Violence and Therapy in The Sopranos
Violence and Therapy in The Sopranos
During its five seasons, the television series The Sopranos, which premiered in 1999 on HBO, has offered an emphatically realist account of organised crime in a fictional New Jersey mob family. Its central character, Tony Soprano, is a successful mob boss with a problem — his panic attacks and general depression require him to visit a therapist. Acts of brutal violence are therefore contrasted with moments of reflection and introspection. As several commentators have pointed out, the concentration on those characters associated with, but not active within, the mob, is part of the show's innovation in combining the melodrama of the domestic with the traditions of the gangster genre. As the seasons progress, there is a particular aspect that rises to increasing prominence. This is the issue of impulsivity. Tony Soprano's panic attacks force him to attend therapy whether he likes it or not because his existence as a capable leader appears under threat. In having one of the characters as a therapist The Sopranos was able to explore issues of personal responsibility, impulse control and criminality.
Keywords: The Sopranos, television series, organised crime, mob, panic attacks, violence, therapy, impulsivity, criminality, personal responsibility
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