The Repugnancy Of Tony Soprano: An Analysis Of Television's Quintessential Anti-Hero
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 พ.ค. 2024
- [SPOILERS: The entirety of 'The Sopranos'; partial spoilers for 'Breaking Bad' and 'The Shield']
This video essay will focus on the character of Tony Soprano and why I consider him to be the quintessential television anti-hero. Not just because he was a revolutionary benchmark that opened the floodgates for some of the medium’s most complex characters, but I would contend he remains the greatest and boldest due to a particular element of his character that the show fearlessly displays, that no other show, even those conceived years after the The Sopranos’ debut, dared to tread. That element is... repugnancy
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[00:00] - Intro/Shoutouts
[01:13] - The Benchmark
[03:28] - The Repugnancy
[14:03] - The Deception
[22:24] - The Enigma
[23:15] - To Mr. Gandolfini...
[24:06] - Outro/Patrons
ARTICLES:
'HBO’s President Wanted This ‘Sopranos’ Episode to End Without Its Key Murder': www.cheatsheet.com/entertainm...
MUSIC:
'Thru And Thru' by The Rolling Stones: • The Rolling Stones - T... - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
Great video but you completely missed the mark on Noah T and Tony. Tony called off the cop getting his job back right after Noah broke up with Meadow, not to mention the overt racism that even Carmela displays (or holds back).
You may want to watch that part again... 😉
he was being sarcastic, if it wasn’t already clear enough
Also the part about leaving before the end of the scene with Noah where Tony drops the act lol it maybe was a bit too subtle in retrospect. Was gonna put a shot of Noah looking dumbfounded to drive the point harm but decided against it last minute.
I’ve never viewed the police officer’s race as being a factor in how Tony reacted to being given a speeding ticket. In my opinion, Tony was shocked and angered that the police officer failed to give Tony the respect Tony feels he’s entitled to from everyone. Rather than simply accepting what happened, Tony attacks by using his power (in the form of his political connections) to “fix” the situation. He later sees the consequences of his overreaction and briefly feels guilty. Obviously, that’s not the case in Tony’s treatment of Noah, where all Tony sees is his race.
@@RedSoxFanatic4Life not initially but definitely was during his decision to no help Willmore when he meets with Zellman.
Tony was not only a failure as human, but he was a shitty gangster too.. He basically destroyed both his family and his crime family, everyone in his crew ended up either hating him, being murdered by him, or turning witness. In the first season, we think Tony is right to undermine Junior, but it turns out Junior is right.. Tony never had the makings of a varsity athlete
This comment is legendary 🤣🤣😂
I don't like the way he finished Chrissy(even though he looked like he might die anyway). lok
😂😂😂 💯💯💯 not only is Tony a sociopathic murderer, awful father and hypocrite, he's also a bad gangster and terrible people manager. He treats the people in his organization like crap. No wonder most of them either died or flipped on him. By the final episode, he gets to kill Phil but the Soprano organization is almost completely wiped out.
What's interesting about Junior, is at the very beginning of the series he was the only one who saw Christopher as a loose Canon and knew he couldn't be trusted
@@Patrick-sq8ym Rewatching again, Junior is actually a LOT sharper and a better leader than the pov leads us to believe.. from the viewpoint we're shown, taxing Hesh, whacking scumbags who sell drugs to kids, and reigning in the other capos is portrayed as bad, but was it? I think if Junior didn't get indicted and develop dementia, we would have been a much better boss than Tony. Tony was way too emotionally unstable to make good choices, but we see Junior time and time again make logical, well thought out decisions
Tony Soprano is not an anti-hero, he is a villain protagonist.
Please don't bring your stupid TV-Tropes definitions here. This is strictly for people who passed English Lit and actually did entry-level college English, thanks.
@@Sizdothyx nah, this is a public forum where anyone is free to participate. Your contempt for tvtropes is meaningless.
@@Sizdothyx imagine gatekeeping a comments section
I read that in Tonys voice when he says: "Its not a nursing home, its a retirement community!!"
@@Sizdothyx Please don't bring your personal stupidity here. This is a comment section where all kind of people on the internet share their thoughts and opinions, like it or not. THANKS.
tony soprano is the pioneer of “if you were rooting for him by the end, you missed the point”
Michael Corleone and Travis Bickle beat him to it
@@wolfgangkiernan1497pussy maybe some people don't see themselves as an antagonist
Seriously. Crime dramas have been around for some time
Missed the point? Is it impossible to "get" the point while also rooting for him?
Tell that to Agent Harris
I love the fact Tony's great evil is not about being a gangster. But being a horrible family man/ and friend.
The genius of the show is that everyone has realistic human flaws. Mobsters aren’t romanticized as larger than life characters. They have the same shitty personalities as people who you might have the displeasure of meeting in your day to day life.
Because he's good at being a gangster
@@mihaialexandrufilipache8096 Likely more emphasized given the choices and professions in their lives.
Gangsters are rarely pleasant to those they don’t have use for.
@@CharlieRoss-fm1coTony is not at all good at being a gangster. Or at least not at being the boss of other gangsters.
@@tobeornottobe5611 I think there's a development. He display leadership strengths early on, which is also why he gets all the captains to support him for a potential bid for boss after Jackie's death. He reads Sun Tzu, he listens to people and he tries to make things go smoothly.
The problem is, if you don't keep your sins in check, they take control of you. His rationalizing of the heinous crimes he commits ultimately leads him to lean into them. Otherwise he'd have to take an honest look in the mirror and make painful decisions. He doesn't want to. He doesn't respect his son, because if he took responsibility for AJ's weaknesses and realized that his egoistic gangster lifestyle left him without a functional father figure, he'd have to change his ways.
I love the series, because it so accurately portrays what happens to people when they refuse to do moral inventory.
“No man can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which one is true.” - Hawthorne quote that Tony reads while waiting for Meadow in College
Reality is that this is what civilisasjon is all about. In Japan they call this concept " Tatemae & Honne". Tatemae is the mask " Personae" that we all take on when we go out in public. Honne is your personal feelings that you can`t chare to strangers. The people who say that they are always open and truth telling is always the real liars. Tony is a dysfunctional killer to the core. Psycopatic, narcissistic, and machiavellian. Dr Melphy is just one of his tools to be a better liar. The way he cons the audience is by the duality of his personality, that is he can do empathic acts and at the same time never stray from his real inner dysfunctional personality. Great observasjon of him reading the book
@Peppi Roni Aristotle ova here
That was the icing on the cake that made college possibly my favorite episode. Mostly because I saw what they were going for and then had my own theory confirmed with that quote lol.
This is definitely true for the whole Mafia/Cosa Nostra in general. This whole idea of them being "men of honour" who value loyalty above all else, while constantly engaging in the most dishonourable disloyal actions imaginable.
Families are always rising and falling in America, right?
It feels weird to consider Tony an anti-hero. He feels WAY too far gone. Like, he's Mad King levels of fucked.
Hellz yeah
Season 6 Tony is where he's turned into his mother. Infecting poison everywhere he goes. He wasn't the same mobster you fell in love in the beginning, that's for sure.
@@cherryjubilee5201 Why wait till season 6, he yells "Oh poor you..." to Carm exactly like his mother used to at the end of Season 4. I think the episode is whitecaps
@@jujijiju6929 oh yeah. There were signs he was losing it before season 6. Like when he beat the husband of his former gumar( forgot her name) just for the simple fact that the new guy was sleeping with her. Or he was disgusted she was happy, and he wasn't.
That's because he isn't one. He is a villain protagonist.
People love Tony for the tenderness of James Gandolfini. We see ourselves in the worst aspects of Tony that James Gandolfini hated about his job portraying Tony, who is an extreme version of the absolute worst qualities in his personality. There is no Sopranos without him, and I dont like actor worship, but in some unique performances, the effect on the viewer is undeniable. Gandolfini as Tony is one of them. Sopranos is a true work of art. It wouldn't be if not for James Gandolfini.
He is amazing to watch, a total legend.
👏🏻
THISS!!! I'm watching the show for the first time and I find myself disturbingly relating to Tony alot . It really makes you reflect
Oddly, the scene where Tony wants Paulie to take over the cursed crew and Paulie wants no part of it was when I gave up on Tony. He plays Paulie like a fiddle making him think he sympathizes with him. Then, the moment Paulie finally agrees to run the crew, Tony just gets up and walks away with a grin while the look on Paulie's face shows that he now realizes that he'd been played. To top it off, after putting some effort into defending the cat that Paulie hates, Tony doesn't even look at it, much less pet it as he walks away. The poor cat and Paulie are just left sitting there realizing that Tony doesn't care about anything other than getting what he wants.
