{"id":3812,"date":"2017-09-27T00:05:50","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T00:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.uncc.edu\/aaron-toscano\/?page_id=3812"},"modified":"2021-04-27T19:54:57","modified_gmt":"2021-04-27T19:54:57","slug":"sopranos","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/topicstoanalyze\/sopranos\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sopranos"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

General Overview of Legitimacy in The Sopranos<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The excerpt below explains the complicated position of Tony Soprano:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cultural myths Americans hold concerning success and what it means to live comfortably in an American suburb are continuing themes in the television series The Sopranos<\/em> (1999\u20132007). These concerns are not uniquely middle-class, but do carry middle-class markers that permeate American culture. The media uses a caricature of \u201cthe suburb\u201d time and time again. The suburbs are where families are raised, from where white-collar workers commute, and where the Everyman\/woman aspires to live. Although family life may be variously portrayed on television, Tony Soprano\u2019s border crossing into his show\u2019s suburban landscape plays out many of the concerns associated with the middle class. These concerns are necessarily exaggerated for the mafia genre: The \u201cnormal\u201d suburban patriarch does not engage in murder, theft, or bribery on a daily basis. Tony Soprano\u2019s vices in conflict with his continual efforts to support his family\u2019s lifestyle make him a contradiction that complicates audience identification. He is both the Everyman and the scoundrel. Because he is the main character, audiences will most likely look to him for their reflection, but they will also define themselves against him. Tony is not squeaky clean, and his gangster persona can never be legitimated under proper middle-class values. Even his legitimate operations are tainted by his criminal background and considered unworthy of proper middle-class professions. If Tony had stayed in the old working-class neighborhood where he grew up, he would not be considered an outsider; his roots are in that neighborhood. The nouveau riche<\/em> element of his move up to the middle-class neighborhood serves as a marker that he somehow does not belong there and will have to kill<\/em> to stay there, to afford his family\u2019s lifestyle. Additionally, Tony is a man brought down by gender anxieties; specifically, he is burdened by women in the series. There is an antifeminist undercurrent pervading the show that follows contemporary anxieties men have about the apparent downfall of male authority. The women in the show range from assertive to disposable, but from the perspective of Tony, the show\u2019s patriarch, viewers can watch how The Sopranos<\/em> portrays cultural anxieties about class and gender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toscano, Aaron A. “Tony Soprano as the American Everyman and Scoundrel: How The Sopranos (re)Presents Contemporary Middle-Class Anxieties.” The Journal of Popular Culture<\/em>, Vol. 47, No. 3, 2014: 451-452.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Italian American Identity <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Sopranos<\/em> comments on identity, specifically, Italian-American identity. The characters rarely claim to be “Italian-American”; instead, they usually just claim to be Italian<\/em>. However, there’s a problem because the characters know very little about Italy but have absorbed the Italian-American culture of New Jersey and New York, which are themselves communities or subcultures and not representative of some mythic Italian-American identity. Before viewing media re\/presentations of assumed, fixed Italian\/Italian-American identities, consider theories of identity from a cultural studies perspective:<\/p>\n\n\n\n