Ethical Uplift, "Not for Nuthin" Charles J

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Criticism

Volume 51 | Issue 2 Article 7

2009 Ethical Uplift, "Not For Nuthin" Charles J. Stivale Wayne State University

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Recommended Citation Stivale, Charles J. (2009) "Ethical Uplift, "Not For Nuthin"," Criticism: Vol. 51: Iss. 2, Article 7. Available at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/criticism/vol51/iss2/7 ETHICAL UPLIFT, Dana Polan’s The Sopranos—the fi rst volume of Spin Offs in the “NOT FOR NUTHIN” established Duke University Press Charles J. Stivale series The Console-ing Passions— presents the challenge to readers, and especially to viewers/fans, of The Sopranos by Dana Polan. how one might read, understand, Durham, NC: Duke University and interpret a popular media Press, 2009. Pp. 232, 29 product in the age of corporate illustrations. $74.95 cloth, marketing strategies and commer- $21.95 paper. cial tie-ins and spinoffs. Through- out a two-part study—the fi rst part devoted to “The Sopranos on Screen,” the second to “The Sopra- nos in the Marketplace”—Polan suggests that no nonironic, non- problematized, thus no simple interpretation is possible especially of a series created by writers and pro- ducers who deliberately exploited the show’s ironic content and shift- ing cultural status. In the prologue, Polan focuses on the controversial nonending of The Sopranos’s fi nal episode as a way to emphasize two main foci of the study: on one hand, series features and motifs (part I) that engendered such fervent audience involvement over a decade and reactions to the nonending, and, on the other hand (in part II), the life of the series after its purported end via new media products, including the web. Focusing on the apparent narrative inadequacies of the series’ nonending, Polan argues that many fans fell into several interpretive traps: most notably, they confused narrative levels—“the fi ction ver- sus its fabrication and its narra- tion” (5)—and, by demanding to Criticism, Spring 2009, Vol. 51, No. 2, pp. 339–348. ISSN: 0011-1589. 339 © 2009 Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI 48201-1309. 340 CHARLES J. STIVALE know what “happened next,” they The different motifs addressed implicitly denied that Tony So- in the “on screen” section I include prano “exists inside a fi ctional narrative strategies (in chapter 2; context that has creators behind it” for example, the mix of stand-alone (5). Another trap is that “the show stories with continuous serial itself had already made clear that tales, and expansion strategies via no such end would probably be backstory, unforeseen interactions, fully satisfying within its frame- and new characters), the complex work” (6) by deliberately situating role played by food (in chapter 3, the developing story with refer- linking nutrition to memory and ences to other, comparable cultural also revealing how the insignifi - products—for instance, Martin cant detail could gain signifi cance Scorsese’s Goodfellas and The God- through later narrative deploy- father fi lms—that The Sopranos ment), and the concomitant role would evoke, but not imitate. Also, played by forgetfulness (in chapter to this strategy of “refusal to satisfy 4; that is, how plotlines disappeared the viewers’ easy expectations,” and also how character develop- Polan connects David Chase’s in- ment seemed to be undone as a debtedness to modernist European character remained locked into cinema, yielding an experimental cycles of repetition of familiar be- creative thrust, “a practice of popu- havior). In contrast to this repeti- lar modernism . . . blending the tive pattern, in chapter 5, Polan comforts of the already known borrows the concept of “late style” with the challenges of the boldly from Theodor Adorno and Ed- new” (9). Hence, the audience ward Said to describe The Sopranos had been set up by this “work of as a manifesto of “the sentiment popular culture deeply invested in that [artworks] have literally ar- irony, but an often playful one rived late on the scene of history caught up in the undoing of each and that there’s nothing affi rma- and every certainty [one might] try tive left to be said” (65)—hence, to formulate about the show” (9). belatedness both biologically (for Finally, alongside these complex the individual) and historically creative strategies, Polan situates (for a society). The overarching the series’ status within the grow- thematics of the loss of moral ing corporate mediaverse as a mar- certainty—for example, Tony So- ket commodity, as a sociocultural prano’s reverence for the lost hero- signpost (extending even into the ism of Gary Cooper and disdain 2004 presidential race), and as an for the growing culture of victim- intersection of “not only meaning- ization—result in a series “peopled fulness and substance, but also [of] with characters who seem out of hipness, newness and cutting-edge sync, stuck in a time out of joint” innovation” (15). (66). These thematics of loss also ON POLAN’S THE SOPRANOS 341 engage issues of physical decay “upscale,” “liberal do-gooder,” and (bodies losing strength, vigor), and “possess[ing] disposable income”— Polan ironically reads this