The Sopranos | How Men Break Each Other (and Ourselves)

let me ask you a question you ever think about you know from 2000 US1 to 2007. the big man juggled being a dad and a husband you know Little League games college tours to giving her son a club I guess alongside Life as a high-ranking criminal gangster the world of The Sopranos is nihilism defined almost its own caricature of America at the turn of the 21st century there is no balance in this world between the good and life and the bad these people all can't stand each other politics and backdoor deals taking precedent over any sort of genuine Goodwill but this is where the show cements itself as a contender for the heavyweight championship of the world in its extension far beyond the scope of the mafia genre of film and television anchoring the core of its story on something more relatable to us on Washington masses the day-to-day struggle of everyday Human Relationships one of these struggles one of the most sobering of the show is a series long tale of male life do you feel like Frankenstein thing the conversation of what it means to be a man what dude entails how men should behave and act towards themselves and towards the people around them is one that many folks seem to desperately want to have nowadays and I'll be truthful it's my obligation I hate it I hate it I disagree with the premise that there's anything of impartial objective standards of existence so you can just apply the four billion individuals more people than our primate Minds were ever really built to comprehend each with their own goals values personalities and reason to be what they are not only that but the discourse itself is just so damned so this video isn't here to tell you how to be a man because I'm not your father and neither are any of these other dudes online who tell you they know the secret to being a man that the rest of us are just too dumb to figure out by ourselves the reason I'm making this video is that our media is a reflection of our culture and while watching The Sopranos you notice a commentary of men at the 30-second viral clips of dribble we see today could never dream of telling the men of this show or cursed to live in a hell of their own making men who ate themselves and the world around them men were surrounded in their lives by bullying degradation put downs and passive aggressiveness who take the abuse of the men above them and deliver to the men below men who spend their days ogling naked girls less than half their age men with zero respect for anybody who isn't straight zero respect for his family any fulfillment they get out of life is fleeting in Barren one day's gamble turns into a heartbreak index or as their substances run dry but that all just begs the question right why are they like this but I find that fans of the show unlike gender can be split into two distinct categories one disease powerful narcissistic criminals with Personalities in line with their criminal influences and the other that recognizes the idea surrounding violence ego and control taught to men as boys that underpin their personalities that so much of the way these men are the way their sons are is by no means limited to organized crime and can be seen as the natural expected culmination of the traditional old-fashioned conception of male life in that by endorsing this conception as well as the character traits that are pulled men only find themselves continuing a vicious self-reinforcing cycle of antagonism hostility factions infighting and distrust within male social organization now this is a pretty broad claim but don't you fret I'm gonna explain exactly what I mean and then you can meet a judge starting with the big man let's talk about how when it comes to so many of the problems men face we do it to ourselves and we do it to each other [Music] out of all the men in the world there's some 4 billion of us that are out there most would agree that Tony Soprano is a sad man a guy falls in love with his therapist this is not a controversial opinion what is controversial is the notion that in spite of all of his intelligence and Charisma in charge when it comes to what matters most Tony is also bad at being a myth he screams at his son for his grades his way to projecting his own self-hatred onto the kid from a young age he pathologically lies to his wife cheats on her for years and years he's almost incapable of building any sense of morale among his subordinates he can't help but sabotage anybody around him genuinely wanting to improve who they are if I got this offer then so do they that's his mentality like mother like son the Deep unhappiness the man settles into as his Baseline stayed and a destruction it causes not just to himself but also the people around him and his allies and his family is fueled by a belief that arguably every man in the show internalizes in some form that suffering is a fundamental property of being male that you suffer or conflict suffering is to be more of a man and to find fulfillment in life outside of suffering is to be less of a man now let's talk about suffering pain hardship whatever you want to call it human societies are largely taught regardless of gender that suffering builds character strength and courage particularly certain kinds of sufferings such as childhood trauma to take it a step further and to come to see hardship as an inherent good in your life something that the self deserves is also not inherent in any way to the socialization of men and boys women and girls will just as often seek out destructive experiences for a whole number of reasons the least of which being that she's convinced she deserves pain what I find largely unique to men is the manner in which we consistently form groups and organizations that are entirely based on this one principle how so many of the subcultures we create regardless of their content See the same common