The Sopranos: A Defense of Janice

thank you Janice soprano is one of the most hateable characters on The Sopranos you'll get no arguments from me there she is an incredibly toxic manipulative person and is a source of misery for everyone around her but as you can tell by the title of this video I'm going to be defending her not as a person no she's awful but in relation to the other characters on this show because as bad as Janus is she's really no different than the people around her and I think she's one of the most misunderstood characters in the show so in this video Let's examine Janice as a character and see if we can unravel the true meaning behind her role on the show I know I'm not perfect I know I annoy people all right real quick before we get started I wanted to thank all the patrons who make these videos possible if you'd like to support the channel and get early access to my videos as well as a shout out in the end credits please check out my patreon Linked In the description Janice soprano is the eldest child of Johnny Boy and Olivia born about two years before Tony though she and Tony would fight like any other siblings growing up Tony really liked Janus and admired how she stood up to their mother Janice was able to easily manipulate Tony even getting him to eat a dog tree when they were kids growing up Janice was very popular particularly with boys she attracted a lot of attention including from Richie April the older brother of Tony's best friend Jackie he's your boyfriend don't you remember me he used to yell at me for beeping my car horn when I came over to pick up Janice Champs peep she and Richie dated for a while before Richie was eventually arrested and sent to prison Janice did not get along with her parents she fought with Olivia constantly just like the rest of the children though her father Johnny doted on her when she was a little girl he later became controlling when she was a teenager and Janice felt that he picked on her like Tony she also saw the violence that their family was a part of and it instilled in her a Cutthroat instinct to survive my house it was Dog Eat Dog eventually Janice left home when she was 18. she spent her youth partying with bands and doing drugs before eventually Landing in an ashram on the West Coast there she changed her name to varvati Wasatch and became a practicing Hindu she's a cheese now it's a Hindu goddess nice for her sometime during this she traveled across Europe and married a Canadian man named Eugene together they had a son named Harpo who Eugene took with him to Canada when they broke up though Janus claims to have fought for her son we never see him on the show and it's hinted that she likely abandoned him Ma now again before we get into the defense I want to emphasize that Janice is an awful human being she does many Despicable things throughout the show the worst of which is gaslighting Bobby into marrying her by secretly tormenting his children there is no defense of her character from this but I do want to challenge some of the assumptions I think the audience makes about Janice and her actions throughout the series Janus is consistently portrayed as lazy and always looking for the easy way out one of the reasons for this is her tendency to fake or exaggerate injuries in Seattle she said to be living off of disability checks for the Epstein bar she developed from her coffee shop job later she would exaggerate the injuries she received at the festival in order to see compensation Tony would consistently mock her for this Behavior yeah with your carpal tunnel syndrome how you gonna hold a Beggar's cup I never begged a day in my life oh you're right you know fake disabilities don't count the real reason she even returns to New Jersey in the first place is to seek money through their mother though she claims to want to take care of her in reality she's squeezing what money she can from Tony and trying to find the money hidden in their mother's estate Tony knows this as she's done this her entire life you'll come right into town like some Vision to come lately trying to play the concerned daughter who the [ __ ] are you kidding you're just here to pick the freaking bones however I don't think her being characterized as lazy is correct in fact we know that she's actually very hard working having worked a number of different jobs over the years he mentions how she was a waitress at Kenny Rogers and we actually see her in the uniform also in that same scene when she picks up the phone she answers it as Ace garage showing that she's working some kind of other job on top of that even Tony is impressed with how many odd jobs Janice has seemingly worked you a mover yeah how many jobs you have in his lifetime enough to know I don't want another one rather than out of laziness her schemes are just a smart way to make quick and easy money and while that's not a great trait it's one she shares with her brother and the other members of the mob how many times throughout the series did we see Tony doing something small and Petty to make a quick Buck yet with them it's portrayed as just business see that's why you're a politician and not a businessman maximum value is the big picture just like with my defensive AJ video a