So I've been revisiting my Sopranos 6 season box set and weeping mentally, but all the while I couldn't help but find myself comparing my favorite protagonist to my other favorite protagonist (of late) Don Draper. I didn't realize in the first round, primarily because Mad Men hadn't aired yet but also because Don Draper, until season 6, has only intermittent moments of intrigue that pieced together at a painfully glacial pace. Either way they're both fascinating troubled brooding men and I am going to dig into their similarities and differences with the vigor of somebody who has too much time on their hands to think about fake people.
OKAY getting down to business. Beware of spoilers for both shows!
So the obvious thing that ties these two characters together is their mothers. The mutual mom problem. In Don's case it's painfully glaring where his issues with mothers and women comes from vs. Tony's which, while explained further, are far more subtle and not as much of a motivator for his more destructive actions. The new season shed a lot of light onto Don's mother/prostitute/mother issues and the duality of those themes is almost overwhelming in his case. It does help to make his downward spirals pretty straightforward, though: marrying women, cheating on women, disposing of women. Don sees all women as prostitutes in some form (except for Betty, the actual mother of his children) and as such he continues to create relationships and destroy them as a way to control, reconnect with and ultimately punish his mother and his stepmother who neglected and verbally abused him. Easy peasy.
Tony is a little more complicated, if only because the show doesn't illustrate it with the same easily identified primary colors (red, quite literally in the costuming) as Don's. His issues with Livia aren't brought up over and over again in long term failed attempts at reconciliation. They aren't one of his primary motivations to create and control his image like Don's are and so they come out suddenly and aggressively as debilitating panic attacks, because he chooses not to deal with them at all - of course it does show up here and there with important plot lines, but there are so many other story lines outside of Tony's family issues that it doesn't have as much of a spotlight. Tony's mother was a fantastic monster of a character, constantly controlling and manipulating their family through undermining and victimization. Tony definitely gets around, and one could argue that his need to sleep with everyone comes from the emasculation he and his father both faced, but I personally think it has more to do with his nature and his mid-life crisis, which is referenced more than once during the Tony/Carmella separation quake in season five.
Okay so at the core that is both characters' biggest and most suppressed problems. The next important similarity is their mutual struggle with their status and power. Tony is especially interesting and this is where he really takes the cake (or cannoli?) in the comparison. Tony was bred for this role, he wasn't chosen and he didn't work for it, not in a way the general audience can relate to. This is such an important character point for him. The range of emotions on James Gandolfini's face could perform it's own opera but his boss faces really pinball between a smirk and a scowl. The amused, condescending smirk that always means a tense scene ahead and the scowl and heavy sigh of crushing pressure to make the right decision. Both modes are so important for who Tony is because he has a certain entitlement and an incredibly childish side of himself that uses his power to punish those who strike a nerve with him, of which he has many. He especially utilizes his position when he's angry at somebody for not accepting something he's offered them (Tony Blundetto was a great example and also Steve Buscemi at his creepy featured finest). He takes it incredibly personally when people reject his offers of help and goes straight into petulant payback mode, his power makes him believe that anything he offers should be graciously accepted, it's an honor that he's even offering to help. There's also some stuff there about rejection in general with Tony, but this is definitely one of the worst aspects of his complex and subversive personality.
Unfortch Don also struggles with this, but Don's childish mantra is Don't Touch My Stuff. That's mine. So is that. So is she. They're both giant man-children in their own incredibly overbearing way and Don likes to punish those who infringe on his territory. This comes through with the firm merger, and is both sentimental and painful when it involves people, namely Peggy. Don is a master of professional payback, and he won't apologize for it. He and Tony both use their status to punish those who hit their particular nerve, but in very different ways. His two favorite boss faces are more like eyebrows raised 'what did your idiot mouth just say' and eyebrows furrowed 'get your idiot face out of my infinitely more handsome one.' He clawed his way into his powerful position through charm and ambition and he is not about to share; he also has a bad habit of coveting what other people have and finds ways to also claim those (Silvia) can you even imagine what these two would have been like on a playground together? Yeesh.
Another important thing that these two share is how they handle regret. Obviously they're both mentally unwell uh, to say the least. But Don tends to find more comfort in the sentimental. He thinks he's constantly reinventing himself but really he's just found something new to become sentimental about and believes he's finally discovered his humanity. Often this is some new woman or some other supposed success or loss. When he does end up regretting something he first self-destructs, then finds an outlet usually in somebody or some new idea and begins again. Don has gone through this cycle once or twice a season and most moves end up being lateral. Tony on the other hand ends up piling regret on top of self-loathing and has a breakdown or a panic attack. His sentimentality lies heavily with his family and the idea of the Italian family in general and often that brings him right back to the cause of his self-loathing in the first place. Janice, his mother, Carmella - all women he disappointed and was disappointed by, and all people that he has been firmly conditioned to believe are the only things he should never compromise. And then other times, both characters are totally absolved of regret for things that the audience feels horrible about having happened. Don and Peggy's relationship will never be the same and I personally will never get over Adrianna. Sometimes you watch these plot lines unfold and you can't help but think what an ungodly asshole this character is, and three scenes later you're back on their side. It's fantastic.
That's the abridged overview, this could become a novel if I had the time. Or was getting paid. Ultimately the question is always looming, are these two people sociopaths? They both lie unflinchingly and seem more at odds with those who wronged them then their own morality. But they are also written as products of their past and their culture, so it's hard for an audience to determine and that's what keeps us wanting more.
RIP JG
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