit). Melfi later discovers him working at a local fast food chain where his employers, oblivious to his connection with the rape, have honored him as “employee of the month” because of his good work habits. The help of her ex-husband, her son, and a lawyer proves insufficient to bring the rapist to justice. Melfi understands that by soliciting Tony’s help she could, if she wanted, have the rapist “squashed like a bug.” In a session with Tony following the rape she breaks down as Tony consoles her while inquiring about her bruises and her damaged knee. At this point she’s strongly tempted to reveal to him what happened but ultimately resists, telling him that she fell down some stairs.

Melfi conquers the desire for illegal justice and thereby avoids what could have been one major step toward the descent into complicity with Tony’s world and his attitudes toward life and society. Despite this decision Melfi remains vulnerable to Tony and his world as she decides to continue seeing him as a client instead of following the advice of her own therapist. He suggests that in seeing Tony she succeeds only in enabling a hard core sociopath. In remaining episodes Melfi’s commitment to help Tony progressively wanes until at the end of the last season she finally chooses to abandon the task, apparently convinced by a recent clinical study that sociopaths are beyond therapeutic intervention.

Summarizing Melfi’s predicament regarding her rage toward the rapist and her decision to withhold taking revenge, Yacowar points out her close call and its broader symbolic implications: “If this elegant psychiatrist cannot control her anger then that other great experiment—civilization—will also have failed” (138). On the one hand, Tony symbolizes a primitive and fanatical tribal consciousness that breaks the world into polarized factions of “good and evil” relatively positioned along the axis of “us and them.” On the other hand, Melfi represents a more evolved social consciousness—what Yacowar refers to as “civilization”—associated with a complex understanding of justice, one that appeals to and applies law with a more inclusive compass.

While the dichotomy of “good and evil” that divides Tony’s world might seem to stand the scale of “good and evil” on its head, from Tony’s point of view the factions of good and evil are clear and radically polarized. Within his clan, members are either with him or against him and any ambiguity concerning loyalty will, in his eyes, quickly reduce to a betrayal meriting a response of deadly violence. In this sense his picture of society and the world is highly melodramatic, which further suggests the possibility that The Sopranos is a variety of melodrama. The series would perhaps fit the profile of classic melodrama if Melfi were the featured protagonist pitted against Tony as the villain. But since Tony is the featured protagonist and, as discussed, a man of compromised virtue, then Stoehr is correct to place The Sopranos more in the tradition of noir cinema. However, since Melfi models a character of admirable virtue and, in her actions and in her therapy sessions provides a lens through which to weigh and assess Tony’s character, the audience is presented with a drama that qualifies as something less than the blunt nihilism of film noir.

Insofar as Tony presents a character who divides the world into melodramatic extremes (however self-serving or tribal-serving that may be) and insofar as Melfi presents a character who casts light upon the limitations and outright destructiveness of Tony’s code and worldview, then The Sopranos constitutes a drama that profoundly questions the melodramatic polarization as an ethic of life. A good part of the indictment of this ethic of life, recalling Melfi’s brush with rage and justifiable vengeance, relates to the questioning of the enforcing of order through the choice of vigilante (as opposed to due process) “violence.” Within this melodramatic ethic, identifying someone as an evil “other” removes all restrictions for the use of deadly violence—indeed it strips individuals of humanity and exposes them to indiscriminate and brutal slaughter. Inside the melodramatic ethic the concept of “evil” (whether or not this word is actually used) indicates a pollution or threat of sufficient proportions to warrant the designation of “that which is worthy of extermination.”

Since The Sopranos centers on melodramatic form precisely in order to question that mode of structuring and responding to conflict it merits a separate genre category. The reflexive nature of this drama—as melodrama turning an inward and critical glance upon itself—suggests the term “reflexive melodrama.”

Reflexive melodrama resembles tragic drama in its depiction of conflict as complex. It induces identification—in the form of degrees of sympathetic alignment—with both sides (all sides) of the conflict. In the case of The Sopranos, the series writers draw the audience to peer sympathetically into the lives of Melfi and Tony and his clan by revealing substantial aspects of their life history and motivational quandaries. No automatic melodramatic alignments are possible, although in the case of Tony the audience sees how he deploys such alignments himself.

Reflexive melodrama resembles noir drama in its featured depiction of a troubled hero (or anti-hero) who exists in a world perceived to be “fallen” in the decay of tradition—a perception that leads the anti-hero to the edge of despair. But contrary to what Stoehr maintains, the despair and nihilism (“It’s all a big nothing”) Tony feels is not so much a result of a descent into moral relativism as a confrontation with the complexity of moral choice. Tony must constantly face the fact that life is much more complicated than he would like it to be. He nevertheless interprets this complication as a sign of the decay of the “old values”—the simplicity of melodramatic alignments and clarity of action. His awakening to complexity, symbolized by his panic attacks, prompts him to seek the help that turns up in the person of Melfi.

