But more so for the low-brow type who idolises gangsters
you are, really, two steps away from the 'watching/playing/reading x/y/z makes people violent' argument,
It gives the apes encouragement that their impulses are normal behaviour and should be acted on.
yes, people become interested in lives of crime, assassinations and pimping because they watched a tv show.
apart from a few dumb frat boys thinking they are tough guys after their third pabst, i really don't think the sopranos was a recruitment boon for organized crime.
But if they'd won it would have been a better future for their country.
Same for the mafia, if everyone has to pay them a tribute on fear of death they can have a really nice life.
Certainly divided Germany wasn't a good time for the Germans, but I'm not sure I would call nearly a hundred years living under the boot of Nazi rule the "better future." What new and interesting horrors and criterias would have been imposed upon the German people?
Neither Scarface nor Godfather seemed like attempts to "normalize" organized crime.
the fact is its practically every TV show now and it really is lazy writing and easy ratings.
but the sopranos was arguably the first to bring it to tv? in a clever and nuanced way? and it was tremendously well-written, in a league of its own, especially at the time?
Would a show normalising white supremacism and neo-nazism be OK if it were tremendously well-written and clever and nuanced?
"The poor fellow, he's so conflicted about tossing cans of Zyklon B into death chambers, and what a script and what acting! We really should revisit WW2 from the perspective of the average SS guy who's just trying to get ahead and build a better country for his children and going through existential angst while he does it, sniff"
well done at linking two MOVIES when i said that the sopranos was the first to bring high-quality writing to the TELEVISION SERIES format.
i wouldn't exactly say that scar face or the godfather movies were nuanced portrayals of gangsters, either. it's not a psychological drama like the sopranos is. they are mob movies, part of an entertainment genre.
ironically, yet again, the scriptwriting of the sopranos pre-empts your critique. remember when you said it had 'lazy writing'? the characters in the sopranos are forever joking and making fun of the cartoonish portrayals of mob-life in those movies. martin scorsese even has a cameo in the series.
it's almost as if ... you are out of your depth on this topic and the writer of the sopranos has thought about these things more deeply than you. wowsers!
you do realize the anti-hero as an archetype goes back to romantic writing in the early 1800s?
it's not a tv trope for nasty mafia men.
the sopranos is pretty cartoonish and over the top, especially the first season. but it settles into something ambiguous and nuanced, dealing with real human beings with better angels and personal demons. something a lot more sophisticated than the manichean, good vs evil, comic book nonsense you are interested in.
imagine finding some of the best tv writing of all time 'lazy' but being engrossed by wonder woman.
This is getting muddled. Are we talking about anti-heroes or anti-villains? Where the terms originated, where they gained prominence, or the earliest examples identified?
I think sympathetic villains are a valuable literary tool. In Ben Bova's Tips for Writers:
5. No Villains.
Notice that I used the term “antagonist,” above. Not “villain.” “Not “bad guy.” Not “black hat.”
In the real world there are no villains. No one actually sets out to do evil. Yes, there are madmen and murderers and rapists and crooked politicians and greedy land developers and all sorts of villainous behaviors. But each of those people believes that he is doing what is necessary, and maybe even good. Every tyrant in history was convinced that he had to do the things he did for his own good and for the good of the people around him.
Fiction mirrors life. Or, more accurately, fiction serves as a lens to focus what we know of life and bring its realities into sharper, clearer understanding for us.
There are no villains cackling and rubbing their hands in glee as they contemplate their evil deeds. There are only people with problems, struggling to solve them. Just as your protagonist is struggling to solve her problems, your antagonist is struggling to solve his. It’s all a matter of viewpoint.
You could write Hamlet, for example, from the viewpoint of Claudius, the king who murdered Hamlet’s father (his own brother) and married his widow. You might even make a truly powerful story about a man who loved his brother’s wife too much, and dared to what he did to win her.
Anyway, having more nuance has even helped out comic books to an extent, although a lot of them are still written poorly. I was struggling to get through off-the-shelf stuff as far back as the late 90s before I gave up in I think 2000. Like $3 for a gaudy soap on paper. I didn't mind comics with a lot of text and exposition, but it also had to be interesting to read. And also all that text should probably be divided among more panels. It is a picture book, after all.
A lot of commentary I've seen on purple villain in the Avengers praised him not for being cool or strong, but for being complicated at least on a basic level. I guess he had mustache-twirling scenes, but he still thought what he was doing was what was best for the universe?
Anyway, having more nuance has even helped out comic books to an extent, although a lot of them are still written poorly. I was struggling to get through off-the-shelf stuff as far back as the late 90s before I gave up in I think 2000. Like $3 for a gaudy soap on paper. I didn't mind comics with a lot of text and exposition, but it also had to be interesting to read. And also all that text should probably be divided among more panels. It is a picture book, after all.
A lot of commentary I've seen on purple villain in the Avengers praised him not for being cool or strong, but for being complicated at least on a basic level. I guess he had mustache-twirling scenes, but he still thought what he was doing was what was best for the universe?
The Thanos changes the screenwriters made when bringing Infinity War out of the comics and onto the big screen were a disaster. I mean for society. There are many people who agreed with Thanos about killing half of the people to stop resources from running out. Infinity War the movie encouraged environmental fascist in the real world.
The comic Thanos, who killed half the universe in order to impress the physical incarnation of death as a woman, wouldn't encourage environmental fascist.
I mean, going back to Ben Bova's point, I guess Thanos is trying to impress death for his own benefit. Just because you don't have a thing for bones doesn't mean he can't, lol.
It's weird that dilbert is so queasy about Sopranos and Godfather or whatever … but then gladly consume material about actual wars, or comic book stuff where billions get snuffed out?
Yes, history of world wars and space-fantasy are exactly the same as kitchen-sink dramas which glorify criminality and encourage cretins to murder people.
Yes, history of world wars and space-fantasy are exactly the same as kitchen-sink dramas which glorify criminality and encourage cretins to murder people.
So, "depictions of human suffering based on real events are fine as long as it's in vast enough numbers and with the blessings of governments. Even better if I'm watching fantasy genocide. Meanwhile let me express my moral outrage over a handful of deaths in a mob series. Let me toss in a slur or two while I'm at it."
