Sunday, September 18, 2011
Tony Soprano
I just started watching the show The Sopranos. Even with my very busy schedule I managed to finish the first season in under a week. I began watching season 2 tonight while brainstorming what I have to say about writing. I discovered that the writers of The Sopranos must have done something right because I'm thinking about the New Jersey mafia at almost every hour of the day. I just sit in class and wonder what Tony is going to do when I finally get the chance to feast my eyes on his next move. So how do these mob story tellers manage to completely captivate a girl born and raised in the very middle of Iowa where our local news is infested with stories of good deeds and high school sporting events? The answer is fairly obvious; The detailed characterization of a man who plays the role of both the hero and the villain drives the suspenseful plot of this series. I would love to someday create a character as complex as Tony Soprano. He is both loved and hated by his viewers. There are few television characters that carry this sort of power. One other character that comes to mind is Dexter. Anyway, Tony is a great model for creating a dynamic character that is able to carry a story through each twist and turn. This is a great clip to demonstrate Tony's good nature despite his harsh tone and position as a mob boss... Excuse the language please. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwNsNiuaakc&feature=related
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Hi Sarah,
ReplyDeleteMaybe part of what makes characters like Tony so appealing is that they are so relatable. None of us is completely good or irredeemably evil, but rather, we are complex and nuanced in ways that complicated figures like Tony most evidently show. The question then is how we get our students to strive to create characters like this. I wonder if some of the answer is getting them to realize that they aren't as one dimensional as they see themselves. We often flatten our sense of self and see our identity in a very two-dimensional manner. What ways can we encourage our students to see the rich complexity of their own personalities so as to allow them to transfer that same three-dimensionality into their characters then?
kevin
Hi Sarah,
ReplyDeleteCharacters, such as Tony Soprano, provide very different schemes to their own narrative. I agree that detailed, dialectical characterizations give a sweet taste to the reader and make you want to keep reading. Our task as writing teachers must be to expose our students to this type of characters and allow them to shape their own and to judge them appropriately.
Luis