Yeah man, I really really wanted to like Tony, and I gotta admit when put against certain characters (such as Ralph, Richie, Phill and Melfi's Therapist friend) I did root for Tony because those characters were either worse human beings, or just downright unlikable. It was for this reason that when Melfi refuses to continue treating Tony, I felt almost as heartbroken as he was. It's like that was the first time I started to realize that Tony was never going to become the person I wanted him to be, the person I felt like he *could* be, and that's also when I realized that this show was never going to have a happy ending. In the end, however, Tony got exactly what he deserved and predicted.
@@evangelionl0vr857 .
Or, considering what most likely happened at the end of the series, Paulie only agreed cuz at that point it didn’t matter. He probably knew NY was going to kill Tony, and the sad look was realizing that was the last time they’d speak.
The beauty of that is Paulie is no different. They're all just a bunch of cackling narcissistic reptiles that don't give a shit about anyone.
Yes, but Paulie also smothered an old lady (admittedly a bit of a bitch) and robbed her of her life savings. Paulie ain't exactly a peach.
Chase said that he was shocked that no matter how brutal he had the characters behave, the audience still admired them. He said he got to the point where he said "Jesus; what do I have to do to convince the audience that these are Not good people??"
@Hyper jones it's a tv show, jackass. People root for the bad guy in a lot of movies. Doesn't mean they wanna be that character in real life lol
@@devindoty4989 But Tone is not a "bad guy" like, say, Vito Corleone or Tony Montana, or probably even Nucky Thompson. He's a vile, disgusting excuse of a human being, adulterous, hypocritical, honorless, remorseless, treacherous, disloyal, backstabbing, murderous, violent sociopath.
@@connielingus8385 yet I still love him but hate him at the same time I mean towards the end people did wanna see tony get killed cause of how horrible he was.
People liked Tony because there was a shred of decency in him at the start, a hint at some form of redemption. When he was shot and almost died the idea he could change started up once again. People gave up and wanted him dead when he made it apparent that he wanted no part of change and dove further into darkness.
Oliver Stone said that one time he was in New York when some drunk yuppies recognized him, and started congratulating him because of his work on Wall Street, how important was that movie for them and their admiration for Michael Douglas character, to which Stone replyed: Do you guys realize that Gordon Gekko was the villian on the movie?
Wanna describe what makes Tony repugnant and damn near loathsome? The guy’s character hits all seven deadly sins: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth.
Also, small hands.
@@normie2716 lmfao
Is he really sloth though? He never struck me as being lazy.
You literally made more sense in one paragraph, than this dude did in this entire video.
@@forman208 yes he is. All the monsters are. They took the easy way out in life
The fact that the sopranos is still being discussed is a testament to how great it was. Gandolfini truly made a mark with his role.
People still talk about Breaking Bad and that show's garbage.
@Cmon Man you are entitled to your wrong opinions
@@wepsar Fanboy mad
@@cmonman3639 Nobodies mad, you're just a contrarian weirdo lol.
💯💯. Absolute best show . Loved James ….hell, Tony too for that matter!
13:40 One thing that always motivated Tony, were creatures that couldn't defend themselves. The ducks, the horse, Adrianas dog, the stripper Ralph killed, the empty car seat.
Tony's probably mad when innocents get hurt because he sympathizes with them, especially since he never got that choice. When people essentially "pay the price of admission" in his eyes, they're available to be another pawn in this thing of theirs.
Oof what a creature that Tracee was....
Marone she was a beaut.
Also she was a human being, a tortured soul who left an orphan when she was murdered by a sniveling piece of garbage because he was awful in literally every way possible.
But also she had braces ayeeeee!
He left out "petty" as one of Tony's repugnant traits. That's the only way to describe what he did to his sister.
Awwww, sweet little Janice.
@@lutherblissett8780 Shweet little Janish
Petty, insecure, and envious.
It's not petty at all, she's a far more repugnant person than he is and ridiculously selfish. At least Tony, albeit really selectively, does care about other people and try to do the "honourable" thing in many cases (despite cheating on his wife countless times)
I'd say that there is a truckload of adjectives to describe what Tony does to Janice, and petty is surely one of them. But it's absolutely not the _only_ way to describe what he did to her, and it's odd that you'd take a more or less common descriptor of violating some moderate social norm and make it the only way to view this rabidly antisocial behavior. Petty is cutting someone in line at the grocery store. What Tony did to Janice was malicious, manipulative, and toxic.
RIP James Gandolfini
He played Tony to actual perfection.
Absolute legend.
👍
To this day, I think it is the greatest performance by an actor in TV history.
I'm excited to see his son's performance in this upcoming Soprano's "prequel".
In a series full of absolute stars. All of them are astounding, but Gandolfini stood above all of that talent.
Edie Falco is EXCELLENT as well.
One thing I noticed in both the dream therapy session and real session after Chrissy’s death, Tony’s injuries almost make him look like a clown. Something about how bright red the wounds are made me think back to his “Sad Clown” image he had for himself that *Melfi was able to see through.
"...now i get to be the sad clown...laugh on the outside cry on the inside
He looks like a severe alcoholic in that scene 😂 all the blood rushing to the very surface of his face
I think it all sort of comes together with Melfi dropping Tony as a patient at the end of the show because she’s concluded that their years of therapy have actually exasperated Tony’s issues instead of helping him. That he slowly becomes a shittier, more volatile and evil person because he’s self realizing all these things wrong with him and his life in therapy yet is part of a life that will never let him improve upon these things or actually get better outside of her office....Melfi has made him feel like he’s got a moral escape or amend for all the bad he does and will continue to do, because it’s in his nature and always will be. Like the sinner who goes to church on Sunday only to make themselves feel better about all the bad shit they did the week before, and to justify all the bad shit they’re about to do the week following. Some people don’t actually want to stop being bad people, they just will use any reason they can find for internally justifying why they are that way. Look at the amount of times Tony mentions that Christopher wasn’t wearing a seat belt, was driving high and would have possibly killed his daughter had she been in the backseat to those around him following Tony murdering him with his own bare hands.....Tony is so insecure that he can’t even kill those closest to him in cold blood without trying to make himself feel better after the fact.
Yep, he says so himself that the sessions feel like taking a shit ie lifting some of his guilty conscience and conflicting feelings off before going back to his life and doing the same thing again.
Man you nailed it to a tee , well done
I don't think being bad is Tony's nature but him feeling like he can't leave the criminal life while also having to live up to his title leads to questionable decisions in a civilians eye
Melfi should have dumped him the second she realized what he did for a living.
exacerbated Tony's issues
I dont even think it was the killing of the horse that made Tony choose to kill Ralph. I think Ralph choosing to point out his hypocrisy did it. "What you're an animal love now? Everytime I see you you're shoving meat in your fat face". Tony likes to believe in his own goodness and anyone who challenges that is hated.
Tony was still upset with Ralph for killing Tracee.
Tony killing Ralph felt like an inevitability from the moment Ralph was introduced. There was something in him that Tony resented, probably hated, that told us that as soon as he was far enough out of line to give Tony the excuse that Tony would be eager to take advantage.
I still think Ralph didn't kill Pie-Oh-My. Paulie did as payback for the prank call on his mom.
@@edlawn5481 tony did not give a shit about tracee
@@0230309 he say his daughter in her and him saying you killed that beautiful creature is a clue that ralph went to far even for tony.
What I also loved about this video is you pointing about the contradiction between Tony showing his kids what places their great-grandfather helped built, emphasizing the essence of "hard work and honest living" yet he preys on people who are hard workers who make a honest living.
To paraphrase Johnny Sack, "The gall of that man. His grandfather must be spinnin'"
By the end of the series he basically defied every single principle he touted at one point or another.
@@MacabreStorytelling Also, I remember reading this thing from TV Tropes about how David Chase was reminding fans or something along the lines of "You shouldn't cheering for Tony" but fans nevertheless cheered for Tony. Then when Season 6 rolled along, fans went from rooting him on to turning on him. Do you think David Chase went with the ending as a way to deprive the satisfaction of those fans who went from "Team Tony" to "BLEEP Tony"
@@jeffcherubin9073 Perhaps. I'd recommend checking out my analysis about the Seinfeld Finale on my channel. I discuss this at length about how Chase realized the audience liked Tony maybe more than he had hoped.