Foundation you do what you're told you take the degradation the bullying and the put-downs of the men above you in a totem pole and the most critical element of this Foundation your suffering becomes the currency by which you succeed as only if you put up with it enough pay your dues can you politic your way up the ladder but it'll be your turn to dish out the abuse would you cheer up one day some kid will be paid for your dinners for the rest of this video I'm gonna call this system paid hierarchy I don't entirely oppose hierarchy or a chain of command think of a parent and a child or a mentor and a pupil these are natural hierarchies that can exist alongside a healthy relationship between the people involved even group hierarchies say within a government can be very helpful paid hierarchy is something unique and I know that even this particular value set is in no way limited to men group hierarchies can form everywhere and once they do their Affairs can quickly devolve into Petty power trips and abuse from the top down depending on the values fostered the reason I make a distinction between women and men is because regardless of who inhabits the hierarchy the system itself the substance of the authority structure is defined by the proliferation of traditional male values traditional male expression the men at the top and in the middle are permitted by the rules of the game to express their man through dominance aggression while the men in the middle and at the bottom are allowed to express their man through a deference to Authority a willingness for labor and work however manile it might be but work nonetheless in Tony Soprano believes in this model to the fullest now before I go any further I still feel that some of you might think The Sopranos is an extreme example to use here no matter what I say the average everyday man is not part of organized crime which is why it's so important to remember that the hierarchy is founded on a series of traditional male traits a lot of men Believe In traditional male traits the consequences of this are that the paid hierarchy doesn't start or end with any one organization it is everywhere that men are from businesses office spaces and fraternities to sports teams governments and militaries take a male majority space and a belief in hierarchy put them together in nearly every time the paid pecking order forms the degree of abuse varying between them and in my humble opinion this model of social organization is one of the worst things to ever happen to men top 5 and minimum we're talking about a model that has single-handedly created billions of bloated egos doing so by creating either partial or entire immunity in anything the Manwich status in the system do to the men below them it creates an unrelenting power trip for the men with status in the system who would time adapt to the immunity they enjoyed leading not only to more flagrant and daring abuse but the development of volatile unpredictable personalities as these power Brokers get accustomed to being Untouchable to having next to no consequences for their actions against the men below them while the consequences of their now massive egos lead into the lives of their family the lives of the women that they know it rewards sycophanty and kissing us over a genuine Merit and skill as the higher ups inflated egos conditioned them to respond better to empty opportunistic flattery as opposed to solid work and results on their own and it relies on the undignifying of human life to survive through humiliation shame and pain all under the pretense of tough love simply put it establishes resentment as the basis for nearly all male relationships within the system now to supporters of paid hierarchy playing your role as a lesser man on a totem pole is just part of working up the ladder again we're gonna do your rookie doers man they may argue that the hierarchy is an important ritual for men a tradition after all the bosses right now were themselves no doubt treated like [ __ ] by the higher-ups when they were still paying their dues it's nothing personal it's just the rules of the game the rules of the game a key element of the rationale used by every single male dominated organization to ever adopt a paid hierarchy that's just the way things are done around here it's a tradition a belief in traditionalism and a belief in paid hierarchy naturally go hand in hand it's no coincidence that this hierarchy is often defended as the good old days especially by older men within fields of work where the value set has begun to fade the industries these men work in are deem not Petty and childish or Cutthroat while the bullying that its newbies endure the psychological breakdowns they suffer as a consequence are assumed to be integral to learning the skill set of their field and learning it well any claim to the contrary Messina's smug disrespect are you saying you know more about running a kitchen than one of the most successful chefs in the world of course I'm not saying that I don't know anything what I am saying is that building up a protege's confidence in her own abilities their ability to lead or otherwise play a role in a successful well-run organization is never best accomplished by tearing down their confidence and esteem and sense of self at every single turn the core reason why the paid hierarchy has shown a record of success is that because the rules of the system are fundamentally sound but because it forms an incredibly potent motivation for people to stick within the system not to leave it not being continuing the cycle if I can just tough it out enough you know if I can just stick with it eventually I'll be the one at the top and then it'll be my turn to dish out the abuse and to put somebody else what I went through to prove to myself that my suffering wasn't for nothing is like having the power of like a god or something and the