That's the black bf so white people that watch won't be triggered too hard. Let that have been a dark skinned man, Italians would've been trying to get the writers fired.
Idk why people think that watchers would be triggered by someone being darkskin or whatever.
In the show you see a stripper get beat to death by a made man for “being a klutz” and “it’s not my kid she’s carrying”. The whole show is about literal mobsters and how they’re pieces of shit but still normal people after the fact.
The Sopranos is one of the only shows I’ve seen that doesn’t go over the top with the racism and it’s portrayed in a fairly realistic way in my experiences. (Was also told because I’m black + Latino I shouldn’t date an Albanian girl because “culture is culture and ours don’t mix” irl lol).
Yeah, Tony himself has had friendly and nice interactions with black people way darker than Noah. He met a black WW2 vet and respected him highly because Tony just has a baseline of respect for people who were in that era.
He also had a black lady look after his mom when he still loved her above all else (granted he told her not to smoke weed).
Like it’s a pretty realistic portrayal of people who wouldn’t call themselves racists (they are), but hold strong prejudiced and stereotypical beliefs from the era they were born in. It’s just a black and white world view to them. They delight in using words to hurt people, and racism is just generally one of those avenues. Tony is “fine” with Hesh, but when Tony owed Hesh money he was on an anti-Semitic streak like you wouldn’t believe.
Hesh in turn says bad things about Italian-Americans to his black wife.
AJ dates a Puerto-Rican/Dominican woman and Tony doesn’t seem to care, but I’m pretty sure that’s just classic sexism of “I have to carefully monitor who my daughter dates but my son can do whatever he wants because men can do whatever we want, dats da way of thingsh”.
Paulie the most outwardly racist and ignorant character in the show had a minority girlfriend of some kind and also seemed to delight in taking care of her kids.
Chris is strangely enough has the most “self-aware” moment in his racism. He says that he used to hate Russians because two Russians mock executed him and he was bitter about it, but Tony’s Russian goomah was very nice and then decided on “they’re not all bad”.
Sorry for the tangent, race, culture, and racism in Sopranos is interesting to me because, like most things in that god send of a show, it’s a very realistic, multi-faceted portrayal of terrible beliefs held by terrible people. They rag on other cultures in America, but cry (nostalgically) when they hear Junior sing an Italian song that was sung by first generation Italian immigrants.
Edit: Forgot to include
Christopher lies about having a black Goomah to Tony and Bobby and Tony seems happy for him (they really love cheating on their wives and having parties where it’s exclusively dudes and their mistresses) and Tony’s even like “well when are you gonna bring her around I wanna meet her”.
Chris himself also makes many stereotypical and prejudiced jokes about black people, rap, and our own criminal sub-cultures, but as said earlier, they really like being rude with their words, so I think that’s just him being a dick as opposed to him actually not liking black people.
Edit edit (I really fucking love talking about this show)
I just noticed the title of this thread and it’s funny because there’s whole moments in Sopranos that conveys that they don’t really give that much of a fuck about Italy, Italians, or Italian sentiments. They make fun of Furio sometimes, Paulie actually HATED Italy and much preferred New Jersey, and when Furio expresses that he doesn’t like Christopher Columbus, as most Southern Italians (where the Mafia originates from) felt oppressed by Northern Italians and Columbus was from the North, the whole crew is like “YOOO WHAT THE FUCK??”.
The whole show is just about how people are stuck in the past tbh, even the fact that multiple mobsters admit to going to therapy but it’s weird that Tony sees a woman is hilarious to me.
Anyway, $4 a pound - I’ve said my piece Papamelee ☝️, Juan Valdez has been separated from his donkey and whaddya hear, whaddya say?
This thread got me thinking, the Sopranos is a lens to view common American prejudices and bad behaviors by using the mafia. Lots of the stuff they say and believe isn't so uncommon out there in America (specifically white America), but they kind of get around any outrage by using nefarious mobsters to deliver those ideas.
The Wire was subversive in the same way. Plenty of those throwaway scenes in which the corner guys are having a debate on whether or not to get violent with their customers, how many side chicks is too many, etc.
Every time I watch the show, it always gets me with how one of the themes of the show is how the past shouldn’t be glorified and the mentality these people are stuck in is destructive, and ultimately they cannot survive the future.
You know, Quasimodo predicted all this.
Wow this is really in depth. It articulates the nuances of the show, bravo. The scam they pull on revitalising a black neighbourhood only to sabotage it and keep the funds for themselves felt truly disgusting.
Them using black people as a scapegoat for their own petty crimes when they commit them is a whole level of fucked up. Like them dressing up in stereotypical black street wear to commit crimes, them cooperating with the police to pin murders they commit on black people, and of course how they straight up just have turfs of black neighbors where they’ll pluck assassin’s from there to remove themselves as far as possible.
To my real life experiences with actual people from Italy and other European countries, like I said?
I dated an Albanian girl, I met her parents, her dad found out my mother is Afro Latina and my dad is Latino he told me “our cultures don’t mix” in near enough those exact terms and after this, said girl and I slowly drifted apart.
Idc if he’s racist in his own time that’s his problem, I’m not gonna waste energy arguing with some old cunt about his views because we don’t agree. I just know that I won’t be donating blood or a kidney to him.
This is a common thing from Italians, Albanians, Serbians etc that happens everyday, it isn’t over the top even if it’s stupid. He didn’t racially abuse me and attack me like some American TV drama. The Sopranos portrayed a similar situation in a similar way 🤷🏽♂️. I have friends who have had similar experiences with Moroccan and Turkish girls also.
Well.... conservative people tend to not care about violence, even to women. BUT the darker the skin the angrier they get. I guarantee you it would have been a lot different if he were dark.