@@MacabreStorytelling I remember seeing that vid, which I also loved and maybe I missed it. But I'd checked it out again.
@@jeffcherubin9073 I got roasted for talking about The Sopranos for like 10% of the runtime of a video that wasn't on The Sopranos. Goes to show how much I love it lol
Vito was an earner , Tony would have given him a pass only because of the impact on his wallet.
I know Vito’s bottom was impacted
Every decision in Season 6 is what was best for Tony's bottom line. Deep down he didn't give a shit about Vito being gay just the money he would bring in.
Through sheer hard work Vito turned himself into Tony’s top earner. He was a come from behind kinda guy!
@@GarethNIreland He kind of got lucky because the 3 Bosses of that crew ahead of him all died in like a 2 year period.
@@GarethNIreland *come in
I totally agree with what you said about the Tony and Janice fight. My perception of him was already hanging by a thin thread but seeing him antagonize Janice out of spite only because she was genuinely getting better and overcoming her pent up anger. Tony can't stand the idea of someone he looks down on thriving and trying to become a better person because he's such a self absorbed narcissist. The lies, abuse and even the murders didn't shake me up as much as seeing him act like his mother than in that scene. The worst part is he enjoys it, when he exits the house after the fight, the day looks beautiful and alive with kids playing in the streets. It's like he finds peace in making others miserable, such a despicable mindset made me finally look at Tony as the monster he actually is!
Tony was a bad son, husband, farther, nephew, friend and boss. But one of the most compelling characters on TV.
@Sinsearach he cheated on his wife constantly and barely raised his children although Meadow turned out alright.
@@joevines3428 also he was really abusive towards carmella and aj. I think that Maedo wasnt subjected to violence because she was daddy's girl. I know that Aj sucks and everybody hates him, but sometimes I see myself in him. My father and mother was violent to me just the same.
That's so far from the truth
I dont think he was a bad son, how?
Livia was a pretty horrible mother
That's a great analysis! One of the most fascinating aspects of Tony, for me, is how he immediately starts to sabotage anyone around him who is getting better. Not only does he ruin Janice's progress with anger management, he consciously and subconsciously pushes Christopher to start drinking again. He really hates seeing evidence that progress can be made.
"What's French for 'I grew up without a mother'?"
Couldn’t agree more
He basically threatens Christopher with death if he didn't sober up than everyone treated Christopher like shit when he was sober, especially Tony.
@@jasonryan2555 That's true. You get the sense that Christopher could have done better if he had been around better people.
wow great comment about hating progress from others
The greatest part about The Sopranos is that NOBODY knows Tony's true intentions... NOT EVEN TONY. It's one of the greatest stories ever told about the struggle between Good & Evil within an individual's own psyche. At his core Tony is a Sociopath, even a Psychopath that's been conditioned by his upbringing & the people around him who were also Narcissists, Sociopaths & Psychopaths. But Tony does have a Moral side unlike many around him, a goodness in his heart that he desperately wants to bring to surface. However, his life was basically chosen for him, he feels trapped in the body of a mob boss doing all these horrendous things. This is why he suffers from PTSD, Stress, Anxiety, Depression. In his heart, the good part of him, wants a simple life, he wants to be a better person without having to be a Mob Boss. However he's already lost this battle with himself because he is in fact a Narcissistic Socio/Psycopath. He's trying to convince himself he's good & he can be good, but the struggle to bring that goodness within him to the surface is essentially unrealistic because he's already far too lost & what he tries to do is hold onto the goodness within him while it slowly slips away throughout the show until it becomes apparent in the end that Tony's Narcissism/Darkness has consumed him completely. Essentially his own Narcissistic Evil side was tricking him & all the viewers all along in order to consume him completely. By the end of the show, we can see the goodness has disappeared, we can see he's now consumed by delusions he conjures up to justify his own evils. He lost the battle for his own soul & that goodness that was present in the beginning of the show is now completely gone. It's one of the most brilliant Psychological & even Spiritual stories ever written about a person battling with their own duality of Evil & Good and losing. Top 5 show all time, for sure.
Sociopath and psychopath are basically interchangeable. Movies make it seem like psychopaths are evil genius monsters, but they are really just sociopaths who display their sadism through violence. CEOs who do immoral things to make money are motivated by the exact same thing as a murderous gangster, except the CEO often has a larger body count.
Top 2 and it ain’t 2 imo
@@AveChristusRex789weirdest way of saying "at the top"
I don't think Tony is a psychopath. Ralph Ciffereto is a psychopath.
What set them apart is the small ember of empathy Tony felt for when Tracee was beaten to death
The most telling scene is when he sees his daughter Meadow and then equates that to Tracee.
Tony is a criminal with anti social tendencies and lacks empathy BUT is not totally devoid of it like Ralph ciffereto.
Great analysis ❤
One thing I’d like to mention about Tony killing Ralph. I actually don’t think it was even about the horse. I think he went to his house over that, sure. However, think of Ralph’s dialogue when Tony actually decides to kill him. Ralph says “what are you a vegetarian? You eat beef and sausage by the fuckin carload!”
Tony on the surface cares about animals, but when confronted about whether he truly cares under the surface (aka threatening his own perception of himself that he is something above a gangster/murderer) and exposing his hypocrisy, he kills Ralph.
Something else I’d like to mention, Tony initially went to therapy to address the panic attacks. He viewed that as a problem and so he went to therapy to address it. He doesn’t view his narcissistic and sociopathy as problems (people like this almost never do) and so that’s why he doesn’t really fundamentally change and the therapy doesn’t really go anywhere.
Dr. Melfi was Tony's real consigliere. She just didn't know it until the very end. To name a few examples, she tells him about The Art of War and indirectly gives him the idea to put Junior in charge to take the heat off himself (the conversation they have about giving old people the illusion of control, although she's referring to his mother, he uses this advice on his uncle).
Tony never wanted to change, he just wanted help in alleviating his guilt/rationalising the deeds he did or wanted to do.
From his POV, she was worth every blood-soaked $ he paid her.
To me, the most repugnant thing Tony did was beating Zellman over his relationship with Irina. It was completely gratuitous given how much effort Tony put into detaching from her, and had a catastrophic impact on his family.
Tony's murders, on the other hand, were related to crime and involved other criminals.
Apart from a large number of whackings yeah
I always thought that act revealed Tony’s level of entitlement. His thought process amounted to:
How DARE Zellman date her when I had had feelings for her? I have EVERY right to march into that man’s house and beat him for that. Fk what it does to him.
For me it was Hesh, the man was his friend and he came close to clipping him over money he owed him
@@possessedslig and when he brings the check to Hesh’s house after he hears his wife died, dude was a straight prick
@@possessedslig yep, his treatment of hesh was very revealing, the guy was a life long friend and mentor, Tony put him in a really bad position by forcing him to ask Tony to pay back what he owed and instead of doing it respectfully he decided to humiliate hesh over it
Gandolfini in this role should be up there with the likes of Heath Ledger's Joker. He brings so much more charm and ability to elicit empathy than the character had any business having. Tony is what Cersei should have been, both completely irredeemable morally and still able to elicit our empathy because he does have moments of emotional vulnerability and genuine care for his children.
🙌
I do think Cersei (and everyone else) began to falter in the latter seasons. Her very real concerns to Oberyn that "girls get hurt everywhere" in Westeros were some of her best humanising material.
Heath ledger is garbage when comparing to James. The sopranos is 86 episodes long, averaging 55 minutes an episode. Gandolfini had to bring it for 57 movies, purely runtime and not rehearsal, other takes, deleted scenes, with David "you're only as good as your last envelope" Chase there every step of the way.
He is "up there", there was never as an impressive role or actor.
@@Undone545 Yeah that's definitely one of her best little moments for me, demonstrating some thought of the world outside herself. If I knew Beniof and Weiss were capable of it I would say that it's an interesting experiment in how much empathy we could have toward a woman who most of the time is irredeemable. But we know they aren't so...
No, that's a step too far. Bad as Tony was and became at the end, he was never as stupid or as awful as Cersei.