only thing in my mind that I could imagine would go on through any pledge's mind is that whatever's being done to you you can't wait to get in to give it to the other person 50 000 times worse the Tony Soprano faction may have a common experience which can be quite effective in building consensus they still may hang out with each other play cards get drinks talk business but each and every one of them remembers when the others treated him like an animal and no matter how many rationalizations are conjured up from tough love to paying your dues resentment suspicion and bitterness towards each other hang over their heads for a reason foreign I've spoken quite a bit about traditionalism thus far how men perceive tradition and how we constantly appeal to tradition and rationalizing much of our petty angry and bitter behaviors what exactly is traditionalism it depends on who you ask there's that one line that famous line by Antonio summing up not just his attitude towards the past present and future but that of many it's good to be in something from the ground floor but lately I'm getting the feeling that I came in at the end the best is all again alfini uttered this line in 1999 the line was written in 96 and Tony believes it to the core the best is over Tony perpetually points back to his father's era as the Golden Age not just for his line of work but crucially in what I want to focus on for American society as a whole a time when the values of obedience and deference to Authority respect for rules and guardrails and a belief in gender essentialism that men are x women are why you play your role and you don't question it these values were propagandized to millions of American families by the culture around them on the other hand Tony laments the world he lives in he sees a country and particularly his country's men as fundamentally lost coddled and spoiled with no desire to toil to sacrifice and to pursuit of Greater goals or to abide by rules structure and discipline unlike the men of the past a bit surreal for him to think this way because today nearly three decades later or whenever you're watching this it's now 1996 that the people look back at when they think of the ground floor when Society was strong and durable rather than soft and curable politicians invoke the 90s and speeches of what they want to monitor in society and economy to look like the culture eats up 90s Nostalgia pieces of every form Throwbacks and reboots and movies television music nearly every pop cultural export that exists when one generation saw as the end and age of Decline and other Seas as the golden years in my opinion this forms a pretty Stark problem with the traditionalist mode of thought there's no core to its system no core tenants regarding what to do on Healthcare education poverty but served as valuable even sacred Traditions to one generation necessary to maintain the fabric of society becomes nothing more than a footnote in a textbook for the next the only constant a traditionalists believe is that the best is over a belief that can very quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy there's something to be said about Tony seeing 1999 as the end of days the throes of decline went over seven years later the big man is only more irritable and bitter and destructive than he ever was at the turn of the Millennium or indulgent in his addictions to alcohol gambling the sunny skies of 1999 with his crew hanging out in front of satrialis have been reduced to nothingness as he slowly picks off or drives away every single one of his people if one truly does believe that the best is over then they're incentive to build a better life going forward decline significantly after all a core Assumption of their life philosophy is that no matter what the broader social forces that are not just guiding them with people around on them will never ever be as good as they once were the only way Society can truly improve in the mind of the traditionalist is by returning to the core tenets of its past I mean what era does Tony look back on with pride what his father's done the golden era in his mind the six thieves to the 70s from what we can tell from the many Saints of Newark a time when men could be as controlling and abusive towards their families as desired with little to no social consequence a time when standards for male Behavior within the family Beyond authority figures are always right and make money were practically non-existent when marital rape was legal in every single U.S state when being gay was a mental disorder in the DSM when in explicit and perverse racial hierarchy was codified in too long when teaching evolution in schools would get you sent to court what are we talking about here I don't expect Tony Soprano to care about any of this stuff he's an old conservative Catholic man even if he wasn't a gangster the plight of his society's most vulnerable would not be on his mind but of course when it comes to anti-italian sentiment suddenly Tony becomes a crusader for social justice At The Mention Of a stereotype which is his right anti-italian Prejudice is 100 wrong but it does beg the question will Tony truly rather work and raise his family in an era when horrific anti-italian hatred was part and parcel of living in New England not only were the good old days Never As Good As Tony remembers but so much of the never-ending conflict he faces with the only people he chose any actual love for besides our boy Artie the conflict stems directly from him clinging to the values of a bygone era he temporarily loses the respect of his daughter after demeaning her boyfriend with racial slurs foaming the rift between the two that Tony himself doesn't ever seem to truly understand Noah was the worst I get that but not because of his skin color because he was insufferable Tony doesn't even take the time to learn he has a condescending personality