Aren’t CNN and HBO part of the Time Warner/Ted Turner conglomerate? If so, I’m not surprised about what was on cnn.com’s front page.
Also, I don’t see how The Sorpranos makes heroes out of thugs. Their lives aren’t glamorized, either. Sometimes I actually feel sorry for them because of how pathetic they are. They’re portrayed as just what they are, sociopaths trying to make a living in crime. That’s what I like about the show, actually. It doesn’t try to say anything. It’s just a portrayal that offers more than a two-hour movie can.
Now, some of y’all just don’t see the big picture. I’ll pick on scout1222: Who runs cnn.com? The bottom of the page says it’s an AOL Time Warner company.
Who airs The Sopranos? HBO. Who runs HBO? The bottom of the page says it’s a division of Time Warner Entertainment.
I love it. It took me most of the first season to get hooked, but now I am so conditioned that the theme song sends me running from wherever I am to the TV. The characters are unapologetically real. I know people like them. I’m RELATED to people like them. You now see why I shy away from family reunions.
And any show that can make me laugh, scream at the TV and squirm with uncomfortablility within a 50 minute period is OK. I just watched Season 3 on tape, and if anyone wants a really example of why the show is brilliant, watch episode 11, The Pine Barrens. Directed by Steve Buchemi. Fan-freakin’-tastic.
I’m always one of the first to shy away from whatever the “Big Thing” is in pop culture. I started watching The Sopranos halfway through season 2 and got hooked.
The hype worked on me, because I went out and rented the entirety of the first season over the past couple of weeks. (I had never seen an episode of the show, as I haven’t had cable for nearly five years.)
I dig it. Not enough to pay for HBO, but certainly enough to downl…I mean, rent the videos.
Yes, I’m sick to death of hearing about it, but please don’t use the f-word, because that’s the thing that turned me off. It may be unfair because I haven’t yet watched one whole episode because I got tired of hearing the f-word. I’m not a prude. I use the f-word myself, but jeez, every other word? It’s f-ing this and f-ing that, I mean, really. Maybe mobsters really talk like that, but it turns me off. The other night, my s.o., while channel surfing, came across the show. Immediately I said, oh yes, the show that features the f-word, and, no kidding, a split second later, Tony manages to uses it two times in one sentence.
Going on what we learned in our pop culture class (taught by Robert Thompson, I guarantee you’ve read a magazine or newspaper article that he’s been quoted in), it probably has something to do with the fact that it’s on HBO. A lot of people have cable, but far fewer people have HBO. It’s an elitist thing to talk about the Sopranos–it makes you seem hip or clued into something that the average joe isn’t.
Myself, I don’t see the big deal. I saw some of the show on tape, and couldn’t understand the appeal. It just never hooked me.
Oh, and speaking of gloryfing crime–forget gangster movies and tv shows, anyone here see the NY Post the day John Gotti died? I don’t think a US president would have commanded the spreads that Gotti got in the paper.
Also, with the unusual airing schedule, the long gaps between seasons makes the season premiere much more of an event (in some peoples eyes). This isn’t just the return of <i>Everybody Loves Raymond</i> after a couple months of reruns, this is the return of one of the most critically acclaimed shows of the last decade after a hiatus of 18 (?) months.
But then, I consume almost no media, so I was hardly the target of whatever barage happened.
I love the show, though. I was hooked about 15 minutes into the first episode, and buy each season as it comes out (which is when I see them for the first time).
So I’m at dinner yesterday at my aunt’s house and my parents are talking about the season premiere of the Sopranos when my aunt pipes up, “What’s the Sopranos?”
dead silence for a good 15 seconds.
My dad: “You’ve never watched the Sopranos?”
My aunt: “No, what is it?”
My mom: “You’ve never watched the Sopranos? How can you have never watched the Sopranos?!”
My aunt: “What is it, some show on HBO?”
My dad: “The best f-ing (edited for Cafe Society) show on HBO.”
My aunt: “Oh, well I don’t watch TV very often…”
My mom: “You gotta watch the Sopranos!”
This repeated about a half hour later when my sister finds out that my aunt had never watched the Sopranos. You would’ve thought she was a freak of nature or something for never watching any of the HBO orginal programming. (Yep, this repeated again with Sex in the City, 6 Feet Under and OZ.)
So she avoided the hype this long and now she’ll have to start watching so she won’t be considered the black sheep of the family.
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