One of my favorite lines in the show was in the first season when Melfi's therapist told her that when you get past the moral relativism you'll see that there is good and evil, and that Tony was evil. I feel like nowadays it's considered cool to be morally ambiguous on shows, and the genius of the sopranos was making tony not
Yeah it was her ex-husband though. He was usually full of shit, but he was spot on that time
My favourite line is when Melfi is talking to her friend therapist and literally foretells in S6 what would happen to Tony and his psyche later in the series. "He refuses to engage in the trauma his uncle caused, So I think It's just a matter of time before he completely decompensates". And that's exactly what Tony did. Holy shit the writers are so good, they were foreshadowing bits here and there about Tony's future degeneration while making you question at the same time, If he would change achieve redemption or not.
Tony was the first morally ambiguous lead character on TV. And Chase really leaned into his repugnancy in the later seasons.
@@dukedematteo1995 Idk about that, after seeing what he did to davey, to me it solidifed him as truly an evil person. But he still was trying to be a good person, and even his goodness has it's limit, if he thinks it's a necessary thing to do or because you didn't show gratitude towards his good act, he'll completely fuck you over. Great example of this was when he fired a black cop.
The "Tony Paradox" can bve summed up in two episodes. The one where he verbally and nearly physically assaults Melphi, and the next when he is siting in the chair, almost shy about things. Tony knows what he is, yet, ill prepared to do anything or even apologise for it.
This is my problem with the concept of the modern anti hero. Most people whom you'd consider anti heroes, are already villains. They have nothing heroic in them.
☝
@Maester Gryphon I would say that Tony is definitely an example of a sympathetic villain. If you want to look at what I'd consider to be an example of an actual anti hero. I would suggest that you watch mad men. Trust me, it's really fun too.
Tony, Walter White - Sympathic villains. Don Draper, most Clint Eastwood roles, spike speagle- anti hero’s.
Slipp’n Jimmy - ?
I think the best definition of an antihero that I've found is of someone who has the role of a hero in a story yet very few of the traditional heroic qualities.
This is what so many people seem to misunderstand about the antihero character type. An antihero is a villain, but as the audience we’re also being shown the character’s motivations and feelings in addition to the character’s words and actions. We’re then able to sympathize, but not agree, with the character. If you want a great example of how this works from another medium, read George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels and pay attention to how you feel about the character of Jaime Lannister and how that changes in the third book when you get to read his point of view.
I know a lot of people like him in real life, you can only romanticise such people if you don't have to deal with them.
May we enquire as to your line of work?
@@nihilistcentraluk442 Probably waste management.
@Mr. Shlock The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact
that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of
taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping
with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation.
Crime is naught but misdirected energy. So long as every institution of today, economic, political, social,
and moral, conspires to misdirect human energy into wrong channels; so long as most people are out of
place doing the things they hate to do, living a life they loathe to live, crime will be inevitable, and all the
laws on the statutes can only increase, but never do away with, crime. What does society, as it exists
today, know of the process of despair, the poverty, the horrors, the fearful struggle the human soul must
pass on its way to crime and degradation. Who that knows this terrible process can fail to see the truth in
these words of Peter Kropotkin:
"Those who will hold the balance between the benefits thus attributed to law and punishment and the
degrading effect of the latter on humanity; those who will estimate the torrent of depravity poured
abroad in human society by the informer, favored by the Judge even, and paid for in clinking cash by
governments, under the pretext of aiding to unmask crime; those who will go within prison walls and
there see what human beings become when deprived of liberty, when subjected to the care of brutal
keepers, to coarse, cruel words, to a thousand stinging, piercing humiliations, will agree with us that the
entire apparatus of prison and punishment is an abomination which ought to be brought to an end.
@Mr. Shlock Don’t have to agree with or be allies with the guy to get through a couple paragraphs….it’s not all that “batshit.” Have you no curiosity about those other than like yourself?
@Mr. Shlock he’s right on every account though
One of the biggest things left out was how Tony brings up the car seat during Christophers funeral, it's a less subtle way of letting people know it's just an excuse and doesn't ruin the early scene.
I believe I mention that at some point 👍 although I do say two strangers even though the person in the far left is Lil Carmine.
I couldn't agree more with all of this. Gandolfini was a beast of an actor.
Yes may he Rest In Peace James Gandolfini
Very underrated actor.
His character and descent is Shakespearean. Macbeth for 21st century. Is he fatally flawed or a victim of circumstance? This is a very thought provoking analysis especially the arguments raised about his continual self justification. Are we born bad or are we made bad? Or is it both.
To me one thing that’s often overlooked about Tony is the immaturity of his jokes, the vicarious fixation on AJ’s high school sports, the “you never had the makings of a varsity athlete”. He’s an overgrown jock, crude and stupid and possessed with little more than “low cunning”. His mafia lifestyle has never given him any reason to grow past that, and he probably couldn’t if he tried. So when you see how he reacts to Jackie Jr it’s bitterly ironic because he is Jackie Jr, which I think he realizes but even so he can’t understand what it means.
It was a leaf you friggin’ idiot!
Wow... good one pops.
Jackie Jr was a moron
@Dead Burter I think the point with that fact was to highlight his potential to be somebody else, to change. He had all the chances he could to be somebody else but made the wrong choice almost everytime.
You’re seeing what you wanna see, and ignoring at least half the layers of nuance built into his character. Just because you see his shortcomings doesn’t mean you understand his limits, his pathology, or even his hubris.
@@stolensentience Bruh I've lived in Jersey my whole life, went to high school, college with plenty of Jackie Jrs., plenty of would-be Tony's. Plenty of kids I grew up with had dads who were Tony in every way except their crimes were white-collar. Just because they fit the bill doesn't mean they didn't have uniqueness. I think you're the one who's being reductive if you assume an overgrown North Jersey jock doesn't have any nuance to him. I just wanted to point out an underlooked aspect of Tony's personality I have some real life connection to.
What ever happened to characters like Gary Cooper??? The strong silent type...
What does Gary Cooper have to do with…ohhhh, that’s right.
He was gay? Gary Cooper
It’s funny cause Tony was literally the complete opposite 😂😂 dude was an emotional roller coaster and always showed his cards to everyone. That’s why he failed as a mob boss
@@jerry85g7 NOOOOO
Gary Cooper, whatever happened there...
Towards the end of the show, the whole house of cards Tony constructed
in his sessions with Dr Melfi collapses and we notice that Tony gaslighted
Dr Melfi and thus also us, the audience, probably for the whole duration of the
Show. This then makes him the greatest and most effective narcissist of
TV history.
I don't see how he gaslighted Dr. Melfi. It seems he was honest and maybe trying to find some support, but in the end unable to change. That is the human condition for some people on this planet, sadly your environment at an early age can dictate your choices and who you become. Not that it makes it justifiable, but it's just the bigger picture.
I take back the gaslighting part, he does seem to be lying to himself, and in so lying to the audience and Dr. Melfi
@@apachehelicopter7625 it remains to be debated whether David Chase intended to write it like this,
with this possible interpretation, from the start.
Season 6 can definitely be interpreted in this way, and the last episodes also heavily imply that
Tony has been using Dr Melfi to lie to himself, and thus also the audience, from the start.
However, whether Chase had this already in mind while writing the script for the pilot episode,
I would at least doubt. I would rather assume that he came up with this possible interpretation
during the writing of the season 6 episodes. If he intended this from the start, it would of course
be even more genius.
This show is such a devastatingly accurate portrayal of narcissism because its completely real. My Dad - an abusive gambling narcissist, loved The Sopranos and is even bright enough to understand a lot of the complicated subtext and dangling plot threads going on in this show. When he showed me the first few seasons I could immediately tell he wanted to be like Tony Soprano, and even then he showed enough self-awareness to be like "Yeah these guys are still ice-cold killers though."
As the show goes on and Tony becomes even more openly contemptible, Dad even recognized it and saw how this way of maintaining relationships leads to just absolute decay in every part of your life. At the same time though, he always rooted for Tony because the show does an unbelievable job at showing you Tony's world, and the motivations behind the decisions he made. By the end of season 6, I could tell Dad was uncomfortable with the decisions Tony makes, but he was also completely gaslit by the show (as intended) and was convinced that Tony was doing the best he could. HE WAS NOT THOUGH. Tony was in the end, a complete fucking snowflake and even sulks when his ego is bruised - like after he lost the fight to Bobby. The guy had so many chances to change and become better, but finds every opportunity he can to NOT change and be a victim of circumstances. It ended up with Tony living alone in fear, remorseful for nothing despite losing everything.
