uziq
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Dilbert_X wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

I watched a recap about an honest family guy turning to crime and violence. It's because his mom had a brain tumor and they couldn't afford to pay for it. Reading that, you just think "America."
Sure but the average mafioso isn't killing people over brain tumours
lmao you really haven't seen the sopranos, have you?

you get cagey and defensive over fucking CATS, a box-office bomb and a critical flop, but you dismiss the most celebrated tv series possibly of all time.

sad!
unnamednewbie13
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Does Sopranos have catwomen?
uziq
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imagine thinking the sopranos was a show that glorified mob violence.
SuperJail Warden
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uziq wrote:

imagine thinking the sopranos was a show that glorified mob violence.
A lot of (pig) people did. There are many people who watched the show and completely missed the point.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
KEN-JENNINGS
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It's kind of hard to miss the point of a show like The Sopranos. It was very smart about the way it developed a lot of the characters and story line, but the main themes are very much right in your face. Over and over and over and over and over like Ralphie getting rammed by Janice
Dilbert_X
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Doesn't apply to the mafia though, and the whole sympathetic outlaw thing is a BAD THING
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Dilbert_X
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uziq wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

I watched a recap about an honest family guy turning to crime and violence. It's because his mom had a brain tumor and they couldn't afford to pay for it. Reading that, you just think "America."
Sure but the average mafioso isn't killing people over brain tumours
lmao you really haven't seen the sopranos, have you?

you get cagey and defensive over fucking CATS, a box-office bomb and a critical flop, but you dismiss the most celebrated tv series possibly of all time.

sad!
Cats was a masterpiece

The story revolves around Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster, portraying the difficulties that he faces as he tries to balance his family life with his role as the leader of a criminal organization.
The poor fellow. Really, portraying vicious criminals in a sympathetic light is not good.
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Dilbert_X
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Tony considers killing several of his associates for relatively minor infractions. Christopher is unable to leave the mob, deflecting his problems by relapsing into drug addiction and kills his friend from Narcotics Anonymous, J. T. Dolan. He is then seriously injured in a car accident while driving under the influence of narcotics. Tony, the sole passenger, finally loses patience with Christopher's failings and suffocates him. A.J. is dumped by his fiancée and slips into depression, culminating in a suicide attempt in the backyard pool. Dr. Melfi is convinced by colleagues that Tony is making no progress and may even be using talk therapy for his sociopathic benefit. She drops him as a patient.

Johnny Sack dies from lung cancer while imprisoned, and Leotardo consolidates his position in the Lupertazzi family by having his rivals for the leadership killed. Phil then officially takes over, igniting a resumption of the past feud with Tony and refusing to compromise with Tony on a garbage deal. When Tony assaults a Lupertazzi soldier for harassing Meadow while she is on a date, Phil decides it's time to decapitate the Soprano crew. He orders the executions of Bobby Baccalieri, who is shot to death; Silvio, who ends up comatose; and Tony, who goes into hiding. A deal is brokered whereby the rest of the Lupertazzi family agrees to ignore the order to kill Tony, allowing Tony to go after Phil. FBI agent Dwight Harris informs Tony of Phil's location, allowing Tony to have him killed.
Just a story about everyday folks trying to make ends meet.
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KEN-JENNINGS
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You don't really sympathize with Tony at all. He's a sociopath and you feel sorry for virtually everyone in his immediate orbit.

The viewer doesn't really sympathize with any of the mafia guys except maybe Christopher, and that's more bc he's the guy that gets shit on
Dilbert_X
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I'll stick my neck out and say half the viewers idolise and want to be Tony.
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SuperJail Warden
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Dilbert_X wrote:

I'll stick my neck out and say half the viewers idolise and want to be Tony.
Yeah, I agree with this. Maybe what is left of online Sopranos fan bases get the show but there are plenty of people who saw the sex, money, and murder as glamorous.

https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/watching-football-game-three-adult-guys-anticipation-next-score-84915765.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
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Not much about that stock photo makes sense. Are they in an office with jeans and football jerseys? Why are the snacks untouched? Not a crumb on the table. Does anyone here wear a foam finger to watch football on a TV? They look frozen in a pose more than at the edge of their seat watching an exciting play.

This would all be so much more fitting at a sports bar or something.
unnamednewbie13
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Dilbert_X wrote:

The poor fellow. Really, portraying vicious criminals in a sympathetic light is not good.
I marathoned Breaking Bad. I thought the show did a good job of giving Walter White a motive, even if selfish and sometimes evil, and didn't overplay the sympathetic card for his cancer stuff. I think a lot of people rooted for him while he was the underdog, but then sympathies shifted elsewhere as it went on.
Dilbert_X
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The sympathetic villain thing is just lazy writing, so much to crib from now too.
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uziq
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lol 'the sympathetic villain' lazy writing.

you do realize the anti-hero as an archetype goes back to romantic writing in the early 1800s?

it's not a tv trope for nasty mafia men.

the sopranos is pretty cartoonish and over the top, especially the first season. but it settles into something ambiguous and nuanced, dealing with real human beings with better angels and personal demons. something a lot more sophisticated than the manichean, good vs evil, comic book nonsense you are interested in.

imagine finding some of the best tv writing of all time 'lazy' but being engrossed by wonder woman.
Dilbert_X
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I'm not sure anti-heroes and mafia criminals are really the same thing

I've brought up Wonder Woman maybe twice, you're the one who keeps droning on about it.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2021-07-01 20:49:00)

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uziq
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https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ente … 17111.html

the sopranos at 20: flawed anti-heroes are now everywhere.

i admire the flex of trying to argue with a literature grad student about what is and what isn't an anti-hero. may i advise you on that next section of highly interesting tube you're drawing in CAD?
Dilbert_X
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I don't really care how far back the sympathetic villain goes back, the fact is its practically every TV show now and it really is lazy writing and easy ratings.