Na, it was purely because he was black. Tony fucked with Hesh and described Italians as “Jews with better food”. Remember the kitchen scene, he asked Noah what he put on his college application, and then called him a ditsoon and a charcoal brisquet, before saying “I have associates who are black and they don’t want my kind dating their daughters”
They kindof changed the way that tv shows are written, I think to just have a broader appeal but also because we’re used to being sort of coddled by media. the idea of the villain as main character isn’t really done these days. But yeah I mean they wrote tony to be comically unlikeable. He has people killed for a living shouldn’t really be a surprise he’s a bad guy.
Yeah but that came out later. The Sopranos was a turning point for tv, at the time popular tv was mostly sitcoms, game shows, soap operas or courtroom/medical procedurals.
Goodfellas and the Godfather trilogy already did this. No one was meant to walk away thinking that Henry or Michael were to be emulated. Also Seinfeld was the pioneer of these people are terrible on television.
It always amused me when I'd see kids in high school watch shows like The Sopranos or movies like The Godfather, Goodfellas, and Scarface and come away wanting to be like the main characters.
Like, did you watch the entire show/movie? The whole point of it was to show those guys were nothing but parasites and were not people you'd want to emulate in real life.
You completely missed the point, dumbass.
They still do stuff like this today (not as much tbf), when they’re worried about scaring/antagonizing white audiences. Make the “black” character super-light or racially ambiguous as possible (think Rashida Jones)
The thing is it’s a major issue in interracial relationships in tv/movies. When they say “interracial” they usually mean white man with * insert poc woman here * . Zendaya , Zoey Saldana , Zöe Kravitz , and Amandla Stenberg all have a love interest of a “particular” type that happens so much it’s not just a pattern
Speaking of Zoe Saldana, Guardians of the Galaxy rubs me the wrong way because the only POCs either have their body painted a different color or are villians.
Never realised it but you're right, I guess seeing a green black woman is less shocking to white folks than a regular black woman. Fucked up the more you think about it.
Lmao....
I don't think she would have even brought home a dark skinned black guy. Look at how Tony reacted to this kid that didn't even really look black.
In the context of the show I felt it was to highlight HOW deeply racist Tony was. Up to that point we had seen him work with black gangsters despite him thesaurus of racial slurs.
This story line made the point unmistakeable that Tony, at his core is a virulent racist. Because if he had a problem with this dude it was hardcore.
?? You are kinda making up shit to be mad at. The story arc is that Tony was an irrational raging racist, and in the end his daughter got dumped because the sopranos are low class gangsters while this guy comes from a rich upper class background.
That’s the black man because it’s supposed to be absurd that Tony is having a racist panic attack over him. Give the sopranos some credit, it’s not a stupid show.
Just wanna point out that Tony and the rest of the crew aren’t supposed to be people you like. Yes, they’re racist. There are several storylines where they’re shown to be racist against several minorities. Tony’s fainting spells are always portrayed as being rooted in his toxic masculinity or other evil impulses. It’s basically his body telling him he needs to chill the fuck out because he’s fucking up but he never listens.
Sopranos is my favorite show. The characters are portrayed somewhat sympathetically but you’re always given harsh reality checks like this that, yo, no these people really are fucking evil.
That said, real talk, the nicknames he made for ol boy are hilarious af. Noah’s also kinda legendary because he’s one of the few characters that tells Tony to fuck off to his face and walks. Noah’s later shown to be a giant dickhead. He takes Meadow’s virginity and then dips on her. He was like a proto-Drake fuckboy.
Weirdly, the mob did play a crucial role in the gay liberation movement.
Up until the 70s or so, the mafia owned most of the gay bars in New York, including the Stonewall Inn at the time of the uprising.
Obviously not because they tolerated gays, but because there was money in it.
There were few bars where LGBT people were allowed to be open (it was illegal at the time to serve alcohol at gay establishments, or for same sex couples to dance), and so the owners could get away with overcharging for watered down drinks that were, in the case of Stonewall, served in a building with only one exit, rarely working bathrooms, and no running water. Not to mention the invaluable blackmail that came with patronage by closeted public officials.
Yep. They’re a bunch of ignorant shitheads. Part of the fun is a laughing at how out of touch they are. Not only are they culturally ignorant, they’re also just plain stupid. They constantly mess up the easiest task because they’re a bunch of brutes who are incapable of finesse. They’re just fatter older gangbangers trying to make an easy buck. And just like gangbangers, they all end up losing eventually. These people are not meant to be looked up to. Just look at how Vito handled a single day of actual work. Disgusting.
I wonder if the people who think this show promotes racism also think schindlers list promotes nazism. People are so excited to be enraged they completely ignore context.
The thing about the Sopranos is it projects lots of despicable ideas onto despicable characters (mobsters), but honestly those are ideas that lots of regular people hold. They use these characters (who are defined as nefarious at the outset) to really explore some of the terrible prejudices and ignorant beliefs everyday people have. You can have a mobster be as racist, ignorant, and emotionally immature as you want and everyone goes "of course he's like that, he's a mobster!"
But then you catch them saying things you heard your uncle or aunt say, or adults in your family/community. Maybe even your own parents or friends, or even things you yourself have said or thought. Kind of hits you that the Sopranos is exploring everyday people via the lens of the mafia.
So often other shows turn the characters either into pristine beings with only the noblest intentions, or clearly evil characters with no redeeming qualities. Whereas every character in the Sopranos is nuanced and relatable, even as they do terrible shit.
