Do we love violence in television a little too much?
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Monday, June 11, 2007
The real crime here...
[Warning SPOILERS]
...Is that it took so long for Sopranos creator David Chase to land his own series. The Sopranos finale will no doubt stand as one of televisions most memorable moments. A clever prank ending underscored perhaps one of the most important points of the series: No one in the "family" is ever truly safe. No one in the family is ever at peace.
Sopranos viewers, over the shows eight year stretch, have been treated to a beautifully messy tangle of pyschopop analysis, senseless violence (which we abhorred), and vindictive violence (which we praised). There were contradictions at every turn. We watched as Tony's men smashed in the faces of those who couldn't pay up, and realized, in those moments, how sick and twisted the mob lifestyle is. We sat on the edge of our seats in the anticipation that Tony might send his thugs to exact revenge on Dr. Melfi's attacker. "Just say the word" we thought, and in the back of our collective mind we wanted, just once, to see Tony do something good with his power.
Ultimately it was Chase who, in his love-hate relationship with the role of violence in the series, chose to leave it hanging in the balance of our imagination. We could imagine that Tony was whacked, but the pleasure of seeing it, (the pleasure?) was not handed to us on a triumphant silver platter of tied-up endings. Instead we were left with the deafening silence of reality, the reality of a perverted desire to see the final culmination of that tension that had been building, to see a violent explosion of bodies, to enjoy it. To enjoy something that we should never cheer for, hope to see, or experience. What a deafening silence indeed.
...Is that it took so long for Sopranos creator David Chase to land his own series. The Sopranos finale will no doubt stand as one of televisions most memorable moments. A clever prank ending underscored perhaps one of the most important points of the series: No one in the "family" is ever truly safe. No one in the family is ever at peace.
Sopranos viewers, over the shows eight year stretch, have been treated to a beautifully messy tangle of pyschopop analysis, senseless violence (which we abhorred), and vindictive violence (which we praised). There were contradictions at every turn. We watched as Tony's men smashed in the faces of those who couldn't pay up, and realized, in those moments, how sick and twisted the mob lifestyle is. We sat on the edge of our seats in the anticipation that Tony might send his thugs to exact revenge on Dr. Melfi's attacker. "Just say the word" we thought, and in the back of our collective mind we wanted, just once, to see Tony do something good with his power.
Ultimately it was Chase who, in his love-hate relationship with the role of violence in the series, chose to leave it hanging in the balance of our imagination. We could imagine that Tony was whacked, but the pleasure of seeing it, (the pleasure?) was not handed to us on a triumphant silver platter of tied-up endings. Instead we were left with the deafening silence of reality, the reality of a perverted desire to see the final culmination of that tension that had been building, to see a violent explosion of bodies, to enjoy it. To enjoy something that we should never cheer for, hope to see, or experience. What a deafening silence indeed.
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