If I asked anyone in this country if they would give up their everyday, nine-to-five, ordinary job to be a mob boss like Tony Soprano on the popular TV series The Sopranos, they would probably accept the offer without delay. Who would not want to be a mob boss, right? Who does not want power, money, and sex with girls in their twenties when you are fifty? The series The Sopranos is a great depiction of what the average person would believe the mafia life would involve, but I was shocked by the violence, sexual matter, and overall lack of morality of the characters in the show. Of course, the mafia isn't usually associated with anything straitlaced. The director of The Soprano's can make a show that portrays the most despicable individuals in our society and still allow me to actually like the characters in the series. In essence, when an element of society is being portrayed on television rather than it actually being real, the audience is not as shocked by the substance of the act because it is not real to them. .
Consider the main character of Tony Soprano. He is overweight, a racist, an adulterer, and a cold-blooded killer. How can anyone not absolutely love him? Most people watch the show because they do like Tony Soprano. Personally, I would be completely embarrassed if I were associated with him in reality, but when Tony kills someone, most people brush it off as if it were no big deal. Sometimes there is even humor written in murder scenes which would never be funny unless it were not real. I was brought-up to think of violence as a harmful and extremely consequential act in our society. It is the most horrible of acts that a person can commit. Yet murder is an almost expected part of every show. Think about reading an article about a person being found dead in a car trunk abandoned in a parking lot. The acts that the director portrays in the show are not that different from that in the article, but we are still entertained by senseless acts of violence.