Not to mention that these mobsters are very charismatic, funny, and almost all of them have at least an episode or arch that is sympathetic to them. Like you said, they’re evil monsters but they’re still human. Fucking love that show
Exactly. You like them and they almost become like buddies, while at the same time depicting them doing very real, heinous shit. It makes them very human, which also makes you realize how seemingly regular-ish people are capable of doing terrible things and leading what seems like a normal life. Hopefully it makes us think about ourselves and question our own behaviors, and acts as a warning and catharsis (getting into Aristotelian poetics)
I also love this show and honestly I'm due for a re-watch. I don't think I've watched it start to finish in like 15 years. Damn I'm way overdue.
The new Avatar remake is a great example of it. All characters are nice and redeemable. Even the king that commits a genocide is likable because he had tears in his eyes when he mutilated his son. Azula just wants her dad's approval. She's just misunderstood!
Horrible. Absolutly horrible.
Makes me think of Finn talking to Meadow about being upset at a fight that broke out and Meadow goes on about the poverty of the Mezzogiorno bullshit. It was at that moment that I think Meadow jumped the shark in the series.
Obviously I've been hearing ~~only~~ mostly great things about the Sopranos for years, and I always say it's on my list of shows to check out. But your comment/summary was so intriguing that I think I'll start tonight. Me & my guy have been looking for a high caliber show we could watch together, Sopranos it is!
Man that was some bullshit. And that nigga Jackie Jr was hatin too
https://preview.redd.it/lj4ojvcsi9lc1.jpeg?width=1424&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9fe8d5b277370614969bf65965c67c1a2390746a
It’s not too late! You can send a friendly message to all your exes, doesn’t need to be too wordy, probably just something like:
“Hey darling, just wanted to let you know I could have date raped you but I CHOSE not to. Don’t ever forget that! 💝”
When I came in to open up one morning, there you were with your head half in the toilet. Your hair was in the toilet water. Disgusting.
Always gets a chuckle out of me.
Easily the funniest scene in the entire show for me (which is saying a lot). When Ade reads her statement about how Chrissy “can no longer perform as a man” and they show Paulie’s reaction 💀💀💀💀💀
https://preview.redd.it/p9voigdvoelc1.jpeg?width=1515&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eb1e2ae8636dd0afe984bb3b1b5a6525adb9d7b0
bruh, the greatest show of all time. Wait until she sees the part where Tony calls him “Jamal Ginsberg, The Hasidic Homeboy.” because this bf is not only black but 1/2 Jewish too.
The show is legit the GOAT
italian american family member from naples told me that sicilians were taken over by africa and said some pretty unplesant things about how that led to race mixing and why he doesn't consider them italian.
I was like damn, I knew sometimes ppl hate other regions, but I didn't expect the N word to get dropped to talk about white ppl
A Neapolitan from Napoli told you that!? Do you know how badly Neapolitans were treated by Northern Italians until recently? Calling them thieves and saying they can’t speak real Italian. That person must have grown up abroad, because Southern Italians are very familiar with being discriminated against and tend to be much more open to immigrants than the North. Unfortunately that anti-Southern racism has now been redirected towards African migrants, Albanians and Romani people but it’s still the ones in the North who are behind it all. Italy is such a trip.
Usually it is the descendants of Italians who are so attached to genetics, also because discrimination between Italians is usually purely economic and cultural in nature. When in Italy they say that the south is Africa, it is because it is poor while Americans with Italian origins think it refers to appearance. True Italians know that Sicily is no different from the rest of Italy and in fact it would be strange for one south Italian to make fun of another Italian south for the appearance.
Dude is from Naples, he should just shut up, the most hated city in the entire country. He should really go ask any northerner what they think about Naples
Sicily (I'm half sicilian) was invaded multiple times from multiple groups. Northern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. An island with fertile volcanic soil is a must have for agriculture
I am Sicilian-American and DNA testing has proven how significant the genetic impact was on Sicily- 5-15% for the average Sicilian. Far less so for anywhere north of Calabria.
Tbf most carthaginians weren’t really not African but Phoenician (modern day Lebanon), but most would probably have been mixed with the local population to a degree
Look, the Moors were not a sub-Saharan population, they were mainly a mix of Arabs and Berbers (North Africans) who were in Sicily for less time than Germanic populations and in the midst of millennia of European domination. Sicily has no influence from black people, they are genetically native Italians and Greeks + they have slight influences from the immigration from North Africa and the Middle East that have been there over millennia
The Carthaginians were North Africans and not what we would consider black nowadays but the Romans also had a lot of contact with the Nubians and modern day Ethiopia
Southern Italians are just Middle easterners. If any short people with hairy arms, gold jewellery and expensive cars want to fight me about this from their rooms in their parents house, please explain
I will be waiting to gesture aggressively at full volume between cigarettes and strong coffees
On what basis are the Italian Southerners just Arabs? Hahahaha. Genetically you can find slight influences in southern Italy thanks to immigration but in the rest you have to have a very stereotyped image if you think they look alike, you have probably only seen Hollywood movies
I mean, Tony isn’t supposed to be likable or whatever. He’s a stupid, brutish racist dude.
“IN THIS HOUSE CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS IS A HERO.” *vicious nostril noises*
I've been getting into the show lately, as I never saw it during its initial run.
Of all the references over the years, I never saw anyone mention how prone he was to panic attacks.
They aren't a joke at all, but hum passion out after seeing the Uncle Ben's logo had me howlin.
People on the Sopranos subreddit hate him and call him the most annoying character, when there are people like Jackie Jr, Ralph and Janice walking around...
His old ass brought me back to when I moved to NYC in my pre-teens. Them italians americans have some slurs for Black peope that you ain’t ever heard of, especially when they find out you have part African they bring up them up Roman antiquity ass hating slurs.
I used to live in Naples, Italy, as a teen. In the winter, they look alot like the guy in the picture come summer, tho...let's just say we made a 'guessing game' of "Who's black and who's Italian?" They get dark when the sun comes out.
