Tony Soprano and Me

Mike and I are currently making our way through season 4 of the Sopranos. Since we consciously avoid television, we're more than a bit behind with most shows that we love--especially the Sopranos, which is, like, over.

But oh, how we love the Sopranos! It combines so many characteristics we value in entertainment: dark humor, murder, miscellaneous debauchery, psychoanalysis, dumb Italians: you know, all of the things that make us feel warm and fuzzy inside. And let us not forget its quasi-literary value: there's actually a collection of essays entitled The Sopranos and Philosophy. Um, awesome.

Of course, one of the things I love the most about the Sopranos is its internalized portrayal of the stereotypical Italian man. Tony Soprano, on the surface, is my dad reincarnate: callous, uneducated, chubby, hypocritical. And I'd like to believe that the show's investigation of his interior life--as shadowy as it may be--reflects my dad's anxiety, bizarre sensitivity, and inability to process the depth of his actions.

And, of course, I'm rather fascinated that Meadow Soprano mirrors ME in some ways: she's smart, cynical, an English major, interested in social justice (perhaps in reaction to her father's disinterest in any kind of justice?), and caught between shame and pride for a father she resembles in many troubling ways. Toward the end of season 3, Meadow and Tony have a late-night conversation filled with the unspoken feelings between them. One thing that is spoken, though, is that beneath their surface disagreements, they are alike.

(The next time I saw my therapist, he helped convince me that my similarity to my father did not necessarily mean that I would make his mistakes.)

But my favorite thing about the Sopranos BY FAR is Tony's surprising sensitivity toward the plight of animals. During the show's first season, Tony's obsession with the geese in his backyard becomes a main subject of the conversation between himself and Dr. Malfi. He sits crying in her office because he is so worried about the geese, and it becomes clear that his panic attacks are related to the geese in some integral way. Three seasons later, Tony murders the sinister Ralphie because of his responsibility for a horse's death, and sees the need to send Christopher to rehab because he accidentally kills Adrianna's dog while high.

This love and concern for animals is comic, but also an integral part of Tony's character. It reveals his rather complex contradictions, and becomes a major way that viewers can build sympathy for him. Or, potentially, it could motivate viewers to feel less sympathetic toward a man who can chop someone up with a butcher knife but can't stand to see an animal suffer.

If you read my "Tagged" post below, you know that this characteristic of Tony's makes me feel sympathy for him, as I share a similar trait. I don't necessarily consider myself a misanthrope, and I certainly don't chop people up with butcher knives (insert sinister laughter here), but I do regard humans warily, because they knowingly perpetuate all manner of evil things. Animals, however, are victims to human folly and the cycles of nature.

And so, that is why I feel sympathetic toward them AND Tony Soprano, whose love for animals complicates his relegation to the "evil" side of the good/evil binary. And possibly my dad's--and my own--as well.