Dad was upset by this conclusion but also saw the show completely through Tony's eyes and accepted it. It's funny though, when he was still around he'd always go back to season 2 and pine over "the good days" much like Tony did, despite it being a big theme that there were never really any good days - remember that was the season where Pussy got whacked? Remember Tony's abysmal childhood flashbacks? There's fucking no good parts of his life. Every season had some really awful shit happening. There were no good days, maybe just ones where it was easier to delude yourself. That's my Dad crystalized.
The ending of Tony Sopranos arc is kinda revelatory in me understanding my shitty Dad's nature in that even when the show ends and is holding up a mirror and going "Look! This will happen to YOU! You need to get a fucking grip and change yourself for the better, you have control and no excuses," they will just say "Nah that's not me." This is the contradiction though - Dad sees himself, he sees Tony Soprano, and sees how they are similar, and even understand the world similarly, but when confronted about any bad part of Tony's personality Dad will retreat. Narcissists are completely self-obsessed and self-motivated but they are completely incapable of seeing themselves.
One time Dad told me "I like to think I'm like Tony Soprano y'know? Low-key." I think Dad and Tony were the only people that thought Mr Soprano - infamous for his anger issues - was low-key XD
My dad wasn't nearly as gaslit by the show, but I could tell he was absolutely influenced by it. For a long while he would randomly be a dick to me under the guise of "breaking my balls".
He would also poorly attempt to gaslight the rest of the family into believing every small and seeming slight was done intentionally, and with dark intent.
He's better now, and so is our relationship, but man was he a complete c_nt.
Incapability to look at themselves is due to fear of confronting the truth. It has to be invisible to them or they couldn't function at all.
Safe to say you have daddy issues
Bro, go to therapy and stop bashing your father on TH-cam.
Your Dad enjoyed the show and the character like everyone else. He didn't have some kinship with him bc he had the same character flaws (according to you)
@@dukedematteo1995 How could you possibly know that?
I’ve never bought into the Tony killed Chris bc of the car seat. That might’ve been the thing that triggered his realization that at the end of the day Chris is a massive burden and may eventually become a rat.
He also killed Christopher because he slept with the realtor, had aspirations outside of the mob, and because Tony didn’t like how he was portrayed in Chris’s movie. Tony murdered Christopher out of fear, selfishness, revenge, and pettiness. Chrissy’s love and devotion to Tony, whom he saw as both god and father, in spite of Tony’s treatment of him, was more profound than anyone’s in the series. For me, this act was the series climax and ultimate turning point.
@Jay: Was that it? Chris’s injuries were extensive. He may have become useless to Tony. He could have let him live without having to rely on him or concern himself with Chris’s frailties as an earner. Besides, Christopher said Tony was the man he was “going to hell for”. And he meant it.
Tony killed Chris because he was a selfish sociopath . He thought about himself first , second , thirtieth and then family and crew. He feared Chris could rat and to be fair it crossed Chris's mind too. Inspite of all this we root for him that to was due to the genius of James Gandolfini's
@Hyper jones Tony still feared he would flip on him. Chris highly regretted not choosing Ade over the "family". He even voices this before he killed the writer. Chris made a huge mistake by showing Tony how much he really resented him. The whole plot of his movie was so on the nose and he knew he fucked up. Chris was slowly coming to the realization that his entire life was lie.
Tony couldn’t stand Chris when he finally improved his life and stopped drinking and using drugs. He constantly ridiculed him for being sober. Eventually he started using again but it’s more proof that Tony can’t stand anyone being happy because he’s so miserable himself. Chris produced a movie, cleaned his life up, was married with a child and during that time Tony treated him worse than any other time in the series.
I think the beauty behind the show really revolves around what you can miss. If you watch a Sopranos clip online, you'll read comments touting Tony as a macho man. You'll meet people who love the show for it's violence, for it's apparent belief that Tony *is* the strong, silent type. You'll even see people whose least favorite part of the show is the scenes with Melfi. Tony's draw works. That same charisma he flexes in universe can trap even the audience. Gandolfini, despite everything Tony says and does, can trick you into believing the man Tony pretends to be is real. It's supernatural elements, so sparsely presented, are strange and dreamlike. When matched with Tony's own dreams, it feels hard to surmise what is true and what isn't. If you're not careful, you'll let yourself believe what's easiest.
Bobby is the strong silent type.
@@gmanzano89gm Hector Salamanca.
Untrue, most comments on Sopranos clips are memes then shitting on his moral character after that. I know it feels good to have some outrage about the nature of the people around you, and even more so to pontificate on a piece of media in a way that makes you feel smart - even though this interpretation is not uncommon. My point being, try having a little more self awareness.
It's much the same as the admiration some people have for Tony Montana in the film "Scarface." Tony Montana begins his arc as a two-bit thug and lowlife, who uses his violent, immoral tendencies, to build a drug empire. The only decent, honorable thing that we know he ever does, is to stop a hit in order to spare the life of a child, an act which sows the seed of his undoing. I suppose the desire to see powerful people, even those whose power originates from criminality and evil deeds, as admirable and worthy of emulation, stems from a deep seated sense of powerlessness in the lives of those who admire them.
This makes me think of all the comments under Don Draper clips that have people praising Don even though dude is a horrible person LMAO
I completely agree. Mr. Gandolfini acted out the greatest character ever created, Tony Soprano. Rest in peace 🕊️
I often wonder if James Gandolfini would be alive today if he'd never taken on the Tony Soprano role.
The best analysis of Tony Soprano I have seen. Most people seem to miss how truly loathsome Tony’s character was, because like a real sociopath he always teased that glimmer of humanity to throw you off.
Then again, Tony hates no one more than he hates himself
Tony also demonstrated his subconscious drive to take advantage of so-called friends with Artie Buco as well; Artie calls him on it in a great moment of epiphany after his failed attempt to be a loanshark.
Yeah Artie actually knows Tony very well but honestly Artie should’ve known borrowing money from Tony wouldn’t end well
@@mysteryjunkie9808 He didn't get killed, so it went better for him than it would have for anyone else.
Tony also let him off with the debt.
And once he does, Tony then writes off his suicide attempt as well as Gloria’s actual suicide
I was just coming here to comment on this. I kind of feel like Tony is so offended by Artie's accusation because he's afraid that Artie is right about that cold shark-like behaviour and that isn't the way he likes to think of himself
We all have a hero in our hearts - Dwight schrute
Thing that always amazes me about Christopher’s death is it happens without much build-up in what could be the cold-open in some TV shows. Bear in mind that this is the final season of a show that has been running for close to a decade and the person dying is, arguably, the second-biggest character in the whole thing. In practically any other show, this would be the season-finale, perhaps even the climax of the entire show altogether, but The Sopranos just gets it out the way like it’s a nothing character and, somehow, this makes it even more shocking.
"the fuckin' regularness of life"
There weren’t really many sympathetic characters on the show. The closest one I would say was Bobby, especially when Tony made him whack a guy as an apology for Bobby kicking his ass.
Poor Bobby, nice lad who shouldn’t have been dragged into this thing of ours.
Ade………………………………..
Bobby suckered-PUNCHED Tony. But I agree, Tony deserved that ass-whooping for disrespecting his Wife and home...
Almost every character has aspects about them you can be sympathetic towards but in the end they do all just suck Noah is suck a great example of that
Bobby was more sympathetic than Meadow? Seems like he was an unrepentant mobster and only came off as good as he did compared to everyone else.
*EDIT:* Mobster, I meant mobster. Horrible as he was, I don't think Bobby qualified as a "monster"; I'd save that term for Richie, Ralphie, and Tony by the end.
What's so odd is that there are a lot of Sopranos fans who do not see any of Tony's flaws. They think he's a hero.
Why is that odd? It’s a fictional tv show.
@@rowmagnvs because people who look at Patrick Bateman and Tony Sopranos as role models are weird. Almost everything about their respective media is screaming about how morally awful they are and how awful their lifestyle is yet somehow they miss that.
Tony was a piece of shit mob boss
People are savage and can easily relate
@@jaksida300 No one looks at Patrick Bateman as a hero.
