TV Families 1: The Sopranos

So I've been thinking about The Sopranos quite a lot recently. Since the final series started building up to a conclusion last year, and ended finally in the US on Sunday, I've been tempted more than once to introduce mum and dad to what is widely considered to be the best TV drama series ever made. The finale was big news, even Radio 4 covered it.

So what's been stopping me giving Dad a copy of Season One? I know he's a fan of the Godfather films, so it can't be the mob connection; I also know he quite likes 24, so it not the violence, which actually in the case of the Sopranos, is relatively mild, if no less shocking.

My first thought was that there is casual profanity and recurring themes of infidelity and drug use. And in this sense, The Sopranos is distinctly worldly in it's depiction of modern life. Even so, that doesn't explain the whole of my reluctance. There's something more which comes in the larger than life shape of the main protagonist, Tony Soprano.

If you're not familiar with the basic premise, Tony is the erstwhile boss of a New Jersey crime family whose trials and tribulation at home and at work we follow over the show's 86 episodes. In the first ever episode, Tony suffers a panic attack at a family BBQ and is referred to a therapist, Jennifer Malfi, who he continues to see erratically through the show's 6 seasons. Through this interaction and through the day to day problems Tony encounters with both of his 'families', Tony becomes a character who is at once horrifying and sympathetic.

This is nearer the nub of it. Tony Soprano exists in a terrifying moral grey area. Without a doubt, he's a monster: Selfish and self-deluded not to mention a multiple killer and career criminal. And yet, across the period of the show, we also see him as a family man, a leader, a victim and a product of his own background. We also see an enormous amount of humour in the programme. It's impossible not to laugh for instance watching these dangerous men doing Michael Corleone impressions - or dressing up as Santa Clause for the local children.

It's often been said that the creator of the show, David Chase, declines to make a moral judgement about Tony, but I think that's quite wrong. As you see him and the other characters developing, you begin to realise that there seems to be very little hope of redemption for them. In the overall scheme of things for the Sopranos, right and wrong is clearly demarkated, it's just that seeing them on such a day-to-day level, makes their moral universe so much more complicated.

This, I think, is what makes the program so compelling. It's obviously a fantasy, but it does make a serious study of crime and contemporary ethics. That's quite interesting itself but the irony and the thing that makes it subversive is that quite probably it's also had an impact on contemporary ethics.

As Ben Okri writes:

"Stories are subversive because they always come from the other side, and we can never inhabit all sides at once. If we are here, story speaks for there, and vice versa. Their democracy is frightening. their ultimate non-allegiance is sobering... Stories are subversive because they always remind us of our fallibility. Happy in their serene and constantly changing place, they regard us always with a subtle smile. There are ways in which stories create themselves, bring themselves into being for their own inscrutable reasons..."

As it is, I saw the final episode last night and I won't spoil it by saying that the ending isn't simple.

Here's a clip from the end of Season 3. Tony's Uncle Junior is singing at the Funeral of a family friend. No spoilers here.