On Media / Pop Culcha

Jewish World Review Oct. 8, 2002 /2 Mar-Cheshvan, 5763



Did Tony Soprano shoot J.R.?


By Rabbi Yonason Goldson

http://www.jewishworldreview.com | Since I don't watch TV, I've never seen an episode of The Sopranos. Nor have I ever witnessed the so-called "Sopranos Effect:" shopping malls and restaurants suddenly deserted by patrons rushing home to catch the current episode.

Nevertheless, I have no trouble at all understanding the phenomenon of Tony Soprano, especially as explained by psychoanalyst Glen Gabbard, author of The Psychology of The Sopranos: Love, Death, Desire and Betrayal in America's Favorite Gangster Family.

The success of The Sopranos, it seems, depends not on Tony Soprano the mobster, but on Tony Soprano the psychoanalysis patient. Whereas in daily life, Tony is a crook, a thug, and a murderer, on the couch Tony is a regular guy, with the same hopes, dreams, problems, and anxieties as the rest of us.

Dr. Gabbard explains it this way: people love to root for Tony the regular guy to prevail over Tony the violent criminal; they want more than anything to be able to find a noble everyman at the heart of the worst of the worst and the lowest of the low.

Simply stated, viewers don't want to believe that anyone is really evil.

This is a remarkable turnabout from two decades ago when everyone's favorite television creep was J.R. Ewing on Dallas. Back when "Who shot J.R.?" was on everybody's lips, it wasn't because we wanted to see the would be assassin brought up on charges -- we wanted to see him handed the keys to the city. We didn't want to understand J.R. -- we wanted to hate him. We loved to hate him.

J.R. never killed anybody, never even beat anyone up, yet we cheered from our couches when he got what was coming to him and hoped desperately that his every nasty scheme would fail. If so, why do we forgive everything for Tony Soprano, the Godfather who terrorizes and murders for fun and profit, just because he worries about his marriage and his children?

C'mon, even J.R. loved his son and his daddy.

Perhaps there's no better barometer for the moral pressure of society than our relationship with television's most popular characters. When we cheer for the good guys and boo the bad guys, isn't it because of our desire to see that justice is done?

But when we sympathize with a violent criminal, when we identify with him because he cares about his kids just as we do, haven't we abandoned all commitment to differentiating between right and wrong?

The truth is that making moral decisions, balancing right and wrong in complex circumstances, is no simple business. But instead of challenging us to recognize that Tony is a villain in spite of his human side, The Sopranos (and, more generally, the entertainment industry) manipulates us into identifying with Tony's humanity so that we overlook his wickedness.

Based on Dr. Gabbard's assessment, it seems that we yearn for any excuse and every opportunity to deny that genuine evil walks this earth. Indeed, it may be admirable to look for the good in all people and give our neighbor the benefit of the doubt, but not to the exclusion of recognizing that sometimes there is no doubt, that what little good remains in some people has been hopelessly buried under a mountain of evil. The Hitlers, Stalins, and bin Ladens of the world may love their children and may have had troubled youths, but evil remains evil whether we choose to look it in the face or to bury our heads in the sand.

Too often, it seems, we avoid looking evil in the face at any cost. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that a growing element in our society blames the United States for Pearl Harbor, blames Israel for Palestinian suicide bombers, blames all of Western Civilization for September 11. But making excuses for evil does not make evil go away.

It just keeps coming back, each time bolder and more brazen than before.

Enjoy this writer's work? Why not sign-up for the daily JWR update. It's free.
Just click here.



JWR contributor Rabbi Yonason Goldson teaches at Block Yeshiva High
School and Aish HaTorah in St. Louis. To comment, please click here.




Up

© 2002, Rabbi Yonason Goldson