SOPRANOS

Sopranos

Sopranos

Recent crime series, especially those on cable networks, have presented morally ambiguous characters in series with high levels of graphic violence. Such series include Oz (HBO, 1997-2003), The Wire (HBO, 1997-2003), and The Shield (FOX, 2002), about a special unit in the Los Angeles Police Department (Kocela, 2008). In these series, it may be that race/ethnicity is less relevant to the viewing audience than the enjoyment of the moves and counter-moves engaged in by the characters. However, when a series is set in a maximum security prison [Oz), the city of Baltimore [The Wire), or Los Angeles [The Shield), one of the questions that should be of interest to researchers is how the series negotiates the terrain. For example, does the series offer an accurate presentation of an urban inner city? Does the series attempt to avoid stereotypes and allow the characters to be complex regardless of race/ethnicity? Or, for example, on a show about White ethnic protagonists, such as HBO's The Sopranos (1999-2007), about an Italian American Mafia family, how was race “coded”? (Mastro, 2008)

There are two types of television crime shows: fictional and reality based. Fictional crime shows have a longer history on television, with the first crime shows airing in the 1950s. Themes in fictional crime television include depictions of police work (e.g., Dragnet, The Closer), legal processes (e.g., Perry Mason, Law & Order), specialised criminal investigations (e.g., Man Against Crime, Magnum, P.I.), and the lives of criminals (e.g., The Sopranos). Violent crimes, though rare events in real life, are overemphasised in fictional television crime shows. Crime victims in these shows are most often White. While young males are the most likely victims of crime in real life, crimes with female victims are more often depicted on television; the majority of female victims on television are victims of violent crimes such as sexual assault (Surette, 2006). In fictional crime shows, Blacks are underrepresented as perpetrators of crimes in comparison to their rates in official crime statistics.

The ultimate representation of the benevolent shtetl mother for Americans is Molly Goldberg's (Gertrude Berg) The Rise of the Goldbergs, a radio show from 1929-46 that morphed into a television show from 1949-55. It isn't until the Rhoda TV show 20 years later that Jewish women in a leading role were once again depicted, this time as a mother who represented disharmony in the home and disjointedness between parent and child (Kocela, 2008).

Scanning the racks of publications at Borders, numerous widespread topics appear. Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey appear to be the hottest twosome, The Sopranos appears to be the hottest TV display, the 9/11 hearings are the hottest thing in government, and Mel Gibson takes the helm as the foremost of nearly every other category. It was tough to find a publication which integrated no one of these, but they are out there. Searching for clues of gender functions and racial ideals is shown blatantly on the cover of nearly every lone topic of every publication on the racks (Surette, ...