lot of the negative traits the audience describes to Janus are really things that Tony has as well and in fact we're meant to see Janus as another version of Tony Mother of God Janice of all of you Sopranos the same in fact let's take a look at some of the bad things that Janice has done over the series and compare them to Tony she pushed Richie to have her own brother killed so he can take over his boss and provide for her sounds terrible but let's remember that Tony actually killed family members including Christopher who was like a son to him he had his reasons of course but just like with Janice they're just justifications so that he can do what's in his best interest I voted friends before even relatives she breaks up with Ralph by pushing him down the stairs right after he left a grieving Rosalie to be with her but a Ralph absolutely deserved that and B Tony left Valentina after she was burned making him some eggs and he also stole her from Ralph so again a scumbag thing to do even her manipulation of Bobby and his kids which was terrible isn't that different from the things Tony has done Tony has Vito Jr sent to a camp where he'll be beaten and abused because he decided to gamble away the money he was supposed to use taking care of Vito's Widow Marie his guidance counselor told me we're in Utah and Idaho because state law allows them to strike the kids but that's just for the deterrent Factor look and just like with Tony Janice also had struggles with her identity after leaving home at 18 she joined in ashram and changed her name this is usually seen as both very cringy and insincere considering that she later abandons the identity and becomes a born-again Christian later abandoning that Persona as well however it's all part of her quest to find an identity for herself it's consistently pointed out that Janice ran away from the problems of growing up soprano she tried to reinvent herself in the west literally creating a new name for herself and trying to leave everything from New Jersey behind you could never stand it here you could never stand yourself and that's why you've ran away her foray is into Christian rock music and eventually becoming a mob wife are all a part of this as well she's seeking an identity one that she can be comfortable in as we saw with Tony being a part of the mob and the soprano family isn't easy Tony himself at times wishes he could have run away like Janice but instead he chose to stay and devote himself to the family this is why he's so bitter towards Janice whom he's jealous of for having seemingly escaped their family then the trips over and she's back and she's one of us and she wants her peace well let me tell you she gets nothing because I got the scars so it's mine but try as Janice might she cannot escape the damage her family inflicted on her in fact by the end of the series she becomes exactly like her mother Livia she even has lines of dialogue that mirror Olivia exactly you don't know what goes through this mind of mine no one knows what goes on in my head milfy herself also points out that Janice's attraction to drama and misery are exactly like their mother as well [ __ ] a Janice attracts drama she she creams over to misery does she remind you of anyone interestingly her Hindu name Parvati is a goddess of fertility and motherhood even when she tried to create a new identity for herself it was inextricably tied to her relationship with her own mother my name's Janice Janice mom you named me it's something else you threw away of mine that or it's a reference to her body looking like a fertility goddess statue she doesn't have an earth equality You Gotta Give it that those big tits no disrespect and no again this similarity to Libya is definitely a negative trait it's one that Tony has as well he too took after their mother adopting many of the same habits as her he fixates on negativity constantly bringing it up to everyone around them and making them miserable and like Janice he too has dialogue that mirrors Olivia oh for you he talked to you oh poor you use herself also points out how much like Livia Tony really is I'm more like my dad and who Tony for example so what are you saying he's more like your mother again my point with all of this is not to say that Janice is a good person she is a horrible human being but she's just as horrible as all the people around her just like with AJ Janice and Tony are almost fundamentally the same person Tony just has his Persona as a mobster to disguise some of his negative qualities and if we're going to judge Janice for her shitty Behavior we should be more fair about how we apply that judgment to all of the other characters actually though she did use Ralphie's dildo on herself right after it had been in him so I take back everything I said she's the worst human being on the planet who I wonder what's French Canadian for like And subscribe Ops racing media Dazz Jake hit Sam cedarland Celery Man Jenna Marie Johnson Brad Smith Studios Uncle Mike Matt Joyce Countess Von zarovich and Luke p [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Pure Kino

Views: 78,516

Keywords: pure kino, kino

Id: u8vWM684RQE

Length: 11min 59sec (719 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 07 2023