The Sopranos

Sometimes Tony Soprano is the bad guy, sometimes he's the good guy.

Well, I mean... he's always the bad guy, right? But from time to time, his character and circumstance makes us forget about all of the horrifying things that he does for a living and we decide that he is a sympathetic, nice or even (gasp) honorable character. We place our long term feelings of right and wrong on the back burner, because there are more pressing issues; Circumstances that must be overcome, and ends that don't quite justify the means, but are close enough to give him a break.

Here's the thing though... we don't believe that Tony is inherently evil because there is no such thing. We see the good in Tony because we are given a chance to see that side of him through the magic of television (and our addiction to it). If you had only ever seen one episode of the Sopranos, you may come to the conclusion that Tony is an evil guy and that's it. However, although familiarity breeds contempt with people where the expectation is for them to be good; the opposite is true for those that the expectation is to be evil. What does this all mean? Well, in the end it means that after spending 6 seasons (over 85 hours!) with Tony Soprano, we get to know him on a less superficial level and realize that in the end, he is just a person like you or I and has the same weaknesses, prejudices and viewpoints.

So ok, so what. Well, tuck all that away in the back of your head for the moment.

Tony Soprano knows that enemies come in all shapes and sizes. They can be big and well defined enemies (like the FBI), or they can be smaller and not so well-defined depending on the situation (New York). Tony is smart though. He knows that the most dangerous enemy of all is the one that resides within the ranks. The Adrianna's, the Christopher's, the Jimmy's the Big Pussy's, the Paulie's (close on many occasions to betrayal); They all were on the inside and had the potential to cause the most damage to Tony and his crew at any time because they had the information on how to manipulate the system, they had trust and they had the element of surprise. Because they had the benefit of the doubt and Tony would think that any action by them would have benevolent motives they are clearly the greatest threat to Tony's way of life. They could manipulate him in order to advance their agenda as well as turning on him completely.

One person that Tony was not worried about was Little Carmine. Tony knew that Carmine was too far removed to pose any significant risk. His respect within the community was low, and did not have the time invested into the organization to have enough knowledge to be powerful. He was not a threat, so he was not thought about too much until he was useful to Tony.

In case you haven't picked up on this yet, there is a point to all of this.

In the first statement I made about Tony being perceived as evil, Tony is the outside world. Tony is Iran, Tony is Iraq, Tony is communism and Tony is Mexico. We perceive these things to be evil because we expect them to be evil, but if we push away the dirt and start to understand the reason why Tony is the way he is we can not only start to fix the problems that exist, but also achieve a greater understanding of others and hence, ourselves as well. If we take the time to understand something rather than demonize it, we can see it for what it is, the good and the bad, weigh those 2 factors and make a decision on it based on a complete picture.

Now with the second spiel, Tony is America. Tony has all kinds of different friends, enemies and some enemies that masquerade as friends. Sometimes we become so consumed with what is covered in the media, we forget about the big picture. We see brown people on the television, or talking heads referring to the "terrorists in Iran" and we not only take it to be fact, but we start to form opinions in our head of who "our" enemies are. Iran is Carmine, not a threat and by giving them the attention that we do, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Chaos is New York, encompassing terrorism, economic uncertainty and aggressive foreign relations. New York is against us, but the line is blurred between when we advocate them and are against them, depending on our viewpoint at the time.

Lastly, as you would suspect, our own people; politicians, media, and US citizens are the Adrianna's, the Big Pussy's and the Jimmy's. They are the most dangerous enemy because they have the ability to manipulate us in intricate or overt ways and never be recognized for what they are until its too late. So, to you who would say that Iran or Al Qaeda is our biggest concern, think again.

In short, we need to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves.