Sunday, April 08, 2007

Celebrating Christ's Return, not Tony's !!

The ANNOTICO Report

 

Journalist Fran Wood wonders about the Sacrilege of The Soprano's Return, on Easter, the same day Christian's Celebrate Christ's Resurrection.

 

Point well made. But just Chalk it up to Media's devotion to Money vs. Morality, or even Good Taste. 

 

Fran also takes vehement exception to the Sopranos being an "Everyman" story. She Distances herself in the most emphatic terms.

 

Score Two for Fran, and she does it with great humor.

 

Only one thing Fran Missed, How would she have Felt if she was of Italian Heritage and had these "Boorish Bumpkins" constantly draped in Italian "images"????

 

Fran, Further to your remarks about The Sopranos making your State look bad, I refer to the New Jersey Newspapers periodically, and the OVERWHELMING degree of Attention that is shown to The Sopranos in the Newspapers and on their Web Sites, I would Not be surprised to hear that some one has proposed changing the name of your State to "Sopranoland"

 

I have friends living in New Jersey that are of the Highest Quality, BUT to live in an environment that is SO infested with MORONS,

 

Remember we are a Product of Nature and Nurture, and I'm thinking that your environment has got to be knocking off a few points of IQ every year!!!!  :) :)

 

 

Celebrating Christ's Return, not Tony's

 

Newark Star Ledger

By Fran Wood

Sunday, April 08, 2007

 

For me, the Resurrection celebrated on this Easter Sunday does not refer to the return of "The Sopranos."

 

But if you've paid even a modicum of attention to the "Sopranos" hype that's been building over the last month, it's clear the religious reference is not completely out of the ballpark. The press is so overwhelmingly reverential in its devotion to this series that to say anything against it seems to border on sacrilege.

 

Truth is, I even suspect the producers' decision to kick off the final nine episodes of a show that revels in violence and murder on this particular Sunday is no coincidence.

 

So if you're thinking by now you're not hearing from a "Sopra nos" fan, you catch on fast.

 

And if you're wondering what I object to, it's the premise.

 

Let me be clear: I have no problem with a TV show about the mob. Nor do I have a problem with portraying violence associated with organized crime.

 

What offends me is the implication these are just regular people whose employer happens to be the mob.

 

What's supposed to be disturbing -- yet riveting -- about "The Sopranos" is not the ways Tony and his extended family are different from us, but how much they are the same as us. As Tony's "family" and his business have been un veiled and explored over the years, we're supposed to see them as comparable to our own lives, our own families, our own businesses.

 

We're supposed to conclude that, at the end of the day, Tony and Carmela want the same things for their kids that we want for ours, so hey, we aren't so different after all.

 

Sorry, I've never bought that. In fact, a more repugnant premise for coaxing an audience to look kindly, even with affection, on people whose lives are built on depraved indifference is hard to imagine.

 

I am not like these people. If, as a member of the human race, I share some of the same concerns and traits, the similarities end there. The code of ethics held sacred by those whose income derives from corruption, illegal drugs and brutality isn't my code of ethics.

 

That said, I bear no grudge against the show's 8 million viewers. I'm married to one of them, and I am a blood relative of several others.

 

I also admit my introduction to the show was not the most favorable.

 

I had gone upstairs to watch Channel 13, as is often my habit on Sunday nights, and discovered the public station was holding a bega thon. So I came downstairs to see what my husband was watching.

 

The sight that greeted me -- on the largest TV screen in the house, thank you very much -- was a couple of topless (and, to be frank, virtually bottomless) pole dancers. This, I later learned, is standard entertainment at the Bada-Bing Club.

 

Before I could utter one syllable of shock and disbelief, the scene switched to a dorm room, where the family's teenage daughter Meadow was enjoying some, uh, "quality time" with her boyfriend. From there, the action (I do not use the word lightly) returned to a back room at the Bada-Bing, where Tony was indulging in some, er, private entertainment.

 

The show ended with possibly the most chillingly graphic brutality I've ever seen on any screen: Ralphie beating a young stripper to death.

 

"This," I gasped to my husband, "is what you're watching on Sunday nights while I'm upstairs watching 'Masterpiece Theatre'?"

 

He insisted I'd seen an unusually graphic episode.

 

Months later, when I next saw the show, Tony was in Ralphie's kitchen beating him to a pulp. Then Tony and Christopher chopped him up, packed his head into a bowling bag and buried the pieces.

 

Now, I'm not suggesting any of these characters is overtly portrayed as a role model. But there's an inescapable aura of glorification that attends "The Sopranos." Be cause their story is compelling enough to be told in an expensively produced television show, in a perverse way they come off as cool. And under the cover of saying "Isn't this terrible?," the producers get away with, frankly, borderline pornography.

 

In one way, and one way only, I will miss "The Sopranos." Because it does such an effective job of portraying New Jersey as a dangerous nest of corruption, menace and lowlifes, it contributes to achieving one of my personal goals -- which is to discourage more people from moving to our already overcrowded state.

 

 Fran Wood may be reached at fwood@starledger.com. /

 

 

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