Flawed anti-heroes are now everywhere on TV
Exactly my point, well done. But I thought your point was they went back to the 1800s,

i admire the flex of trying to argue with a literature grad student about what is and what isn't an anti-hero.
Maybe learn to construct an argument with evidence which supports it, not just blurt stuff out and cite information which supports my argument.

Anyway Sopranos is really just one of many copy-paste Godfather spin-offs, its not big or clever.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2021-07-01 21:05:16)

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uziq
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and of course mafiosos are or can be anti-heroes; that is, complex human beings with complex motivations.

criminals, believe it or not, are real people with complex stories. you want to dismiss any mafioso as a 'thug' and then shut the book. you sound like an old testament-toting american. that sort of black-and-white manicheanism is not how reality, or the individuals who people it, work. very few people are 'pure evil' or 'simple thugs', and the characters in the sopranos are precisely the sort of everyman thrust into a life of crime, not unhinged serial killers.

that's rather the whole point of my drawing comic movies into the comparison. sopranos, despite the aforementioned cartoonish first season, which was more 'grand theft auto' than the 'magisterial survey of american society' that it became, at least tries to get at reality, you know, the STUFF of human beings and their actions. it's tragi-comic and the main characters are exactly anti-heroes.

this is why there has always been an interest in crime fiction or mafia books, at least for a certain high-brow type, who want to examine human behaviour and the underworld lives of criminals. it is an enduring topic of interest and is so much more than just 'glamorizing violence'. what a lack of imagination you have. transgression is a fascination as old as the world religions.

you are, really, two steps away from the 'watching/playing/reading x/y/z makes people violent' argument, which is tendentious at best. nobody wants to be tony soprano. he is a sociopath who practically loses everyone close to him and (probably) ends up dead. not exactly a ringing endorsement.

and, ironically, the show is so well-written that it even pre-empts your critique: the characters in the show are literally rinsed in mob media. they are forever joking about mob movies, and one of them even tries to write a script for one. they end up making a clownish Saw-like movie about a thriller-killer. the show literally deconstructs the very arguments you are trying to make. 'lazy writing'. fail.
uziq
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the fact is its practically every TV show now and it really is lazy writing and easy ratings.
but the sopranos was arguably the first to bring it to tv? in a clever and nuanced way? and it was tremendously well-written, in a league of its own, especially at the time?

the sopranos, along with shows like the west wing, brought in a new age of television. where it wasn't soap operas and sitcoms. it was intelligently written drama, good enough for film or the theatre stage. the writing was anything BUT lazy.

why are you judging a 20+-year-old show because of the state of tv today? the whole gist of macbeth's argument was that sopranos was the first. that it set the bar.

historian, tv critic, political strategist ... you've missed so many golden careers!
unnamednewbie13
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A comic book enjoyer probably shouldn't be complaining too much about overbearing antiheroes and violence worship in the media. It's just too easy to make fun of someone grumbling about "gangsta rap" while wearing their unlicensed Punisher trucker hat.
Dilbert_X
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uziq wrote:

at least for a certain high-brow type,
But more so for the low-brow type who idolises gangsters

you are, really, two steps away from the 'watching/playing/reading x/y/z makes people violent' argument,
It gives the apes encouragement that their impulses are normal behaviour and should be acted on.
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Dilbert_X
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uziq wrote:

the fact is its practically every TV show now and it really is lazy writing and easy ratings.
but the sopranos was arguably the first to bring it to tv? in a clever and nuanced way? and it was tremendously well-written, in a league of its own, especially at the time?
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/10/29/1414568178022/ce595af2-3bad-4b17-8f15-0cedc04ed3cd-1020x612.jpeg?width=700&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=862945e8f31bcb6005b3ebe25a466ea9

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/scarface_1983_41_copy_-_h_2018.jpg?w=1024

Would a show normalising white supremacism and neo-nazism be OK if it were tremendously well-written and clever and nuanced?

"The poor fellow, he's so conflicted about tossing cans of Zyklon B into death chambers, and what a script and what acting!
We really should revisit WW2 from the perspective of the average SS guy who's just trying to get ahead and build a better country for his children and going through existential angst while he does it, sniff"
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unnamednewbie13
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You can watch a lot of the actual Nazi stuff in Leni Riefenstahl's films where the German people are hoodwinked into believing that they are building a better future for their country.
Dilbert_X
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But if they'd won it would have been a better future for their country.

Same for the mafia, if everyone has to pay them a tribute on fear of death they can have a really nice life.
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