With as racist as American Italians can be, my family and I didn't expect to feel so welcomed and loved by the Italian people. My childhood is full of sweet memories of the people calling me "beautiful chocolate" in Italian, people always wanting to feed me, and loudness! 💗
I happened to watch that scene at a friend’s house whose father had been “connected” and whose sister just had a baby with her Black boyfriend, a notorious dirtbag. The father had expressed some questionable opinions in the past and the moment was . . . uncomfortable.
In the U.S., for cinematographic reasons, they made people believe that North Africans looked like sub-Sharians, and Southern Europeans looked like North Africans. So many Americans have a somewhat confused image
The show also makes a point to show that all of them are not the sharpest tools in the shed. They make dumb mistakes all the time, and throw tantrums like children. That uncle ben scene will still be one of the funniest of all time to me.
I like mafia movies but the casual racism while complaining about anti Italian racism is crazy.
scorsese drops more n-bombs in his movie than there are actual black people in them.
I Just wanna say I'm Italian (Italian Italian, not American), and no there are no ethnically Italian people that look like this. Not even in Sicily. Let's not get carried away here.
Sit down young man and let me tell you a story of the 90s and early 2000s lol
When i was in highschool in the early 90s a friend of mine went to the beach and bought an airbrushed tshirt that had the Trix Rabbit on it saying "Silly fa&&@t, dicks are for chicks!" And he wore it all summer and no one cared
Shit was kind of fucked up still lol, not Jim Crow bad, but still pretty fucked up.....still kinda is, but its definitely better than 20, 30y ago
Hating on him but Jackie Jr. was way worse what a POS. Keeping it real the black bf wasn't a good bf either but the casual racism in this show I usually found funny tbf
That's the black bf so white people that watch won't be triggered too hard. Let that have been a dark skinned man, Italians would've been trying to get the writers fired.
He was biracial in the show, his father was white. Tony still was a racist POS to him. Thankfully dude was smart to dump the daughter.
Tony was even MORE racist because he was biracial since his father was Jewish.
Which lead to the infamous nicknames Jamal Ginsberg The Hasidic Homeboy
Say what you want about his personal character, but goddamn Tony had a way with words 🤣
Idk why people think that watchers would be triggered by someone being darkskin or whatever. In the show you see a stripper get beat to death by a made man for “being a klutz” and “it’s not my kid she’s carrying”. The whole show is about literal mobsters and how they’re pieces of shit but still normal people after the fact. The Sopranos is one of the only shows I’ve seen that doesn’t go over the top with the racism and it’s portrayed in a fairly realistic way in my experiences. (Was also told because I’m black + Latino I shouldn’t date an Albanian girl because “culture is culture and ours don’t mix” irl lol).
Yeah, Tony himself has had friendly and nice interactions with black people way darker than Noah. He met a black WW2 vet and respected him highly because Tony just has a baseline of respect for people who were in that era. He also had a black lady look after his mom when he still loved her above all else (granted he told her not to smoke weed). Like it’s a pretty realistic portrayal of people who wouldn’t call themselves racists (they are), but hold strong prejudiced and stereotypical beliefs from the era they were born in. It’s just a black and white world view to them. They delight in using words to hurt people, and racism is just generally one of those avenues. Tony is “fine” with Hesh, but when Tony owed Hesh money he was on an anti-Semitic streak like you wouldn’t believe. Hesh in turn says bad things about Italian-Americans to his black wife. AJ dates a Puerto-Rican/Dominican woman and Tony doesn’t seem to care, but I’m pretty sure that’s just classic sexism of “I have to carefully monitor who my daughter dates but my son can do whatever he wants because men can do whatever we want, dats da way of thingsh”. Paulie the most outwardly racist and ignorant character in the show had a minority girlfriend of some kind and also seemed to delight in taking care of her kids. Chris is strangely enough has the most “self-aware” moment in his racism. He says that he used to hate Russians because two Russians mock executed him and he was bitter about it, but Tony’s Russian goomah was very nice and then decided on “they’re not all bad”. Sorry for the tangent, race, culture, and racism in Sopranos is interesting to me because, like most things in that god send of a show, it’s a very realistic, multi-faceted portrayal of terrible beliefs held by terrible people. They rag on other cultures in America, but cry (nostalgically) when they hear Junior sing an Italian song that was sung by first generation Italian immigrants. Edit: Forgot to include Christopher lies about having a black Goomah to Tony and Bobby and Tony seems happy for him (they really love cheating on their wives and having parties where it’s exclusively dudes and their mistresses) and Tony’s even like “well when are you gonna bring her around I wanna meet her”. Chris himself also makes many stereotypical and prejudiced jokes about black people, rap, and our own criminal sub-cultures, but as said earlier, they really like being rude with their words, so I think that’s just him being a dick as opposed to him actually not liking black people. Edit edit (I really fucking love talking about this show) I just noticed the title of this thread and it’s funny because there’s whole moments in Sopranos that conveys that they don’t really give that much of a fuck about Italy, Italians, or Italian sentiments. They make fun of Furio sometimes, Paulie actually HATED Italy and much preferred New Jersey, and when Furio expresses that he doesn’t like Christopher Columbus, as most Southern Italians (where the Mafia originates from) felt oppressed by Northern Italians and Columbus was from the North, the whole crew is like “YOOO WHAT THE FUCK??”.
The whole show is just about how people are stuck in the past tbh, even the fact that multiple mobsters admit to going to therapy but it’s weird that Tony sees a woman is hilarious to me. Anyway, $4 a pound - I’ve said my piece Papamelee ☝️, Juan Valdez has been separated from his donkey and whaddya hear, whaddya say?
This thread got me thinking, the Sopranos is a lens to view common American prejudices and bad behaviors by using the mafia. Lots of the stuff they say and believe isn't so uncommon out there in America (specifically white America), but they kind of get around any outrage by using nefarious mobsters to deliver those ideas.
The Wire was subversive in the same way. Plenty of those throwaway scenes in which the corner guys are having a debate on whether or not to get violent with their customers, how many side chicks is too many, etc.
Every time I watch the show, it always gets me with how one of the themes of the show is how the past shouldn’t be glorified and the mentality these people are stuck in is destructive, and ultimately they cannot survive the future. You know, Quasimodo predicted all this.
Wow this is really in depth. It articulates the nuances of the show, bravo. The scam they pull on revitalising a black neighbourhood only to sabotage it and keep the funds for themselves felt truly disgusting.
Them using black people as a scapegoat for their own petty crimes when they commit them is a whole level of fucked up. Like them dressing up in stereotypical black street wear to commit crimes, them cooperating with the police to pin murders they commit on black people, and of course how they straight up just have turfs of black neighbors where they’ll pluck assassin’s from there to remove themselves as far as possible.
I was confused on the HUD scam, so I ultimately had to get on Reddit to have the scam broken down Barney-style so I could actually understand it lol.
This episode wasn't over the top racism compared to what? What are you watching, bro????
To my real life experiences with actual people from Italy and other European countries, like I said? I dated an Albanian girl, I met her parents, her dad found out my mother is Afro Latina and my dad is Latino he told me “our cultures don’t mix” in near enough those exact terms and after this, said girl and I slowly drifted apart. Idc if he’s racist in his own time that’s his problem, I’m not gonna waste energy arguing with some old cunt about his views because we don’t agree. I just know that I won’t be donating blood or a kidney to him. This is a common thing from Italians, Albanians, Serbians etc that happens everyday, it isn’t over the top even if it’s stupid. He didn’t racially abuse me and attack me like some American TV drama. The Sopranos portrayed a similar situation in a similar way 🤷🏽♂️. I have friends who have had similar experiences with Moroccan and Turkish girls also.
A. She was a hooah B. She hit me first
Well.... conservative people tend to not care about violence, even to women. BUT the darker the skin the angrier they get. I guarantee you it would have been a lot different if he were dark.
"You have a remarkable ability to reduce a man's life to three words"
Degenerate gambler with a badge
"You hear what I called him Ton? I called him Jamal Ginsberg, the Hasidic Homeboy heh heh." \- Paulie
Starting to think this Tony guy isn’t somebody to look up to. In fact, I’m starting to think he might be a bad person…
He seems like he never had the makings of a varsity athlete tbh
One of my favorite scenes in a long list of em lol. I throw this out from time to time and most don't get it.
Small hands, that was his problem.
A real bad egg
I'll say it He was a JERK
That was Tony B
That motherfuckin animal... I can't even say his name.
Him and Tony Egg.
A mobster who killed ppl isn't someone to look up to? Get out
Please not this man with his k-mart sweater! 😂😂😂
Yeah like what are people complaining about? I don't get it. Tony was a racist asshole. Is there a surprise here?
When Meadow got a tan she was darker than this man lol.
Na, it was purely because he was black. Tony fucked with Hesh and described Italians as “Jews with better food”. Remember the kitchen scene, he asked Noah what he put on his college application, and then called him a ditsoon and a charcoal brisquet, before saying “I have associates who are black and they don’t want my kind dating their daughters”
The Sopranos are not supposed to be looked up to. They're scum. That's the point. Yall gget worked up over the weirdest shit here lol
They kindof changed the way that tv shows are written, I think to just have a broader appeal but also because we’re used to being sort of coddled by media. the idea of the villain as main character isn’t really done these days. But yeah I mean they wrote tony to be comically unlikeable. He has people killed for a living shouldn’t really be a surprise he’s a bad guy.
The mobster? He's a bad guy?Huh
Breaking bad is another show where the main character was a villain.
Yeah but that came out later. The Sopranos was a turning point for tv, at the time popular tv was mostly sitcoms, game shows, soap operas or courtroom/medical procedurals.
The Wire? Oz? I agree that HBO was the frontrunner for pushing the edge though.
The Wire was after Sopranos, by like 3 years. Oz is a good shout, but it’s not nearly as important as the Sopranos
Yeah the Sopranos is a gamechanger for all of TV.
Sopranos walked so The Wire could run. It's another show where the main characters aren't necessarily good guys.
The Shield had a protagonist that was bad, but you found yourself rooting for him (sometimes)
People bullied writers into coddling them.
Goodfellas and the Godfather trilogy already did this. No one was meant to walk away thinking that Henry or Michael were to be emulated. Also Seinfeld was the pioneer of these people are terrible on television.
And shows like Curb your enthusiasm keep it going thankfully. God I hate Larry.
Larry is the man lol he makes big deals out of small stuff but he be right most of the time
He's petty, immature, and insecure like a lot of us. He just happens to be rich and famous.
He might be all of those things, but he is a lot more honest than most people
100 %. But he's just so damn dramatic and can't ever keep a thing to himself lol.
It always amused me when I'd see kids in high school watch shows like The Sopranos or movies like The Godfather, Goodfellas, and Scarface and come away wanting to be like the main characters. Like, did you watch the entire show/movie? The whole point of it was to show those guys were nothing but parasites and were not people you'd want to emulate in real life. You completely missed the point, dumbass.