*This is for all the people who haven't been paying attention to Tony Soprano's character arc, who idolize Tony as the greatest hero or character without considering his many, many problems. Masterful acting, though.*
I always felt that the writers of the show tricked us into liking Tony by giving him a series of foils who were far more deplorable. Mikey Palmice, Richie Aprille, Ralph and finally Phil were so despicable that Tony looked like a “good mobster” just by going to therapy, liking animals and getting offended by their excesses.
I’ve watched this entire show 3 times. And would watch it again. That’s how good it is.
You’re going to watch it three more times ten times over in your lifetime. You’re right, it’s that good.
"Lemme (watch) you a coupla three (times)."
Also recently finished my third Sopranos watch-through, and ditto. You said it all. Might start at Season 4 next time, though; that's how much Livia bugs me.
-Insert Mathew Mconhey meme "Those are rookie numbers, gotta pump those up"-
@Jay on my 31st.
The one thing I think you may have missed in the characterization is how the show clearly portrays the costs of moving up within a criminal organization.
Everyone who gets promoted to a higher position quickly faces the erosion of their moral core as they make more and more horrible decisions, and then use their vices as coping mechanisms. Johnny Sack gets cold and merciless as the boss. Silvio breaks down from the stress and ends up being relived when Tony returns. Even the promotions given to Silvio and Paulie cause them to be more ruthless and aggressive...Even the much discussed Christopher's long and nearly continuous fall are the results of the actions he takes to get "made" only for him to find that the higher he rises, the more he struggles with life.
Tony is not intrinsically evil...but his role and complicity in organized crime is designed to strip away humanity one layer at a time. Arguably, Tony is the character most resistant to its effects...at least from an external perspective. But in the end he sacrifices his humanity to be the "boss". By the end of the series, Tony has lost almost everything, and the war with New York threatens to take it all away. Arguably it does if you interpret the fade to black as his death. But even if you don't, the man who he wanted to be...the human side of Tony died. All that was left was the Mob Boss, and he never saw it coming...
James Gandolfini deserves a ton of credit for making that character beloved by fans. Hard to make someone written that horrid of a human empathetic and even likable.
James somehow pulls it off.
So glad I found this channel.
It’s hard watching an old show for the first time in your life, and then get so excited about it, but have no one to talk about it with. I seriously missed the hype train but I’m still here for it.
I highly recommend the short-lived series Boss with Kelsey Grammer. It's about a power hungry politician who struggles with his legacy, his family, and his age. He tries to do the best for his and those around him but reveals himself to be an absolute tyrant and monster.
The tossed salad and scrambled eggs get tossed out for a degenerative brain disease.
Another more subtle tweak of Tony's inner character is that he's a consummate liar. He takes wisdom people give him and tried to use it as his own (and often failing at it), as well as bigging himself up for no real reason (claiming his Father's mistress had an affair with JFK for years). The dialogue of the show is peppered with his tiny lies and bolstering to the point that I found him to be quite annoying at times.
he would also lie anytime a relationship didn’t work out and say he broke it off w them. he even did it when aj and his cuban gf broke up saying aj left her even though she left him and had him deeply depressed
The lie about his fathers mistress isnt really about Tony, it's a desperate attempt to keep the illusion of Johnny Boy intact
David Chase has confirmed on the Talking Sopranos podcast that Tony did kill Ralphie to avenge Tracee but I could see why you came to the conclusion that you did
The breaking bad writers had a similar arc in the final season. When you saw the lily of the valley at the end of face off you suddenly realize Walt himself was the villain by then. The fifth season was his descent into evil repugnancy, but the difference is when we met Walt he was a good moral man and when we left him he had redeemed himself to an extent. We meet tony as a man who is evil but has reservations about the morality of his lifestyle, but when we leave him he has rationalized it all and completely abandoned any hope at redemption or being a good man.
Yeah, but Walt sacrifices himself like Jesus. He takes on the Neo Nazis to free Jessie.
@@whitemountainapache3297 He had a plan and strategy for all of that tho so what’s your point
@@muhammadeyssa23648 The point was that Walt's not God. He had a plan and a strategy ... We know that. But nothing is guaranteed, and he went off to potentially die in order to save Jessie. And that's the point. He'd been given the cancer all clear. He was worth half a billion dollars ... but he was still willing to sacrifice himself for Pinkman ... and whether you understand it or not, that is agape love.
@@whitemountainapache3297 Shush. Walt’s a criminal mastermind and went there to KILL Jesse and everyone else there till he had a change of heart.
Please consider doing a video on Moltisanti too some time in the future, he's a fascinating character and I think one of the best portrayals of a drug addict on TV.
@Mr. Shlock even over paulie? No way. Paulie shot that waiter and started the whole family vs family conflict when snitching to johnny sack. Started the russian problem by disrespecting that guy by smashing his remote. Killed his moms friend. Paulie was the worst psychopath on the show. You always fear the old man in the game where typically you do not see old men.
Not only that but his character dove into meta story telling almost consistently.
Yes please do Christifaw, madon'.
The first time I watched Sopranos I absolutely despised Tony. It was incredibly dificult to watch him. Gandolphini did an amazing job.
When I was young I thought the show was boring when it was airing on TV. When I was in my 20's I thought it was great. Now I think it's an unrivaled masterpiece of human storytelling.
I think it's boring n dumb in my 40s
@@user-oi1iq6tt4j That would indicate you haven't learned about the subject matter.
The most perfectly articulated and well written villian/protagonist in the history of TV or film. Gandolfini as Tony Soprano is a haunting compelling performance that still pulls us back 14 years later.
No one, not even Hitler or Manson wishes to believe that they are evil. Tony is perfectly OK with doing the right thing as long as it doesn't inconvenience him and even then he only does it selfishly to convince himself that he is not an evil man. The fact of the matter is that being good is difficult and boring. All the fun and enjoyable activities are the easy and bad ones and when you have no moral compass you will always wind up taking the easy and more pleasant road.
they are incapable of delaid gratification over longer periods of time. The hunt for short term gratificaion and pleasure is their nature to the core. We see this best in the scene where Vito escapes the city after beeing exposed as homosexual, he try to do some work and thinks to himself that the work is going to be faster than it is. But he looks at his watch and see that it has gone no time at all. He cant take the boredom and rush back to the city only to be killed. Tony excuses himself be saying to himself that he is " just a soldier following orders", when in reality it is him giving the orders. They take zero responsibillity for they`re own actions. And have little or zero remorse.
there are plenty of rapists, slave traders, corrupt people out there
Seasons 5 and 6 truly showed how shitty of a person Tony is he ultimately ends up being what he hated and feared the most his mother
That was a great breakdown of probably the most complex character in television history.
just finished season 6 . I'm amazed how far this show went given it was the first to do something like this. Watching the breaking bad finale I always felt it was a cop out . Also the final scene is one of the best i've ever seen.
This show is right up there with twin peaks for me .
I watched the sopranos series twice, once with my older sister. My dad would only pay for HBO back then when The Sopranos was airing and everything time I heard that intro “Woke Up This Morning…” on Sunday night I knew it was time for me to go to bed
ngl, been loving the recent vids, but I didn't realize how much i missed your writing/media analyses. Nice one!
Yeah figured I should revisit my roots LOL I have an expose on The Wire Season 5 on the docket so expect that in the coming months.
@@MacabreStorytelling I spent some time in Baltimore and pretty sure every conversation began with "wym you haven't seen The Wire? wtf is wrong with you?" Still haven't
@@MacabreStorytelling Would love videos about The Wire,legendary show. But i do think the 5th season is probably the weakest season in the series.
“I actually had to run out before the scene ended, but it SEEMED like he and Noah were getting along just swimmingly!”
Lol this one snippet is so coyly tongue-in-cheek, I love it
I can't articulate properly how well this video and your analysis is done. Thanks for this. Well done.
❤️
I must admit that I have never seen Tony as an anti-hero, I've always seen him as a straight-up villain.
In a sense, Tony did not kill Blundeto at all. He literally had no choice but to make that happen or Blundeto gets tortured, and/or people he cares about get murdered in Blundeto's place. Clearly, he would have preferred his beloved cousin not die.
Yes, but he still had to kill him and lose a piece of his soul in the process. When he first has to kill someone he loves [Big Pussy], he's literally sick over it and is still haunted by the memory in season 3. When he kills Tony B, his hand is forced, but he isn't too broken up about it afterwards. By the time he kills Chris, practically his own son, he's laughing about it and smoking peyote.
The Sopranos and in particular JGs performance are the reason we are living in the golden age of television. It set the stage for adult times, quality acting, storytelling and continuity that few if any shows have lived up to
The late 60s and 70s were TV's Golden Age.
