Dear Judith,
Nice e-mail. I’m glad to see you’re ending this exchange without busting a cap in my ass.
OK–Carmela Soprano is Hillary Clinton? I want to run this one by Chatterbox.
You’ve got it exactly right–it’s evident from the first episodes of the new season that the writers have lost interest in Carmela, which is a tragedy, because, as you put it so well (have you ever thought of taking up a career in writing?), Tony’s sister Havarti, or whatever she’s called, is an “epic drag.”
Your observations about Carmela, and your questions about Meadow and Anthony junior, her two children, bring us to one of the more interesting subtopics in mobology: What do the families know, and how do they live with what they know?
The answer, especially to the second question, is mostly unknowable to outsiders. I have never spoken to a child of a mobster who said, straight-out, yeah, my father’s a made man, and I’m not going to cover-up for him anymore. Even when the father’s are dead, the children still lie. One of Paul Castellano’s sons (a completely legitimate guy, as far as I could tell), told me that there is no such thing as organized crime, and that his father was set up by the government the same way Clinton was set up. Mob families (not Families, but actual nuclear families) are among the most dysfunctional on the planet–they lie, they wear masks on top of masks, and they live off dirty money. I remember sitting with Vicky Gotti one day last year, asking her what she thought her father really did for a living. Remember–this is years after her father was convicted of being the boss of the Gambino family. No one in America today believes that John Gotti was a simple plumbing-supply salesman. But all she could come up with was this: “There’s more to my father than people know.” I asked her what she meant. She said, “There’s two sides to this story.” I asked her to explain further: “It’s just more complicated than what you think.” She will never be able to say what she knows: that her father was boss. And yet, here’s the irony: I don’t think she’s embarrassed by her father’s career choice. In fact, after spending some time with her, I came to believe that she sincerely loves him, even worships him.
By the way, I don’t think Meadow Soprano bought her father’s cover story at all. She’s the one who explained to Anthony junior what their father really did for a living. I think you’re right, though: If Meadow heard the unadorned truth, she would be miserable. You may also be right that Meadow is on the verge of becoming the next great female character. But I’m waiting for Anthony junior (there I go again, dissing the female characters) to ask his father when he’s going to be a made guy.
This is the acid test of mob character, as I said before: He who makes his own son–instead of keeping him far away from the gangster life–is considered the ultimate scumbag. Carlo Gambino, one of the greats, would never induct his own sons. Only after Carlo died did his sons get made. Sammy the Bull tells a great story: When John Gotti, bursting with pride, told Vincent “Chin” Gigante that he had just made John junior, Gigante said that he was sorry to hear it.
Talk about a great story line for The Sopranos: I’d love to see how Tony Soprano reacts if and when his son asks to join the business. Tony Soprano is an upwardly mobile gangster, so one assumes he’d recoil in horror, but I’m sure the writers of The Sopranos could do something interesting with this. (Despite my disappointment with the new season so far, I have a great deal of faith.)
Judith, it’s been great doing this piece of work (as the button men would say) with you. I find you to be quite lovable, for an intellectual herring.
Jeff