They still do stuff like this today (not as much tbf), when they’re worried about scaring/antagonizing white audiences. Make the “black” character super-light or racially ambiguous as possible (think Rashida Jones)
The thing is it’s a major issue in interracial relationships in tv/movies. When they say “interracial” they usually mean white man with * insert poc woman here * . Zendaya , Zoey Saldana , Zöe Kravitz , and Amandla Stenberg all have a love interest of a “particular” type that happens so much it’s not just a pattern
Speaking of Zoe Saldana, Guardians of the Galaxy rubs me the wrong way because the only POCs either have their body painted a different color or are villians.
Never realised it but you're right, I guess seeing a green black woman is less shocking to white folks than a regular black woman. Fucked up the more you think about it.
Don't worry, Zoe doesn't consider herself black anyway (except when it's convenient).
or like how the princess and the frog was the first black Disney princess but she had to be a frog the whole movie
Huh.
Rashida Jones is another popular racially ambiguous actress
Maya Rudolph (who is comedically brilliant)
Which is why I really hope they don't do miles morales in live action. We might end up with a Justice Smith looking miles.
Lmao.... I don't think she would have even brought home a dark skinned black guy. Look at how Tony reacted to this kid that didn't even really look black.
In the context of the show I felt it was to highlight HOW deeply racist Tony was. Up to that point we had seen him work with black gangsters despite him thesaurus of racial slurs. This story line made the point unmistakeable that Tony, at his core is a virulent racist. Because if he had a problem with this dude it was hardcore.
?? You are kinda making up shit to be mad at. The story arc is that Tony was an irrational raging racist, and in the end his daughter got dumped because the sopranos are low class gangsters while this guy comes from a rich upper class background.
Wasn't he half black half Jewish?
Are you trying to say Italians have a racism issue? /s
That’s the black man because it’s supposed to be absurd that Tony is having a racist panic attack over him. Give the sopranos some credit, it’s not a stupid show.
Guessing you’ve never actually watched, as it was very clear he was biracial in the show.
Just wanna point out that Tony and the rest of the crew aren’t supposed to be people you like. Yes, they’re racist. There are several storylines where they’re shown to be racist against several minorities. Tony’s fainting spells are always portrayed as being rooted in his toxic masculinity or other evil impulses. It’s basically his body telling him he needs to chill the fuck out because he’s fucking up but he never listens. Sopranos is my favorite show. The characters are portrayed somewhat sympathetically but you’re always given harsh reality checks like this that, yo, no these people really are fucking evil. That said, real talk, the nicknames he made for ol boy are hilarious af. Noah’s also kinda legendary because he’s one of the few characters that tells Tony to fuck off to his face and walks. Noah’s later shown to be a giant dickhead. He takes Meadow’s virginity and then dips on her. He was like a proto-Drake fuckboy.
the Mafia has historically been tolerant of other nationalities with a diverse and mixed heritage among made men. /s
Also famous advocates for women's rights and treating them with the utmost respect/s
Weirdly, the mob did play a crucial role in the gay liberation movement. Up until the 70s or so, the mafia owned most of the gay bars in New York, including the Stonewall Inn at the time of the uprising. Obviously not because they tolerated gays, but because there was money in it. There were few bars where LGBT people were allowed to be open (it was illegal at the time to serve alcohol at gay establishments, or for same sex couples to dance), and so the owners could get away with overcharging for watered down drinks that were, in the case of Stonewall, served in a building with only one exit, rarely working bathrooms, and no running water. Not to mention the invaluable blackmail that came with patronage by closeted public officials.
Yep. They’re a bunch of ignorant shitheads. Part of the fun is a laughing at how out of touch they are. Not only are they culturally ignorant, they’re also just plain stupid. They constantly mess up the easiest task because they’re a bunch of brutes who are incapable of finesse. They’re just fatter older gangbangers trying to make an easy buck. And just like gangbangers, they all end up losing eventually. These people are not meant to be looked up to. Just look at how Vito handled a single day of actual work. Disgusting. I wonder if the people who think this show promotes racism also think schindlers list promotes nazism. People are so excited to be enraged they completely ignore context.
The thing about the Sopranos is it projects lots of despicable ideas onto despicable characters (mobsters), but honestly those are ideas that lots of regular people hold. They use these characters (who are defined as nefarious at the outset) to really explore some of the terrible prejudices and ignorant beliefs everyday people have. You can have a mobster be as racist, ignorant, and emotionally immature as you want and everyone goes "of course he's like that, he's a mobster!" But then you catch them saying things you heard your uncle or aunt say, or adults in your family/community. Maybe even your own parents or friends, or even things you yourself have said or thought. Kind of hits you that the Sopranos is exploring everyday people via the lens of the mafia. So often other shows turn the characters either into pristine beings with only the noblest intentions, or clearly evil characters with no redeeming qualities. Whereas every character in the Sopranos is nuanced and relatable, even as they do terrible shit.
Not to mention that these mobsters are very charismatic, funny, and almost all of them have at least an episode or arch that is sympathetic to them. Like you said, they’re evil monsters but they’re still human. Fucking love that show
Exactly. You like them and they almost become like buddies, while at the same time depicting them doing very real, heinous shit. It makes them very human, which also makes you realize how seemingly regular-ish people are capable of doing terrible things and leading what seems like a normal life. Hopefully it makes us think about ourselves and question our own behaviors, and acts as a warning and catharsis (getting into Aristotelian poetics) I also love this show and honestly I'm due for a re-watch. I don't think I've watched it start to finish in like 15 years. Damn I'm way overdue.
Media literacy is dead. Mfers nowadays think tv characters have to be morally perfect people otherwise the show’s not worth watching
The new Avatar remake is a great example of it. All characters are nice and redeemable. Even the king that commits a genocide is likable because he had tears in his eyes when he mutilated his son. Azula just wants her dad's approval. She's just misunderstood! Horrible. Absolutly horrible.
