Unleashed upon the world in 1999, The Sopranos completely revitalized modern television. Since its release on HBO, there have been countless shows that have tried to live up to the incredible legacy The Sopranos left within the television industry. The drama, following the infamous mobster, Tony Soprano, was massive for HBO, taking the mob trope and completely changing how studios and audiences would engage with the gangster genre in the future.
The Sopranos was a huge deal during its eight-year run, to the extent that it has since been credited with kick-starting a new golden age of television. Tony Soprano was not only the patriarch of an upper-middle-class New Jersey family (and mob boss) but a well-fleshed-out character who effectively redrew the mobster mentality. Attending therapy whilst simultaneously taking out his enemies, The Sopranos was not your run-of-the-mill mob show, but instead, a beautifully executed piece of media that paved the way for the likes of Breaking Bad and Mad Men.
Arriving at an almost perfect time in on-screen media history, The Sopranos broke a new mold. It not only contained impressively constructed characterizations but equally invited audiences to subtly reconsider how they addressed questions of personal morality over the span of its six-series run.
The Sopranos Was a Television Trailblazer
Before the show’s release in 1999, television was quite different. A lot of the time, it did not ask much from its audience other than to mindlessly follow along week-by-week. Many characters still had depth to them, with storylines people were eager to follow, but they tended to lack the ability to make effective changes or develop along lines more relatable to the modern viewer.
This largely comes down to the writers, who had some pretty stringent standards and regulations to uphold when creating consumable television. Many networks, even in the late 1990s, did not want their shows to deal with deeper topics of psychology, race, and violence. The more controversial topics were avoided then audiences and sponsors would feel less ostracized. Or so that was the overarching assumption at the time.
The significance of airing on HBO was quite big. Being a subscription service, HBO was not tied down by the restrictions mentioned above. So it had the ability to ignore these rules and was determined to create a different show, a show that dealt with the darker themes that many American networks avoided. Tony Soprano was exactly what network television steered away from. He was a violent gangster, who was morally complex and suffering from psychological illnesses. Finally, television seemed to be catching up with the complicated, yet interesting characters that have been populating cinema since the 1970s.
Challenging Popular Ideas and Excelling
In a way, The Sopranos had its road paved by films such as The Godfather and Goodfellas. The Sopranos was able to capitalize on a pre-existing market for these sorts of films by expanding them onto longer form media, where they could explore such characters, themes, and plots in greater depth. Whereas these mobster films relied upon Italian-American stereotypes, The Sopranos refused to let them define their characters. Instead, the show was committed to providing audiences with an Italian-American perspective on American lifestyle and culture, paying more attention to real experiences rather than the surface-level mob crime many expected the show to regurgitate.
The Sopranos, therefore, not only developed the mobster trope but challenged it altogether. This proved successful, cementing The Sopranos’ place in television history and wider popular culture. Like the films that came before it, The Sopranos was incredibly influential, paving the way for shows such as Breaking Bad to penetrate further into television culture. It is true, then, that The Sopranos helped to establish a second golden age of television, and it is a wave that is yet to fully dissipate.
To truly harness the show’s success, you do not need to look any further than its critical acclaim. For one, its critical response remained consistently high across all six of its seasons, with Season 3 peaking at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and Season 6, part two, receiving the lowest rating of 84% on the site. It does not come as a surprise, therefore, that it was the first series on a cable network to both be nominated and win the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series. The nominations and awards were just stacking up for the show, with its acting, production, and direction receiving their flowers.
Somehow a Mob Boss Became Groundbreaking Representation
The Sopranos played a key role in further legitimizing HBO and, in turn, darker shows in the popular consciousness. This was in part due to the new depths the show took characterizations to, creating new levels of expectations future shows needed to match in order to succeed. Tony’s character development bridges some impressive gaps from what audiences were used to in pre-1999. He starts out as a character who is easily disliked. Impulsive and disrespectful are two ways some would describe him. To be fair, it is not like this was a bad thing, it simply reflected what people expected from a family-driven mob boss.
As the show went on, Tony’s way of engaging with the world around him became reflective of his developing psyche. The longer he is forced to deal with his position at the top of his hierarchy, the more his choices demonstrate the burdens his character is forced to live with. The way in which Tony’s character is portrayed to audiences is quite unique, which can be seen greatly through his active engagement with therapy for his panic attacks. This conveyed the show’s commitment to exploring masculinity and the importance of taking accountability for one’s mental health, particularly in men who have typically resorted to bottling this up for prideful reasons.
Many have since made traction over the importance this representation has had, especially the American Psychoanalytic Association, which presented the show with an award for its depiction of such. Despite being a mob boss whose life is filled with violence and death, he is one of the more personally relatable television characters of that era, whilst simultaneously getting across significant messages to its dedicated fan base.
Tony was sculpted in such a way that you did not need to be a mobster to understand his mental and physical fatigue. But it is not just Tony. The other male characters were also subtly reflective of American male society at that point in time. The daily attitudes of sexism and racism were so commonplace that it provided a critical insight into these attitudes without feeling forced. Turning these comments and behaviors into something to laugh at these characters about went a long way.
The Sopranos Changed Audience Expectations
These changing expectations prove how and why The Sopranos was such a big deal during and after its release. Audiences came to expect a new depth of complexity within their characters. No longer would people simply accept a surface-level family dynamic, but they now needed something real to relate to, despite the outlandish plot points. For example, Walter White’s situation in Breaking Bad was not normal, but his character could be easily relatable, and so too were the anxieties and positions of his wife and son.
This was largely due to the character expectations set by The Sopranos. After Tony’s actor, James Gandolfini, passed away in 2013, White’s actor, Bryan Cranston, acknowledged that “without Tony Soprano, there is no Walter White.” This alone points to the undeniable legacy The Sopranos created, and why it was, and continues to be, such a big deal.
