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March 2000, Week 4

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Subject:
From:
Darryl Wiggers <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 27 Mar 2000 13:04:29 -0600
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> His actions are brutal, his treatment of other people is generally
horrendous, he
> destroys other families to enrich his own, and his monstrosity is
represented by his
> own grotesquely overweight body.

My guess is that my body weight is greater than James Gandolfini (the actor
who plays Tony Soprano). I trust you don't mean to suggest that all of us
is this weight class, or greater, are representative of "monsters."
Examples such as Santa Claus, and characters played by people like John
Candy, John Belushi, John Goodman and Chris Farley suggest otherwise this
co-relation between body weight and evil.

What is so evil about Tony Soprano? He treats his family better than most
husbands and fathers I met when I used to do security work. The violence he
inflicts is always for the sake of "business" (everyone who goes
into "business" with Tony Soprano know and accept the risks). He doesn't go
out into the streets of New Jersey and beat-up innocent people who have no
relation to him. And, overall, his moral code is on a higher level than a
good many politicians and company executives. You never see him "downsize"
his business for the sake increasing his profits. He doesn't fire his
employees on a whim. He doesn't go to war with another "family" (let's call
it, say, Yugoslavia), killing thousands, because he wants to control it.
Nor does he bully others for similar reasons. In fact, he is quite content
to let others do what they may, as long as it doesn't infringe on his own
territory.

Yet we don't begrudge American presidents for such reasons (but we may be
offended by what they do with his willies) nor capitalists who overcharge
us, companies that embezzle or banks that accumulate into the billions
through inflated interest and "service charges." Anyone else would be
viewed as a "thief." Meanwhile, Tony Soprano trying to collect $60,000 in a
gambling debt is peanuts by comparison, and certainly not theft. Why is he
the "evil" one?

Politicians and capitalists have killed and robbed far, far more people
than a fictional character such as Tony Soprano. But the movies can only
make American presidents evil by making them rapists (Absolute Power). And
capitalists can only be seen as evil by making them blatant thieves and
murderers. This exaggerated protrayal makes them so unreal, that the real
macoys look like angels by comparison.

Meanwhile Tony Soprano looks like a cream-puff compared with his real-life
contemporaries. How did he become "the most 'zeitgeist' evil hero of our
time"?

----
Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu

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