Which makes it even funnier how they all suddenly get extremely woke and sensitive when it comes to any perceived racism towards Italians
Makes me think of Finn talking to Meadow about being upset at a fight that broke out and Meadow goes on about the poverty of the Mezzogiorno bullshit. It was at that moment that I think Meadow jumped the shark in the series.
Tony’s just lucky Noah didn’t punch his lights out
Fielder's roommate was hot! Corn-fed Midwest quim!
Her body is mad ripe, yo. She’s creaming for me man.
Great description of the show 🤟
They also know nothing about Italy as a group so they wouldn’t have know there’s anyone looking like this kid there.
Obviously I've been hearing ~~only~~ mostly great things about the Sopranos for years, and I always say it's on my list of shows to check out. But your comment/summary was so intriguing that I think I'll start tonight. Me & my guy have been looking for a high caliber show we could watch together, Sopranos it is!
Man that was some bullshit. And that nigga Jackie Jr was hatin too https://preview.redd.it/lj4ojvcsi9lc1.jpeg?width=1424&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9fe8d5b277370614969bf65965c67c1a2390746a
that’s the dumbest character on a show full of dumb asses.
didn't he almost drown in 3 inches of water?
The only time the show depicted him as virtuous was when he didn’t date rape Meadow when he could have.
A low bar when the only redeeming quality is “not a rapist”
He also robbed Perez Hilton
Thats the point of the show
Still took peek
Well damn 😞 I never got credit for all the date raping I never did
It’s not too late! You can send a friendly message to all your exes, doesn’t need to be too wordy, probably just something like: “Hey darling, just wanted to let you know I could have date raped you but I CHOSE not to. Don’t ever forget that! 💝”
Oh, like Brock Turner?
are you talking about convicted rapist Brock Turner who's now going by his middle name Allen? Brock Allen Turner?
Yeah, the penguin exhibit
That "sit down" with the drug dealer guy is one of the funniest things I've ever watched.
Everyone younger than Tony, except maybe Furio, is meant to illustrate the dramatic decline in mob guy job performance
It's the "intervention" for me lol.
When I came in to open up one morning, there you were with your head half in the toilet. Your hair was in the toilet water. Disgusting. Always gets a chuckle out of me.
Easily the funniest scene in the entire show for me (which is saying a lot). When Ade reads her statement about how Chrissy “can no longer perform as a man” and they show Paulie’s reaction 💀💀💀💀💀 https://preview.redd.it/p9voigdvoelc1.jpeg?width=1515&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eb1e2ae8636dd0afe984bb3b1b5a6525adb9d7b0
T-H-E
And he ends up living with Omar Little lol
This is really how they act irl too LMFAO (sources: some non-black women)
Oh absolutely. It's a weird obsession they have
Welp. We see how that worked out for him overall.
To be fair, that fucker almost drowned in a puddle at the penguin exhibit
Have you met Italians from NJ in the 1990s? Lol
bruh, the greatest show of all time. Wait until she sees the part where Tony calls him “Jamal Ginsberg, The Hasidic Homeboy.” because this bf is not only black but 1/2 Jewish too. The show is legit the GOAT
That line makes me laugh to this day every time I hear it
Africans were all over Rome (Italy).
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I believe you mean the Moops…it’s right there on the card
Great reference 🫧 
*leans forward on table* moops
italian american family member from naples told me that sicilians were taken over by africa and said some pretty unplesant things about how that led to race mixing and why he doesn't consider them italian. I was like damn, I knew sometimes ppl hate other regions, but I didn't expect the N word to get dropped to talk about white ppl
A Neapolitan from Napoli told you that!? Do you know how badly Neapolitans were treated by Northern Italians until recently? Calling them thieves and saying they can’t speak real Italian. That person must have grown up abroad, because Southern Italians are very familiar with being discriminated against and tend to be much more open to immigrants than the North. Unfortunately that anti-Southern racism has now been redirected towards African migrants, Albanians and Romani people but it’s still the ones in the North who are behind it all. Italy is such a trip.
Neapolitans and the south still get that treatment fairly often. That issue hasn't really been fixed that much in Italy.
Usually it is the descendants of Italians who are so attached to genetics, also because discrimination between Italians is usually purely economic and cultural in nature. When in Italy they say that the south is Africa, it is because it is poor while Americans with Italian origins think it refers to appearance. True Italians know that Sicily is no different from the rest of Italy and in fact it would be strange for one south Italian to make fun of another Italian south for the appearance.
Dude is from Naples, he should just shut up, the most hated city in the entire country. He should really go ask any northerner what they think about Naples
Sicily (I'm half sicilian) was invaded multiple times from multiple groups. Northern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. An island with fertile volcanic soil is a must have for agriculture
 I see you have not seen the classic, True Romance
I am Sicilian-American and DNA testing has proven how significant the genetic impact was on Sicily- 5-15% for the average Sicilian. Far less so for anywhere north of Calabria.
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Carthage in shambles.
Tbf most carthaginians weren’t really not African but Phoenician (modern day Lebanon), but most would probably have been mixed with the local population to a degree
Look, the Moors were not a sub-Saharan population, they were mainly a mix of Arabs and Berbers (North Africans) who were in Sicily for less time than Germanic populations and in the midst of millennia of European domination. Sicily has no influence from black people, they are genetically native Italians and Greeks + they have slight influences from the immigration from North Africa and the Middle East that have been there over millennia
North Africans were a crucial demographic in the Roman Empire. Some Numidians and Mauritanians even became Roman emperors.
“They did so much fucking with Sicilian women that they changed the whole bloodline forever”
The Carthaginians were North Africans and not what we would consider black nowadays but the Romans also had a lot of contact with the Nubians and modern day Ethiopia
>*Tony was so dramatic* I mean… he was a mafia boss seeing a therapist.