belated- gets set up as seeking to “fl irt with ness as a caution not to read too taboos and to push the envelope of much into the series’ “seeming dis- propriety,” while HBO can pro- play of deep meaning” (69), noting duce what such viewers might the ways that the show can operate value as “high-quality TV even as “in the register of farcical defl ation, it eschewed many of the imputed reiterating that there may be some- foundations of such quality in pro- thing both sad and laughable about found drama, moral uplift, deep the destiny of seriousness in ironic seriousness, and liberal responsi- times” (71). bility” (85). Although Polan ends Polan shifts the reading strategy the chapter there, this apparent di- signifi cantly in chapter 6, address- gression into narrative-as-gaming ing the viewers’ experience of The allows him to pull the veil away Sopranos as a mode of gaming, as and impute viewers’ inherent bad they learn “how to assemble the faith and hypocrisy. In this sense, data of a vast fi ctional universe that while the chapter’s title is “Gaming requires one to remember plot The Sopranos,” it’s the viewer who details and character interrelation has gotten gamed by HBO and across vast stretches of episodic through this analysis. narrativity” (73). While this focus The shift away from a tight fo- does divert the reading somewhat cus on series’ features and motifs from the “on screen” thematics, continues henceforth: in both chap- Polan takes up the gaming strate- ter 7 (“Getting High in The Sopra- gies in order to question, in the nos”) and 8 (“Qualifying ‘Quality chapter’s concluding paragraphs, TV’”), Polan’s concern is the para- the show’s relationship to its target doxical status of a popular media audience. That is, the narrative-as- product as representing so-called gaming approach yields a vicarious quality TV, a term in media studies experience (a kind of Second [view- for “shows of supposed high value” ing] Life, as it were) through which (86). Hence, in chapter 7, the “The Sopranos enables the urban “getting high” in the title refers sophisticate a chance to slum, an only incidentally to drug use and opportunity to throw off propriety primarily to culture in terms of the and fl irt with a scandalous and art-house form of The Sopranos even dangerous world,” since this (due to the infl uence of European work of popular culture “provides cinema on producer David Chase), a temporary, ludic space to indulge notably, the sobriety of style, the in political incorrectness” (85). Yet theatrical infl uence on the produc- again, ironies abound since the tion, and idiosyncratic, even mys- target viewer—cast by Polan as terious scenes (like the many dream 342 CHARLES J. STIVALE sequences; Christopher’s near-death gaming and quality TV comple- view of hell as an Irish bar; and mented and enriched the already Tony’s coma-induced visions and stimulating analysis of features subsequent peyote trip in the Ne- and motifs (chapters 2–5), chapter vada desert). Polan’s key point 10 comes off as a rather high- returns yet again: all of these traits minded and, indeed, peculiar “may hint at meaning but never imitation of The Sopranos’s “pierc- deliver it up since their real power ing [of] the pretensions of high lies in their performance of style art,” in this case, contra the critics and look” (99). Then, in chapter 8, thereof. Polan’s complaint is that Polan locates The Sopranos within critics (notably, authors of “a half the TV medium’s search for qual- dozen or so academic books on ity initiated by the tradition of HBO’s The Sopranos,” Polan’s American golden age televised emphasis) treat the show “as a ve- dramas of the 1950s. Polan also hicle for real-life issues and claim explores, in chapter 9, another as- that the show’s emotional and pect of quality TV in the medium’s intellectual appeal stems from early decades, specifi cally the do- traffi cking in such topics” (114). mestic sitcom that had a strong in- Although Polan admits that such fl uence on The Sopranos, with the issues do serve as “signposts that added twist, of course, that in The audiences recognize and can lock Sopranos, the depiction consists of into,” his objection is that these are intersections of two families, do- really “recognizable big issues that mestic and Mafi a. Polan concludes bring one into the work but that chapter 9 by emphasizing that any serve ultimately as free-fl oating attempt to separate The Sopranos’s motifs in a playful environment quality from the popular culture where proper morality is suspended and comedy to which the show and where willful ambiguity is owes so much would constitute exploited” (115). While Polan seems “a rearguard action, the quite blissfully unperturbed that this unintended comedy of an often statement is, in itself, an interpre- university-based criticism” (112). tation, he provides undaunted a This rather surprising sneer list of ways academic critics fall signals Polan’s segue to chapter 10, short, for example, through re- “Against Interpretation,” an un- petitiveness and a “discourse of necessarily lengthy meditation on obviousness,” and often by inap- (and against) his already developed propriately applying standards of point that “mak[ing] too much of political correctness (notably, re- the meaning of things would be to garding ethnic stereotyping). run the risk of overinterpretation” So, while distancing himself (113). Whereas Polan’s shift of fo- from such purported misreadings cus in chapters 6 through 9 toward of The Sopranos, he carefully hedges ON POLAN’S THE SOPRANOS 343 his critical bets: “The point is not that includes regular psychother- so much that any reading is the apy, references to fi lm and literary correct one but that the critic needs analysis, and, of course, an array of to be attentive to the complexities dream sequences, as well various of the means by which The Sopra- “culture mavens,” aka (says Polan) nos incorporates issues and themes “veritable sanctimonious creeps” into its plots as ambiguous motifs (130), the series undoes the powers that can be read and evaluated in of high culture to endow “higher numerous ways” (117), a statement qualities of ethics and discern- to which I return below. Polan ment” by “portray[ing] cultural chastises “most scholarly interpret- capital as something urban profes- ers of The Sopranos” for having sionals fl aunt smugly as one more sought “fi rm moral lessons in the tool of power, infl uence, scheme- show . . . as if the only way to le- making, and condescension toward gitimate serious scholarly attention others” (130). The real caution for to the series is to attribute a sort of viewers and (mis)interpreters of all ethical uplift to it” (120). Not that stripes is that “The Sopranos, then, The Sopranos does not raise moral may be sardonically postmodern issues “that scholars claim to fi nd in its cynicism about progress and in it. It does, indeed, constantly the rationalists who believe in it raise them, but not in a way that and who want their art and culture can be readily resolved” (123). to offer uplifting, deeply serious Yet, Polan provides little evidence lessons about it” (132). that anyone, scholars or others, So, as we turn to the fi nal chapter actually seeks to resolve any such in part I (chapter 11, “New Jersey issues at all. Dreaming”), the reader has been Still, the real issue for Polan duly warned not to be pretentious seems to be the manner in which enough to seek depth or serious- postmodern cultural products defy ness or, at least, to be cautious in interpretative strategies, since doing so. Yet, in a chapter that “postmodern works not only are would have been better placed about the diffi culties of fi nal mean- among the early ones (on the series’ ings, but they often directly repre- features and motifs), Polan returns sent the ill-fated encounter between to the thematics of a “New Jersey interpreter and text by staging of the mind,” “the artifi ce of escap- scenes where interpreters fail at ism, even as a darker anxiety lurks making meaning” (124). That is, below” (134). This chapter deals works like The Sopranos are savvy really with how the characters, both by showing “the pretense of like us, try to construct a reality interpretation at work” and by that protects them from “fallen, “gently mock[ing] the activity” degraded realities” that surround (125). Given the narrative structure us/them through postmodern 344 CHARLES J. STIVALE culture’s turn to “sardonic laughter” media economies of today” (154). (136). Notable here, says Polan, is Polan’s review of the bus tour helps “the interplay of ‘gorgeousness’ him advance his conclusions re- and ‘garbage’” (136), human waste garding this “market of wannabe products and detritus opposing parasitism” around the series: “Just “any notion of a nostalgic gor- as the show depicts in its story geousness” (137). Hence, New world both the profi table activity Jersey stands as the quintessential of the Mafi a (and the Mafi a house- locus of dilapidation, of waste, of wives) and the envy of those who the crass, and to this dismal vision have a fascination with that activ- corresponds the nonending with ity and want to glom onto it, . . . which Polan began the study: “The so too does the show itself, as eco- Sopranos at least recognizes an end nomic and cultural fact, captivate to fantasy, recognizes the limits of onlookers and encourage hangers- comfort, recognizes the inadequa- on to want to profi t from it” (161). cies of nonstop consumption, . . . In chapter 14 (“Cashing In on hint[ing] at a larger world of issues the Game”), he reports on how and responsibilities beyond its fi c- the local New Jersey Star-Ledger tion, even as it may refuse to offer served as a kind of unoffi cial pro- any clear path through them” (141). motional device for the production Various issues relating The So- of successive seasons of the series. pranos to the marketplace already However, this journal was emulat- appeared in part I, and Polan fully ing (or serving as model for) acti- takes up this focus in part II. Con- vities of various North Jersey tending that “The Sopranos meets residents also seeking to benefi t up with its fans in specifi c locales— from the show’s existence, and from bus tours to ivory towers— Polan very cannily fi nds a device to and each of these gives the show show how the fi ction mirrors real- new value” (145), Polan presents (in ity. For, in the montage from the chapter 12, “Tie-Ins and Hangers- last episode of season 2 in which On”) and