The entire City of New York was officially closed so that everyone could watch the series finale of The Sopranos.  I leave to the TV critics the reviews, as I have no better idea than you of whether it was brilliant or unsatisfying.  But this HBO series, like the Fox series 24, gives rise to certain questions.

Let’s first admit that the American public is fascinated by these shows.  Next, that most American’s do not watch for the symbolism (Cappo Phil being crushed by a Ford truck), but for the well done story.  And finally, that we associate with the lead characters.  Doest that mean that we want to be Tony Soprano?

The mob has long held fascination for Americans.  Certainly the Godfather, one of the greatest movies ever made, gripped our imagination.  But why?  As a society, we’re about as anti-crime as we could possibly be.  People want the death penalty as punishment for everything heavier than a speeding ticket.  No matter how good the show was, people should have been shutting off The Sopranos in disgust after the first curse/whack in drove.  That didn’t happen.

Perhaps this is a harmless outlet for our hostility toward others and the government, with Tony, that cuddly and sweet ambivalent killer, representing our secret lust for might over right.  In his own peculiar way, Tony represented some sort of primitive justice, if you were able to overlook the little details like his income coming from crime bolstered by violence.  You have to admit, David Chase did a great job of presenting Tony Soprano as a man of moral ambiguity, where you could almost justify the occasional leg-breaking as necessary to keep people in line.  After all, they had to pay off the vig, right?

I had similar issues with Jack Bauer in 24.  Sure, he was on the side of truth and justice, but that didn’t stop him from indulging in a bit of torture when he needed an answer fast.  Does that mean that we really think, in our heart of hearts, that torture is okay under circumstances that we find morally understandable?  Or does that mean that our issues are not about violence per se, but violence when its justification is in doubt.  After all, TV always let’s us know who the real bad guy is, so when the pain comes we don’t have to grapple with its righteousness.

As The Sopranos fades into American cultural history (at least until “Sopranos, The Movie” comes out), does it mean that there is a mobster wannabe inside all of us?  Frankly, I suspect it does.  Enough explaining and arguing, just shut up or I’ll break your knees.  Many, if not all, of us have this tiny voice inside our heads that wants to say this out loud. 

But we don’t, and we never will, because we aren’t Tony Soprano and we aren’t mobsters.  And the fact that we can control this little voice and keep it stuffed in the most inner reaches of our heads gives us a sense of moral superiority to those few who cannot.  And so it’s fun to watch a fictional character, who suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, say it for us since we know that no one will actually be harmed by the making of this television show.  But I will never be able to listen to the music of Bruce Springsteen again with thinking of Little Stevie Van Zandt’s hairdo.