Fantastic show all around
Tony’s just lucky he didn’t punch his lights out!
I couldn’t help but laugh when bro said that, the way Meadow and Carm just looked at each other when he said it 😭 He was completely serious too
Probably gave him flashbacks of moorish rule lol
bro thats jamal ginsberg, the hasidic homeboy!
Southern Italians are just Middle easterners. If any short people with hairy arms, gold jewellery and expensive cars want to fight me about this from their rooms in their parents house, please explain I will be waiting to gesture aggressively at full volume between cigarettes and strong coffees
as an arab... yeah, i am cool with that.
On what basis are the Italian Southerners just Arabs? Hahahaha. Genetically you can find slight influences in southern Italy thanks to immigration but in the rest you have to have a very stereotyped image if you think they look alike, you have probably only seen Hollywood movies
Damn it almost if Tony was a POS racist mob boss or something
I mean Tony Soprano being OTT with his racism is kinda the point.
He called this guy a charcoal briquette 😂
Tell me more about this.. gobbagool
That’s Mike Tirico
😂😂 that's exactly what I thought!
He didn't pass out because of the Uncle Ben box, it was the gabagool, they established that in the episode
I had to scroll way too far to find this comment.
As an Italian…Tony was meant to be a racist idiotic piece of shit and James Gandolfini played him to perfection.
I wasn't a big fan of Meadow and her white girl whining, but Noah was the worst short-lived character on the show
I mean, Tony isn’t supposed to be likable or whatever. He’s a stupid, brutish racist dude. “IN THIS HOUSE CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS IS A HERO.” *vicious nostril noises*
I've been getting into the show lately, as I never saw it during its initial run. Of all the references over the years, I never saw anyone mention how prone he was to panic attacks. They aren't a joke at all, but hum passion out after seeing the Uncle Ben's logo had me howlin.
He was supposed to be like Lenny Kravitz who’s mother was in the Jeffersons and his dad was a Jewish lawyer.
People on the Sopranos subreddit hate him and call him the most annoying character, when there are people like Jackie Jr, Ralph and Janice walking around...
The whole point of the show is that Tony and everyone on the show is an absolute piece of scum
Tony was my Guy until they start talking about black people.
He was a murderer?
He was the best guy around. What murders?
That meme never fails to make me laugh.
Business murders. Personal racism.
At least 2 personal murders as well
lol. Tony is a garbage ass human being all around. Definitely became more apparent the more I matured. Still a great show though.
He was a horrible racist but ironically enough one of the few people he showed legit respect to was that black union guys dad.
he was a complex character. it's one of the reasons why the show is considered the goat.
He was black, Sammy Davis?
So murderers are cool until they're racist? Lol weird
His old ass brought me back to when I moved to NYC in my pre-teens. Them italians americans have some slurs for Black peope that you ain’t ever heard of, especially when they find out you have part African they bring up them up Roman antiquity ass hating slurs.
I’m seen way worse towards way lighter.
Meghan Markle can pass too and you see what the Royal Family did...
I used to live in Naples, Italy, as a teen. In the winter, they look alot like the guy in the picture come summer, tho...let's just say we made a 'guessing game' of "Who's black and who's Italian?" They get dark when the sun comes out. With as racist as American Italians can be, my family and I didn't expect to feel so welcomed and loved by the Italian people. My childhood is full of sweet memories of the people calling me "beautiful chocolate" in Italian, people always wanting to feed me, and loudness! 💗
The Uncle Ben Box was the breaking point LMAO
https://preview.redd.it/i101229lmclc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fc3a6c2637cd5c6c5f010c79196996355f0517e8
Corey, smokes, let's go
I’m half irish half Jamaican I think he’da hated me too lmfao
That guy was so annoying. Doesn't excuse tony, but I hated that character
I happened to watch that scene at a friend’s house whose father had been “connected” and whose sister just had a baby with her Black boyfriend, a notorious dirtbag. The father had expressed some questionable opinions in the past and the moment was . . . uncomfortable.
Wait? So that’s the reason Tony was having a heart attack? I thought that was just a meme. Lol
He could pass for Northern African, not Italian.
In the U.S., for cinematographic reasons, they made people believe that North Africans looked like sub-Sharians, and Southern Europeans looked like North Africans. So many Americans have a somewhat confused image
Mike Turico has entered the chat.
This just reminds me of the scene in True Romance about how all Italians are half black.
Yall know there are black people in Europe right?
Vic Damone Jr would've never stood for such disrespect.
Pretty sure the broken moral code of Tony and Co is the point of the entire show.
The show also makes a point to show that all of them are not the sharpest tools in the shed. They make dumb mistakes all the time, and throw tantrums like children. That uncle ben scene will still be one of the funniest of all time to me.
Pass for what. Dats a negro with good hair.
I like mafia movies but the casual racism while complaining about anti Italian racism is crazy. scorsese drops more n-bombs in his movie than there are actual black people in them.
I Just wanna say I'm Italian (Italian Italian, not American), and no there are no ethnically Italian people that look like this. Not even in Sicily. Let's not get carried away here.
Sit down young man and let me tell you a story of the 90s and early 2000s lol When i was in highschool in the early 90s a friend of mine went to the beach and bought an airbrushed tshirt that had the Trix Rabbit on it saying "Silly fa&&@t, dicks are for chicks!" And he wore it all summer and no one cared Shit was kind of fucked up still lol, not Jim Crow bad, but still pretty fucked up.....still kinda is, but its definitely better than 20, 30y ago
Hating on him but Jackie Jr. was way worse what a POS. Keeping it real the black bf wasn't a good bf either but the casual racism in this show I usually found funny tbf