I don't know why, but I find the highest-quality entertainment (movies, TV, books, etc.,) to encompass complex relationships and human psychology that are almost always connected to the character's unresolved childhood issues with dysfunctional parenting. I am also routinely irritated by the very same... because I see it as the great human weakness... the inability of adult-age people to let go... to forgive and move on... to figure out who they are... who they want to be... and to set a course for that without the defeating psychological neediness to acquire parental acceptance for it.
We have a couple of doves that have made a nest in a porch wall hanging right off our bedroom window. The birds are about tame now. We can almost pet them. They are prolific multipliers... making 1-3 new squeakers 3-2 times a year. Just yesterday the most recent two babies flew the nest. My guess is that those two teenagers are no longer interested in parental acceptance after their lives literally depended on it just a few minutes earlier.
Watching the last few episodes of Succession I frequently want to reach through the screen and choke sense into the Roy children. I wish they had made Connor Roy more likeable and normal as he is the only one that seems to have figured out the required separation. I was a big fan of The Sopranos and watched each episode as it was released, and it was the water cooler topic at work. I also liked Mad Men, Breaking Bad and the offshoot Better Call Saul. All of them centered around a primary character behaving badly but as a hero. Most of them sort of excused the bad behavior as being caused by childhood trauma of abusive or neglectful parenting... except Breaking Bad... which pinned the excuse on more recent "abuse" by a business partner... which frankly was always the weak link in the story IMO.
You covered lots of territory in your Sopranos essay. You made Livia, Tony’s mother, into a Jungian death mother figure. And you forgot to mention that Livia was a borderline personality. Oops! Blocked it out of your mind. And Dr. Melfi talks with Tony about it. She reminds Tony about the time Livia talks her brother (Tony’s uncle) into killing Tony. Gosh, is that an example of a Jungian death mother in action? Maybe. Maybe not.
In fairness you wrote "it seems", but I think you're off the mark here. The Sopranos probably has the widest gap between "what you think it is about" and "what it actually is about".
Love the references to Marion Woodman. She changed my life. Marie Louise Von Franz also did excellent work on the death mother.
I enjoy your analyses so much!! Thanks!!
Definitely the best show of all time. I watched it years after everyone else, and I've watched all the others. Sopranos hasn't been beat yet.
I don't know why, but I find the highest-quality entertainment (movies, TV, books, etc.,) to encompass complex relationships and human psychology that are almost always connected to the character's unresolved childhood issues with dysfunctional parenting. I am also routinely irritated by the very same... because I see it as the great human weakness... the inability of adult-age people to let go... to forgive and move on... to figure out who they are... who they want to be... and to set a course for that without the defeating psychological neediness to acquire parental acceptance for it.
We have a couple of doves that have made a nest in a porch wall hanging right off our bedroom window. The birds are about tame now. We can almost pet them. They are prolific multipliers... making 1-3 new squeakers 3-2 times a year. Just yesterday the most recent two babies flew the nest. My guess is that those two teenagers are no longer interested in parental acceptance after their lives literally depended on it just a few minutes earlier.
Watching the last few episodes of Succession I frequently want to reach through the screen and choke sense into the Roy children. I wish they had made Connor Roy more likeable and normal as he is the only one that seems to have figured out the required separation. I was a big fan of The Sopranos and watched each episode as it was released, and it was the water cooler topic at work. I also liked Mad Men, Breaking Bad and the offshoot Better Call Saul. All of them centered around a primary character behaving badly but as a hero. Most of them sort of excused the bad behavior as being caused by childhood trauma of abusive or neglectful parenting... except Breaking Bad... which pinned the excuse on more recent "abuse" by a business partner... which frankly was always the weak link in the story IMO.
You covered lots of territory in your Sopranos essay. You made Livia, Tony’s mother, into a Jungian death mother figure. And you forgot to mention that Livia was a borderline personality. Oops! Blocked it out of your mind. And Dr. Melfi talks with Tony about it. She reminds Tony about the time Livia talks her brother (Tony’s uncle) into killing Tony. Gosh, is that an example of a Jungian death mother in action? Maybe. Maybe not.
I agree that a lot of the more modern popular TV shows are just soap operas - I couldn't watch Sons of Anarchy for this reason.
However, regarding The Sopranos, you wrote:
"it seems to be made for people who are so sheltered from actual violence that they believe violence is kind of funny and cute"
I'm not sure how you reach a conclusion like that without watching it.
The Sopranos is unlike any other TV show ever made. I recommend it highly.
In fairness you wrote "it seems", but I think you're off the mark here. The Sopranos probably has the widest gap between "what you think it is about" and "what it actually is about".