The Sopranos Anti Hero Essay
Revealing the Anti-Hero
For many years now Americans have watched heroes on television portrayed, as Stephen Garrett states, “Morally upright, untainted by even the whiff of corruption . . . In their world crime never paid, the system always worked, and justice was never evaded” (319). Recently, the traditional hero has begun to change into what we recognize now as the anti-hero. The anti-hero is the dramatic protagonist who can commit horrible acts yet receive sympathy from their audience. Their moral standards are much lower than the traditional hero, only having self interest in mind. They take action into their own hands and play by their own set of rules, like the character Tony Soprano from popular HBO show The Sopranos. The Sopranos …show more content…
What made the The Sopranos so entertaining was the unpredictability of the story line and characters. The Sopranos was a guilty pleasure for audiences. Each episode could raise emotions such as anxiety, sympathy, stress, and at the end could carry positive emotions like relief or happiness if the episode ends on a good note. Another success is that it offers audiences a cinematic quality with a complex story line, as pointed out by James Harold, “The Sopranos is an ongoing television series, not a two hour movie . . . more than three days’ worth of material if one were to sit down and watch them back-to-back . . . So loyal viewers of The Sopranos spend a long time with these characters, getting to know much more about them” (300). Viewers also enjoy the suspense of the stories that are woven through a season’s episodes, which is also entertaining. Viewers have to tune in each season just to have questions answered from the first season. HBO was a part of allowing the writers the freedom to challenge and provoke an audience. Along with the emotions and complex stories, The Sopranos is entertaining because it provokes many points of discussion for viewers about individual circumstances and about our society we live
For many years now Americans have watched heroes on television portrayed, as Stephen Garrett states, “Morally upright, untainted by even the whiff of corruption . . . In their world crime never paid, the system always worked, and justice was never evaded” (319). Recently, the traditional hero has begun to change into what we recognize now as the anti-hero. The anti-hero is the dramatic protagonist who can commit horrible acts yet receive sympathy from their audience. Their moral standards are much lower than the traditional hero, only having self interest in mind. They take action into their own hands and play by their own set of rules, like the character Tony Soprano from popular HBO show The Sopranos. The Sopranos …show more content…
What made the The Sopranos so entertaining was the unpredictability of the story line and characters. The Sopranos was a guilty pleasure for audiences. Each episode could raise emotions such as anxiety, sympathy, stress, and at the end could carry positive emotions like relief or happiness if the episode ends on a good note. Another success is that it offers audiences a cinematic quality with a complex story line, as pointed out by James Harold, “The Sopranos is an ongoing television series, not a two hour movie . . . more than three days’ worth of material if one were to sit down and watch them back-to-back . . . So loyal viewers of The Sopranos spend a long time with these characters, getting to know much more about them” (300). Viewers also enjoy the suspense of the stories that are woven through a season’s episodes, which is also entertaining. Viewers have to tune in each season just to have questions answered from the first season. HBO was a part of allowing the writers the freedom to challenge and provoke an audience. Along with the emotions and complex stories, The Sopranos is entertaining because it provokes many points of discussion for viewers about individual circumstances and about our society we live