Looking toward literary tradition, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick counts as one of the first and most prominent examples of reflexive melodrama. Given a classically melodramatic reading, the white whale appears as the symbol and embodiment of evil, a demonic will bent solely on destruction and against whom Ahab’s heroic dying efforts are directed. But the tale, as Melville tells it, finally elicits a viewpoint from which the whale appears as the unfortunate victim of Ahab’s misguided and fanatical persecution. What functions as evil in Moby Dick turns out to be more the idea of evil, the notion of evil as defilement operative in Ahab’s worldview, which includes his self-understanding. This idea of evil and its scapegoating effects may well be what Melville wants to single out for exceptional attention in his story.

Insofar as the whale becomes “heroic,” the hero/villain roles of Ahab and the whale are reversed. But this reversal is not a simple reversal within melodramatic form. Instead the reversal accomplishes a radical reversal of reader orientation. It succeeds in altering melodramatic structure by placing the structure itself in question. When Ahab, as scapegoater, follows the “strength” or fanaticism of his conviction to the point of becoming “scapegoat” for the whale, the entire mechanism of scapegoating is itself exposed and brought into question.

In The Sopranos, Tony is Ahab and the whale is the shadow side of himself lurking below the waters of his conscious horizon. Tony’s “family”—his kin, business associates, and Melfi as a kind of Ishmael—sail on Tony’s Pequod or ship of fate. Melfi gets out alive but the others go down with the ship. Like Ishmael, Melfi helps to tell the story of Tony’s shadow (whale) side—the side that has him troubled about who he is and what he is doing to the degree that it threatens the essence of who and what he is. Like the white whale for Ahab, Tony’s shadow side seems to him to be “evil,” something which threatens his power, identity, and purpose. But also like the white whale this shadow side of Tony may be something he fears for wrongful reasons. It may be instead, as Melfi attempts to lead him to see, a “good” he ignores or persecutes perversely at his own expense. Like Ahab before him, even though he seems to actively seek the whale he also actively hides from it. Through every opportunity of encounter with the whale, Ahab chooses to cast a harpoon into it just as Tony chooses to sabotage his personal growth at every opportunity where Melfi leads him to the door of self-awareness.

Following the tradition of reflexive melodrama, The Sopranos is an American masterpiece. It minutely details in every aspect of life and relationship the destructiveness of the polarized structuring of conflict inherent in exclusionary tribalism, “us versus them” logic, and “take no prisoners” violence characteristic of the melodramatic organization of the world and its associated meaning of “evil.”

Effects of the Portrayal of Violence

Given the stark realism of the presentation of mob personalities and mob life in The Sopranos, one of the more controversial elements of its production emerges in the realism—some would even argue unnecessary hyper-realism—of its depiction of violence. The question may arise among many viewers: Why should The Sopranos be considered high art when it traffics in the low art of what would appear to be graphic, gratuitous, shock-value sex and violence? The answer to this question turns on an understanding of contextual factors. Dramatic context influences the way portrayed violence may be experienced by an audience.

In classic melodrama, for example, the depiction of evil in the form of the featured villain occurs through a series of evil actions which progressively build audience contempt to a boiling point. Once reached, the boiling point elevates audience sentiment to jubilant celebration of all brutality and/or deadly violence heaped on the villain by the hero. The early films of Clint Eastwood, especially the spaghetti westerns and Dirty Harry series, provide exceptional examples of the purposeful triggering of the melodramatic scapegoating mechanism. Stanley Kubrick offers a particularly apt description of this mechanism: “Heroic violence in the Hollywood sense is a great deal like the motivational researchers’ problem in selling candy. The problem with candy is not to convince people that it’s good . . . but to free them from the guilt of eating it. We have seen so many times that the body of a film serves merely as an excuse for motivating a final blood-crazed slaughter by the hero of his enemies, and at the same time to relieve the audience’s guilt of enjoying this mayhem” (as cited in Desilet, 12).

In classic tragic drama, on the other hand, evil is never so clearly depicted that it can be readily assigned to one or the other side of the featured conflict. And, as Lippman notes, the featured conflict in tragic drama often occurs between family members. The dramatist chooses family conflict because the ties of blood relation make the conflict more poignant and more difficult for the audience to form partisan alignments. Led to see some, though not necessarily equal, legitimacy on both sides (all sides) of the conflict, the audience feels a measure of nonpartisan emotion corresponding to the tragic dimensions of the conflict. Furthermore, the audience experiences any violence, especially deadly violence, resulting from the conflict as nothing to celebrate. In fact, this is the meaning and the sense of tragic. The misfortune and suffering befalling the protagonists elicits an emotional catharsis (a physical wringing often severe enough to produce tears) following the arousal of eleos and phobos (for further commentary on tragic emotions and catharsis see Desilet, Chapter 11).