The sopranos writing has more layers than a wedding cake
I mean, Tony is a quasi-diagnosed sociopath. He has literally NOTHING heroic about him, imo. Everything he does is a calculated action designed to supplant his empty lifestyle. Paulie goes through a tough time? Just keep him operational. Unsatisfied with levels of loyalty in the org? Bring someone else from the other side. The only times he is truly infuriated is when he is denied something, whether it is peace during breakfast or the satisfaction of beating someone like Bacala. Protagonist, but not the hero.
Precisely. That's what I love about the Season 4 arc where they contrast him with Ralphie. Tony "appears" to be a redeemable man while Ralph seems as though he is evil incarnate. But after what happens to Justin, we see it is in fact Ralph that has the capability to change while Tony simply does not.
I have to disagree on some points. While Tony is definitely not a great person, and should never be seen as such, he is more multi-faceted than just an evil or amoral psychopath. He is a character that has some redeeming qualities and moments where he ultimately does good or attempts to do good in his own way. I think that is a point the show was always trying to make with him. Examples of him doing things out of a sense of justice or trying to do good would be: Trying his damndest to have his kids grow up to be ready for the world, burning down Artie's restaurant in an attempt to save his reputation, forgiving Artie's debt to him, calling the cops on the soccer coach that molested a kid instead of killing him brutally, helping take care of Irina after breaking up with her because he doesn't want her to kill herself, his rage and actions against Ralphie for killing the Bada Bing worker, his genuine affection for Dr. Melfi, and his "acceptance" of Vito's lifestyle. There are probably a few other times where he has had moments of levity or signs of being more than just a terrible human being, but I can't remember them all. Also, a few of those moments could be seen as moves to strengthen his position or an attempt to garner something he desires, but I think he genuinely wanted to do these things, even if they went against his nature. I think the ultimate point in why he has moments like those are to show that there is some decency in him. This is, again, not to say that he is a good person or that he should be sympathized with. Tony is despicable because of the majority of his actions, but he does have some humanity; He isn't pure evil and has some "heroic" tendencies.
He does show empathy at times. When Ralph killed the stripper and when his horse Pye O Mye died in the fire.
@@silvervalleystudios2486 He murdered Ralph because he called him out on being a hypocrite.
He hit Ralph since he knew that his cronies were there and would take his side, in doing the one thing Tony loved doing - being enraged.
Tony could not give a single shit about her, it is all a play. Just like he could not care less about Vito being gay, but he HAD TO be the man. He had to save face - that was the reason for Vito's murder. Same goes for the stripper. He is a massive sociopath - his concern is a facade.
@@kendov288 I think you harp on him being a "sociopath" too much. It is obvious that Tony does, in fact, have feelings and that certain things make him upset spiritually and emotionally. He is an incredibly fucked up and damaged person that does more harm than good, but you cant reductively say that every aspect about him that shows an ounce of care is just some facade.
Tony may have ultimately killed Ralph because he called him a hypocrite, but that doesn't seem like the case. He legitimately loved that horse, Dr. Melfi thinks the same thing. She mentions how he has only gotten ridiculously upset in their sessions about the horse and the ducks. He has care in him. Ralph's comments on his hypocrisy might have been the final straw, but he had essentially signed his death warrant the second he didn't give a shit about the horse in Tony's presence and said things akin to: "Even if I did do it, who cares? It is a huge payday."
You also can't say that he beat up Ralph simply because his goons were there. There is a moment, either later in the episode or an episode or two later, where Meadow is bringing food over to him on a plate and he gets a flashback of the stripper bringing him the bread she had baked. He beat Ralphie, whether he knew it or not, because he has a girl that was around the stripper's age and all he could see was Meadow's corpse lying there on the ground.
Tony shows quite a few moments of caring and attempting to be a good person throughout the show. Ultimately, however, it isn't enough. He can't wash away the sins of his bad deeds with the small moments of good that he disperses throughout the series.
I always thought an Anti-hero was a character who doesn't set out to do good, but is still good at heart, kind of a rebel without a cause type.
You're correct. Shows like the Sopranos and Breaking Bad have redefined the term to mean; 'any steaming pile of shit the audience finds charismatic.
@@mysteriiis orrrrr a protagonist that is the opposite of a hero
I mean, it can be. An anti-hero can be a lot of things, depending on the story.
Having such a repugnant, despicable main character yet have him be so empathised by the audience is not only phenomenal writing but spectacular acting. Truly one of, if not the greatest shows of all time.
Absolutely brilliant analysis of the character, one of the best I've seen. To further prove the brilliance of this series and the character of Tony, I really can't think of another show that has inspired as many videos/essays that analyze different characters, plotlines, and interpretations as The Sopranos has. While shows like Breaking Bad and The Shield were excellent shows and are worthy of much love, they don't get talked about nearly as much as Tony Soprano and Co.
Man……Gandoldini did such a great damn job on that evil smile Tony has.
Wait is Tony Soprano really an anti-hero at this point though? I lowkey feel like people throw that term around without realizing it doesn't really apply to every morally gray character.
I think definitely at the beginning of the series, since we are rooting for him to turn a new leaf and the show sort of builds him up as "better" than his peers... but that is slowly proven ridiculously false by the show's end.
@@MacabreStorytelling Aye, but an anti-hero is someone who commits acts of good for morally deviant reasons, no?
Like, a hero who's in the game for revenge like the Punisher qualifies because even though his actions end up relieving the greater population of criminals, the way in which he focuses on mercilessly gutting and executing them without remorse can be viewed as problematic, especially when he only focuses on that and not on saving innocent civillians like a typical hero would.
Someone like Tony may be sympathetic in the beginning of the show, but in no way does he qualify as an anti-hero. Because, in the end, he always was a mobster who took shortcuts to exploit innocent people for profit. If anything, he could be a sympathetic villain in the beginning, or even an anti-villain given his inner conflict, but again, his actions are rarely ever heroic.
The usual way I use anti-hero is usually just in terms of a protagonist who isn't necessarily "heroic". Usually people consider protagonist and hero as synonymous with each other, but this is not correct. I usually use "hero" as a stand in for protagonist as they are the character whom we follow on their quest but "anti-hero" is meant to indicate they are not a "hero" in the traditional sense.
@@MacabreStorytelling Aye, I realize this is just semantics at this point.
I guess Im a little anal about the technical distinction, since I fear the traditional definition of the archetypal anti-hero will be lost as it becomes synonymous with "morally gray protagonist".
Yeah I think it is more semantics as you said, how we classify each one.
When he snuffed Christopher,the look on his face,like he was amazed how easy this was going to be,while at the same time thinking "You brought this shit on yourself,I fucking told you".
Tony's fragile ego never had the makings of a varsity athlete
I think Tony is a lost soul who wavers back and forth in his extremes with no real solid moral foundation to hold onto, always succumbing to his worst impulses.Lying constantly to everyone around him including himself. A truly doomed tragic figure.
"Evidently, evildoing also has a threshold magnitude. Yes, a human being hesitates and bobs back and forth between good and evil all his life. He slips, falls back, clambers up, repents, things begin to darken again. But just so long as the threshold of evildoing is not crossed, the possibility of returning remains, and he himself is still within reach of our hope. But when, through the density of evil actions, the result either of their own extreme danger or of the absoluteness of his power, he suddenly crosses that threshold, he has left humanity behind, and without, perhaps, the possibility of return." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
There's even that entire conversation he has in the episode "The Test Dream" where he confronts Coach Molinaro and it's mentioned a few times that that's exactly what Tony does is manipulates people. AND (I believe in a later episode) mentions that it's a recurring dream. Most excellent video essay on the series yet. Amazing work, man!
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Lovely tribute to James Gandolfini as the end of the essay. He was amazing in this show.