even after Noah tries bonding with him in good faith over their shared love of film to Tony the only thing that matters is the noble is black and Meadow is white and that was considered heresy back in the day the big guy and his wife are at each other's throats every other week they're just spitting antithesis of a well-adjusted relationship Carmella is no saint but between these two apart from the fact that only one of them ever Stoops to the point of physically intimidating the other Far and Away the largest source of the conflict between them is that Tony clings to another tradition that the man kept the woman on the side and betrayed the trust of his wife and kids if he so desired you know my father you grew up around Dicky moltasanti and your Uncle Eddie where do you get off acting on surprised and miffed when they were women on the side you knew the deal is faith in you know deference to Authority forms the basis of his relationship with this so it's being quick to berate him or put him down anytime he shows a semblance of independent thought from his death now I get that his son was a little what's the right word unmotivated but the one time that AJ pulls out a book on his own accord rather than encourage and Foster his son finally developing his own inclination to learn about something incredibly important Tony shuts him down because to him obedience to the patriarch is more important for a son than developing ideas the father May disagree with and finally the case outside the world of Tony's empathy that I only bring up because it happens every single day in the real world Vito Jr his dad dies after lying to him for a month it's great about being a spy he gets the bullied out of him my kids out of school because his dad was unlucky enough to be gay in the 2000s isn't this kid like 10 naturally he begins to lash out and for all of Tony's problems with Phil he and Philip are united in their view of veto Junior as a spoiled brat in need of a smack across the mouth forget the fact that his dad was killed and after getting bullied merciless before his dad being killed all Tony and filthy is a boy dying his hair and disobeying their orders and as we know boys aren't supposed to do those things their plan of action to insult the kid to a bunch of grown men to tell him to be a man and when those don't work send him to a behavior modification Camp the politically correct way of saying remote to Corporal hellholes that were everywhere in the USA in the 90s and 2000s that ran on breaking down a child's sense of self Through Torture and then of course used the paid hierarchy to reward blind obedience and divide the boys amongst each other fostering in the boy a lifetime of resentment towards his mother for doing nothing as he was kidnapped from his own home these men failed the void in every possible way one of the greatest examples in the show of how much destruction a boy can face in his life simply because the wrong wrong men take it upon themselves to guide him we do it to ourselves and we do it to each other now I hear the people and some of them are saying the reason why men should look back at so much of our socialization over the last 80 years with skepticism and distance is because traditional conceptions of life they discourage us from showing emotions right they encourage us to put up walls around ourselves instead of opening up I disagree I don't think they're being more open with his emotions would have ever helped Tony Soprano whether or not somebody has a more stoic demeanor on a day-to-day basis whether or not they talk a lot about how they feel is in no way indicative of whether or not they have empathy for people who are unlike them the core fault in the good old days that Tony Soprano reviews is that the days hammered into the minds of men and boys that they should cling to control and become resentful when control is inevitably denied to them using intimidation or violence to get that control back to abide by vague appeals to tradition no matter to social costs and of course it has zero space for men and boys who don't fit the preordained mold made for them by generations of men that came before them men that they will never meet and never know the contradiction between what Tony as a father believes and the simple reality of 1990s America where social controls are nothing like what they used to be and where his wife daughter son are no longer socially conditioned into believing in pure obedience to a patriarch is that conflict follows him everywhere he and his family go fights screaming matches even more screaming matches Tony is rendered helpless to ever understand his family in a deeper visceral level do you ever see them as holistically human as he sees himself directly by the broad social norms that he continues to hold on to so dearly Chris Griffin is often cast as the tragedy of the soprano so misunderstood victim of paid hierarchy of Tony Soprano's favoritism and of his cruelty caught in a life that he never truly wanted I like the character a lot but it's hard for me to share much sympathy for characters like his 30 years old in 1999 a grown ass man yeah not grown as can be but old enough to have agency over his own decisions a petty childish boy a violent one too and battering innocent civilians and his fiance alike on multiple occasions the moment you do something like the latter and it's not in response to them hitting you you can't be seen as a victim first you just can't in a true tragedy of Christopher's story isn't that he falls down a Bad Rabbit Hole but that he chooses to jump down Miss Rabbit Hole he doesn't want to learn from the mistakes of the Menda came before him he wants to emulate the man the game before him and for a moment following in their footsteps seems to be working out okay for Chrissy he leverages his connection to the big man to rise faster in the organization than