Similar to tragic drama, reflexive melodrama elicits emotions consistent with an appalling rather than celebratory experience of violent conflict. In the case of The Sopranos, every instance of the depiction of violence throughout the entire series occurs in a dramatic context eliciting a strong sense of revulsion and sadness rather than celebration, jubilance, or amusement. Violence in The Sopranos occurs in contexts designed to generate dramatic irony whereby the audience sees with insight beyond the perspective of any one character, insight that invariably exposes the destructiveness of violence in the lives and relationships of the perpetrators. In this regard the series is a monumental achievement in the degree to which it places a magnifying glass on every minute caustic ramification of the “family” tribalism. This tribalism moves on waves of narrow partisanship, coercion, extortion, and violence.

Similarly, nudity and sexually explicit scenes occur in contexts revealing the way in which the attitudes and behaviors of the protagonists degrade the experience of the body and objectify women as little more than merchandise or family tools and subordinates. The explicit language often used in the series also contributes toward the overall achievement of dramatic irony by exposing the way in which the choice of crude language works invidiously to degrade the quality of the experiences and relationships within and around the “family.”

On the whole, The Sopranos presents a disturbing realism of violence. But, unlike realistic melodrama, the series offers a realism that is admirable in the thoroughness with which it avoids melodramatic pitfalls and details the destructive side of violence. The series is especially commendable in how it exposes the use of violence as fundamentally connected to life attitudes that serve to implement the facile deployment of murder in the service of short-sighted gain.

The violence of classic melodrama presented in the context of radically polarized morally weighted conflict results in massive audience “liberation” of restraints and a celebration of the destruction of villainous forces. This sense of “liberation” often finds expression among proponents of violent fiction as a beneficial “catharsis” for consumers. But this is largely false liberation. Emotional arousal may be high but emotional catharsis remains weak, superficial, and incomplete unless accompanied by overt physical enactments consistent with the outrage and associated emotions that may be aroused through melodrama. The best illustration of this principle of catharsis derives from comparison to the sexual act whereby mere sexual arousal fails to provide adequate catharsis in itself. Even when understood as stimulating a weaker “cognitive” (or fantasy) simulation of cathartic release, violent melodramatic conflict offers dubious therapeutic benefit. This simulation provides inducement to active imitation of the conflict model—an imitation that results in the gross reductionism of demonization of opponents and the subsequent violent disposal of them through death-dealing action in celebratory fashion. In psychological terms of projection, this model presents a classic formula for violent scapegoating. This formula becomes especially dangerous when the criteria for identifying “evil” are hastily applied under the pressure of strong emotional currents. (For a more complete discussion of the principle of catharsis in relation to physiology and responses to viewing films and reading fiction see Desilet chapters 10 and 11).

The polarized structuring of classic melodramatic conflict combined with its celebration of the cleansing power of violence risks reinforcing and perpetuating similar cognitive structuring of conflict as appropriate not only for drama but for real life. The issue here is one of media influence on attitudes toward conflict. Conflict is inevitable in life and is of the essence of drama. And while drama may be an imitation of life, life also imitates drama. Since quality of life depends greatly on the way in which conflict is managed and resolved and since dramatic conflict may exert substantial influence on the perception and organization of conflict, the context for the portrayal of violent conflict certainly merits attention. All drama, even bad drama, always functions as more than mere entertainment. And, like all visual media, drama is never entirely divorced from processes of cognitive conditioning and training—as Madison Avenue executives can verify with sales figures generated from television advertisements any month of the year. The Sopranos demonstrates that television drama can present violence in ways that do not merely shock for ratings appeal and market attention but in ways that coach a more complex understanding of life’s conflicts, quandaries, and challenges.

References:

Desilet, Gregory. (2006). Our Faith in Evil: Melodrama and the Effects of Entertainment Violence. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Lippman, Mike. (2004). Know Thyself, Asshole: Tony Soprano as an Aristotelian Tragic Hero. In The Sopranos and Philosophy: I Kill Therefore I Am. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company.

Stoehr, Kevin L. (2004). “It’s All a Big Nothing”: The Nihilistic Vision of The Sopranos. In The Sopranos and Philosophy: I Kill Therefore I Am. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company.

Stoehr, Kevin L. (2006). Nihilism in Film and Television: A Critical Overview from Citizen Kane to The Sopranos. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Yacowar, Maurice. (2007). The Sopranos on the Couch: The Ultimate Guide. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc.

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