chapter 13 (“Touring the celebration at Meadow Sopra- Postindustrialism) his tale of no’s graduation party is intercut taking The Sopranos bus tour in with scenes of illicit, Soprano North Jersey, as well as a brief re- Mafi a-family activity “that drama- view of Sopranos-related products tizes economics as an ever-expanding (DVDs, paraphernalia, pinball ma- network that eventually will draw chines, various kinds of books, and everyone into its sphere of infl u- especially cookbooks). However ence for better or for worse, for “goofy” these tie-ins and ancillary economic advancement or decline” products may be, they tell us (166)—the tie-ins (books, bus tour, “something serious about the etc.) similarly participate “in the workings of popular culture in the informal economy around the ON POLAN’S THE SOPRANOS 345 authorized transactions the show Hollywood” (187). Moreover, as engages in” (172). Polan concludes the chapter, the As he nears the end of the study, success of The Sopranos incited Polan presents chapter 15, which network and cable outlets to seek more formally considers “Cable comparable success through imita- and the Economics of Experimen- tion, fueled by a kind of “HBO tation,” making the not-surprising envy” across the industry. point that HBO, rather than being By following this lengthy anal- in this series for the art (at least not ysis of popular media and corpo- primarily), was in it for the money. rate interests with a mere two-page To do so, HBO attracts a certain fi nal coda (chapter 16, “This Thing quality (aka demographic) of viewer of Ours”), Polan underscores one as subscriber, but does so without of three objections I have to this needing to please advertisers, hence challenging but ultimately disap- engaging “in broader-based mar- pointing study. First, slipshod keting through sex, sleaze, and editing seems to account for the violence as much as uplifting qual- two-page fi nale that actually be- ity” (176). Despite HBO execu- longs within chapter 12, on tie-ins, tives’ denial of calculated strategies and the book would certainly have to enhance the cultural appeal of benefi ted from an actual conclud- The Sopranos, Polan points out the ing chapter synthesizing both parts link between HBO subscription of the study. Other editing anoma- and upcoming seasons of the series, lies include the lengthy chapter 15, product placement within the se- which would have better served (in ries, and also the “cable futures” of edited form) as the introductory the show, for example, through its chapter, thereby grounding subse- syndication in expurgated format quent analyses within the broad on the A&E channel. Not that industry framework. The long The Sopranos typifi ed the HBO footnote 1 in chapter 1 (198–200), auteur-ist series (this honor fell to on the relationship between post- Larry David, according to the Los modernism and narrative, would Angeles Times columnist Paul have been better suited within the Brownfi eld [182]). But by situating text. And which keen editorial eye The Sopranos “within the larger let this parenthetical assertion into context of a media industry that print, that in The Godfather part 1, is endlessly testing the waters of as a result of the assassination social taste at large” (183), Polan attempt early in the fi lm, “Vito suggests how The Sopranos gained [Corleone] eventually dies of his “an aura of cinematic resistance wounds” (21)? Were this so, all of to standard television screen im- Vito’s subsequent efforts to counsel ages” (185) and served “as a fi tting Michael Corleone and the famous symptom of cutting-edge New heart attack in the tomato patch 346 CHARLES J. STIVALE would have occurred from beyond presenting certain narrative ele- the grave. ments while omitting others, and The missing conclusion and drawing conclusions based on less, questionable editing correspond to rather than more, information. my second objection regarding One example is Polan’s use of the the book’s incompleteness, in that scene of psychotherapy (season 3, Polan misses several kinds of tele- episode 3, “Favorite Son”) in which visual evidence that would have the therapist, Jennifer Melfi , tries bolstered different points. Notably, to help Tony understand the trig- given his discussion of the series’ ger for his panic attacks (the sight relationship to Hollywood culture, of freshly cut meat) with a com- on one hand, and the deliberate parison to Proust’s madeleine. narrative references to the movie Whereas Polan (and many online industry, on the other, Polan inex- citations of this particular scene) plicably omits any reference to the limit the reference to Tony’s reply, hilarious season 6-I, episode 7, “This sounds very gay,” the con- “Luxury Lounge,” during which clusion Polan draws is altogether Christopher and Little Carmine unsatisfactory, that “Melfi ’s learned Lupertazzi visit Los Angeles and allusion and Tony’s disdainful re- court Sir Ben Kingsley for a role sponse fl it up and fl oat away in in their slasher/mob fi lm, Cleaver relative insignifi cance” (50). On the (with Christopher and his Alcohol- contrary, the information gleaned ics Anonymous buddy, Murmur from this scene constitutes it as a Zancone, then mugging Lauren major (not minor) turning point