so many of the men around him he recognize the anger and sadness that the surroundings bring him but of course he's been taught his whole life that the petty high school style suffering elendor is necessary to becoming a real man in this world so he sticks around even when given a chance at a clean break it isn't until Christopher diverts from Tony's core idea of what a man is that Tony truly begins to hollow his mind from the inside out and push Christopher off the deep end foreign for all of Tony's intelligence and his moments of self-awareness his conception of man is completely unequipped to manage the problem of addiction not only does he endlessly indulge his own addictions as The Gambler that Kenny Rogers warned us all about but when it comes to Christopher's addiction he is incapable of sticking to any semblance of consistency one second he's paying for his rehab and tough loving Christopher into sobriety the next side eye and Christopher for drinking the cream soda Christopher has no way of winning this situation he says it himself of course you drink with one hand judges you with the other if you take and he's not alone it's quite common to find this thought process among more traditional men many of whom were taught all their lives that addiction is a moral failure the Bedrock of this line of thought particularly among men is resentment towards the loss of control that recognizing an addiction signifies especially a loss to what would be considered base impulsive one can easily enshrine masculinity in the notion of sacrificing to a greater good but sacrificing to the irritability and shows running up and down your body that's a vulnerable spot to be in and so being a high functioning addict or just pretending the addiction doesn't exist at the very least keeps the performance of control together even if the actual substance of control is wholly lacking I don't say any of this to excuse to harm Christopher did when he was on heroin he killed Adriana's dog he battered her once more I mean my goodness she was such a victim of this piece of garbage addiction can't excuse such things nothing can but his story is exhibit a both of how sadistic men create other sadistic men and about shaming somebody for addiction can make the problem itself so much worse as well not every traditional man believes addiction isn't real many of them do and it only takes a few power Brokers and one group to perpetuate the notion that we can all drink booze without turning to something harder and always being in control or putting on a performance of control and then losing your mind when no one's looking is just a rule of being a real man when I was using I was a disgrace now I'm sober and I'm a drip the [ __ ] you want from me it's about being normal that's all [ __ ] hot and that when a man inevitably Falls outside that Norm or any Norm that the group regards as true masculinity he is to be ostracized humiliated and shamed by the entire faction until he conforms and even more when he does conform because hey they've still gotta bully him for having the audacity to try and organize his life according to his values as opposed to theirs then in the end it's that realization of Christopher's that no matter how much money he makes for Tony no matter how much he tries to mend Bridges and coexists with the crew that their long-standing traditions of heavy drinking and breaking balls will always come before any genuine care that any of these guys may have for him that realization is what pushes him off the deep end the desire for guidance on how to be male that young men often experience it's not in any way an unreasonable desire but the wrong advice from the wrong man is also a central factor in why so many self-destructive attitudes and just destructive attitudes in general remain embedded within male life today as in order for men to undo them we work against the status quo that had been the norm for Generations passed down from one father and son to the next a set of values that throughout this time became entrenched within a myriad of powerful social institutions from organized religion in the workplace to the family unit itself we work against images and veneers of success Prosperity seeing wealthy powerful men and being told that if you adopt his misogyny his aggression his power trips or his willingness to bully that you will succeed to rather than his work ethic intelligence skill set or discipline and we work against the reality of group psychology and of power dynamics as countless men around the world living in environments that can't practically control often live around men who see any challenge to the traditional conception of man such as empathy for women or a belief that addiction is more complicated than thinking about it going away as weakness in its purest form no matter how unreasonable the accusation may be no matter how unfounded it may be in reality shame isn't all-powerful tool that targets exactly to trait the men are socially conditioned to Foster and grow at all costs that being Pride but with all of that said it is without a shadow of a doubt work that is well worth doing I don't expect the billions of us to overnight change our deeply ingrained assumptions about masculinity and ego and empathy what we can aim for is cultural change in that direction as a function of everyday men willing to move the culture within our day-to-day interactions with and assumptions about others The Sopranos aside this is something I would like to give as a own full length video two in time but for now five dollars a pound call it a plot twist [Music] [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Ali Nisah

Views: 17,220

Keywords: the sopranos, how men break each other, leftist, video essay, ali nisah, men, man, tony soprano

Id: hzk3NvvEaI8

Length: 25min 20sec (1520 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 26 2023