You’re analysis of Tony Soprano is absolutely 100% correct. Thank you for the comical interludes too. I’m happy to subscribe on the back of this. Well done indeed. 👍
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Another aspect of Tony that I found interesting is his physical 'evolution' throughout the series. While he starts the series as a healthy, strong, 'dadbod'ish man who can believably be seen as attractive both in show and by audiences, there's basically a linear progression toward him becoming fat bald greasy Italian man as the series goes on. I believe this is more complex than James Gandolfini simply gaining weight and the show being indifferent toward that aspect of Tony (If the showrunners wanted James to stay fit, he would've). Even if it started as such, the showrunners definitely leaned into it, blatantly displaying and acknowledging Tony's gluttony and other bad habits contributing to his degrading appearance as both aspects of his personality and his response to the stressors of his life. I can't imagine a man of sound mind and just loving life pounding ice cream nightly like Tony does. It's almost as if his lifestyle and personality corrupt him from the inside and out. While Tony can selectively hide what he thinks and how he feels, his outward appearance and the degradation of it can be seen as a manifestation of his downward spiral that Tony has always known would lead to death or imprisonment.
I wonder if, given how central Tony's weight and stature is to some of the plotlines in season 6, they would've made Kevin Finnerty look more trim and healthy if it were possible to defat Gandolfini for the sequences.
p.s. Not saying fatness is inherently bad or representative of a corrupt nature. I even have some fat friends. However if you are going from fit to morbidly obese like Tony maybe take a look at yourself
It's funny when people call him fat in the early seasons because I just thought he looked like a standard Dad lol but they definitely portrayed him as more "ghoulish" as the series went on. Even his voice became exaggerated to an extent.
I've always thought that's just what Americans look like...
@@Apolita1987 ---Yeah, and we all have guns too🙄😏
@@judywright4241 Pew pew
Good point. I think, in a sense, Tony's physical transformation was a representation of the ugliness within seeping out and taking over his appearance. It's sad to look at Gandolfini in Season 6, knowing how he died. RIP Legend
Not gonna lie, I was often rooting against Tony in the early seasons simply because I didn't buy into his Italian code of honour for the mafia and cultural heritage. That wasn't an excuse to root for him. He was a thug who preached bullshit. Not until the later seasons begun exploring his psychological and existential woes that we started to see said codes of honour and heritage essences fall apart to show us how meaningless and fragile they really are. You really start to understand and truly emphasize with him even if you stand against what he believes in. What seemed like an exciting and colorful group of people are eventually revealed to be nothing more than egotistical, sophisticated chimps who often just chew off more than they can chew. Phil's men betrayed him in the end and Tony's dread never really improved. Only subsided from time to time.
It is an interesting concept where they begin with more empathetic characters and slowly reveal to the audience just how terrible they truly are.
@@MacabreStorytelling yeah, but with Tony you start to understand his dilemma even if he keeps acting horribly. Him contemplating killing paulie on the boat and repeatedly pulling Chris out of holes (ordering Adriana to die) are great examples of that.
@@MacabreStorytelling I Will give some suggestions of videos for you to make:
1) The Wire - The show where the protagonist is the city.
2) Adventure Time - The most philosophical fantasy animated tv show of all time.
3) Bojack Horseman - Why tv shows can be successful with hateful protagonists.
4) Cobra Kai - The tv show that make us sympathise with bullies.
5) Saga - The comic book every adult should be Reading.
6) Better Call Saul - The best prequel of all time.
I actually have a whole analysis of The Wire Season 5 and why it is considered the black sheep of the series. I have 10k words on it but got sidetracked with other projects so you can expect that in the coming months hopefully 👍
@@MacabreStorytelling other suggestions of videos that would be cool:
1) How Game of Thrones lost its mojo.
2) How Dexter lost its mojo, and how the revival can bring It back.
3) The Venture Bros - The best satire ever.
4) How the X-Men can be used well in the MCU.
You are totally right on the car seat. I thought that when I first watched the episode. It was an excuse, not a genuine reason. His behavior afterwards confirmed that. It had more to do with the Cleaver hat than the car seat.
This video is such an achievement. It crystallises all the feelings and thoughts I had about Tony but have never been quite able to articulate. Plus that ending, you summed it up perfectly, I've always said James Gandolfini's Tony is the greatest performance of any movie/TV show ever. Subbed and alerts on.
Chadbro Storytellin’ gracing us again.
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Just finished the series last night for the first time ever and went in with no spoilers. A fascinating show, and a A+ analysis, Mac. You summed up my feelings that I didn't know how to express, perfectly
Love how you touched on Tony’s duality: His hostility and vulnerability. That contradiction is one that I think every person has experienced, granted maybe not on a level as but still ever so present. Great Analysis my friend. You’ve got a new sub
It's honestly nice to see something like this, is every actual clip from the show is filled with comments glorifying Tony and coming right up to the point of saying he should be emulated or praised for his behavior in many situations, and (always) that people like Carmella and Janice are just as bad. There aren't really ANY good people in this show (with the possible exception of Artie and Adrianna), but Tony is far and away the most despicable of the bunch. He's the absolute worst aspects of his father and mother merged into someone who has also attained absolute power in his "field" (so to speak). Loving his children is the only "good" thing about him, and that should be a baseline minimum for human behavior, not something that deserves praise.
Artie's wife Charmaine is the most consistently good character on the show. And she's shown in stark contrast to Carmella. They both dated Tony (iirc) and Tony even makes a move when Carmella leaves him. But she turns him down and always pushes back when Artie wants to cozy up to Tony's dealings. But yeah, most everyone else is caught up in a toxic environment that they struggle to get out of even if they realize how immoral it is.
@Hyper jones well said indeed the italian guys all want to climb the male dominance hiearchy
Man,I've been rewatching the sopranos and this character analysis is extremely accurate
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I feel like Tony’s upbringing and his lifestyle in the mob forced him to become an immoral, callous person who does evil things. Tony wasn’t born a sociopath, unlike some other members of the mob. After all, Tony cared about animals and children, which makes me think he wasn’t born a sociopath.
I think Tony has empathy for others, but he tries to suppress those emotions and usually attempts to rationalize his actions when he does horrible things. I think maybe it’s that huge disparity between Tony’s empathetic nature and the heinous crimes he commits that make him so angry, resentful, spiteful and depressed.
Tony’s cognitive dissonance should help to compartmentalize his actions and his emotions, but it doesn’t help, it just makes him a bitter, angry, deeply depressed person.
I often found ways to justify the awful things Tony did, too, until he ordered the hit on Adriana. After that, I felt like he squandered any possibility for redemption. She was easily one of the most innocent, naive characters on the show. She didn’t deserve the treatment she got from Christopher, the FBI or the mob. Makes me kinda sad that nobody ever really answered for her death.
Yeah I never bought the narrative that he’s just a full blown sociopath. He’s conditioned to act that way because of his environment and upbringing. Someone like Paulie is more of a straight up sociopath.
She was a rat trying to get Chrissy to rat, rats die simple as. She's lucky she got a quick death most rats don't.
Absolutely. Life can beat the humanity out of people, just look at regions in conflict for long periods of time. Presumably not every single German at Auschwitz was born a sociopath.
@@HeyFella Yeah, I think part of the point was that had Tony faltered in his ruthlessness, then the only thing waiting for him was death. That's the business he was in, if you show weakness, you are taken out. In the end Tony chose ruthlessness and survival over humanity. Once he realized that he couldn't have both, is when we really started to see him become truly evil.
Idk I was more disappointed in Chrissy than Tony, sure having her killed was wrong but she was a rat and in that life execution for that sort of thing is standard protocol, what else was he suppose to do let her walk? Chris on the underhand "loved" her and was her partner for many years and yet he still sold her out to the man who ended up killing him, he was the real bad guy in that situation.
I just finished the show and the moment that turned me against tony was when he went to get revenge on the guy sleeping with the russian girl he was with after telling him it was fine. That really highlighted the unstable sociopathic nature of him for me
The Hawthorne quote in the College episode kinda sums up his pathology. It was there from the beginning.
Great video, also recommend Psychology in Seattle’s analysis of the character.
Oh and Tony didn’t treat Tracey with an ounce of sympathy or even general politeness during her life, often being curt and dismissive. Only when she was killed on the Bing’s grounds and after he already had beef with Ralph, did he suddenly “care” about her. And he was still willing to let it go due to peer pressure.
Tracy didn't deserve to be beaten like she was but she didn't deserve very much sympathy either. She tortured her little boy and was gonna have another one with Ralph for god's sake. She was just as disgusting as the rest of them.
@@laurafreedlund2899 burnt her child with cigarettes
I love how much you love and appreciate The Sopranos!
And Tony definitely killed Ralph because of the horse and NOT because of Tracee.
I picked up on Tony’s special affinity for all animals....
Bravo on yet another excellent analysis!
Really nice video dude. The amount of detail and explanation is amazing