Bacall for her luxury lounge swag). for the viewers’ (and characters’) Polan also omits discussion of the understanding of the narrative premiere of Cleaver (season 6-II, backstory, as well as the subsequent episode 1, “Soprano Home Movies”) narrative. and the tie-in video, with the bonus Another example of an inter- DVD feature “Making Cleaver.” pretive lapse is Polan’s reference to Another objection links to the Vito Spatafore Jr. subplot (good such incomplete detail, specifi cally kid turned Goth nihilist following Polan’s interpretive lapses, which his dad’s brutal murder) as “an he seems to anticipate with the pre- inconsequential plot line” and to viously cited injunction “that the Vito Jr. as “a youthful character critic needs to be attentive to the who mattered to no one” (23). In complexities of the means by which pointing to this as typical of a show The Sopranos incorporates issues that took “its leisurely time” in and themes into its plots as am- presenting “a discrete, discon- biguous motifs that can be read nected subplot” when “it should and evaluated in numerous ways” have been hurtling toward a star- (117). Polan is quite selective in tling narrative conclusion” (23), ON POLAN’S THE SOPRANOS 347

Polan fails to cite the earlier scenes of season 5, the Tony Soprano vs. of the Spatafore children trying to Phil Leotardo battle begins with make sense of their father’s sudden the vengeance sought by Phil (for absence, then reappearance, and his brother’s murder by Tony’s then fi nal disappearance and cousin, Tony II). So, in season 6-I, newspaper reports of the murder the Vito Sr. tale emerges as much and assertions of homosexuality. more than a detour: Vito’s homo- Whereas Polan wants these “pre- sexuality is a dual insult to Phil’s cious moments” to have been de- family values, as an infraction of voted to the battle between Tony the mob’s code and as an insult to and Phil Leotardo, he seems to Phil’s own family (since Vito’s wife, miss the importance of these minor Marie, is Phil’s second cousin). sequences as contributing poi- Moreover, Vito’s execution by Phil gnantly to establishing closure in is both a direct challenge to Tony’s one narrative thread and thereby leadership and thus an escalation showing the impact of this New of the Tony vs. Phil battle that con- Jersey–New York City battle on stitutes the focal confrontation of the lives left behind. Both of these the fi nal season 6-II. While Vito examples, I contend, constitute Sr.’s sojourn with “Johnny Cakes” interpretive lapses, and, no doubt, in New England may have been a my differences with Polan do rather odd episode of “Brokeback correspond to his injunction re- Mafi a,” the overall arc in season 6-I garding the possibility for multiple establishes the intractable person- readings and evaluations. However, ality of Phil and his disgust with whereas he sees the Vito Jr. subplot the weakness he sees in the north and the Proust discussion as minor New Jersey version of “this thing (the former) and relatively insig- of ours.” nifi cant (the latter), as both a fan Polan delimits an excellent set and a critical reader, I fi nd both to of features and motifs to analyze have important connections and and, by and large, acquits himself signifi cance to the overall narrative. well in his readings, as well as in I would extend this critical their situation within the popular difference to Polan’s misguided media. As I hope I have made clear, reading of the Vito Sr. story, which my differences concern not only he sees as an “interruptive detour” the organizational and analytical that points to “the ways The Sopra- lapses I have identifi ed, but also nos incessantly gives itself over to Polan’s seeming inability or un- detour and distension of narrative willingness to see his own analysis progression” (23–24). However, as part of the university-based crit- the entire Vito Sr. tale creates im- icism for which he has so little use. portant links to the overall narra- For someone who insists on the tive in several ways: fi rst, at the end importance of noting the irony in 348 CHARLES J. STIVALE

The Sopranos and on how the show mocks the activity of interpretation, Polan seems unaware of the irony in his own critical stance. Of course, in the grand scheme of things—for example, corporate marketing and continued production of (relative) quality TV, not to mention global warming and economic crises—such objections and academic disputes are altogether petty and the stuff of ridi- cule, revealing my perhaps too self-absorbed commitment as a fan to a show that has had, and continues to have, meaning to my recre- ative and critical activities. Still, whatever the strategies might be behind HBO’s production of its various series, shows like The So- pranos, Oz, The Wire, Deadwood, and Rome all allow viewers a means to invest in various ﬁ ctional worlds, tales, and characters, and to enjoy these on whatever levels and at whatever depths appeal to them. As a colleague pointed out to me, while Polan and others might put “quality” in quotes, if the shows weren’t of real quality—the kind that comes without quotes—we wouldn’t be having this discussion, nor books devoted to this series.

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