Last week, 12 million Americans tuned in to learn the final fate of fictional gangster Tony Soprano. Throughout the Sopranos six seasons, Tony Soprano has killed or ordered the deaths of dozens of people, some of whom he was related to, and millions of Americans have tuned in, hoping he would survive just long enough for us to see him do it again. Sopranos fans have squinted their eyes to catch a better view of the thundering rock hard silicone breasts in the blurry background of the Bada Bing! while Tony took a phone call.
Yet through it all, Sopranos fans insist, what draws us to the show are the things that make Tony Soprano a realistic, flawed, even mundane character. We are compelled by the familiar struggles of a man with a mid life crisis, trying to raise two spoiled kids and dealing with a job that causes him severe anxiety. In short, we find the show appealing because of all the things that make Tony Soprano a mere mortal like the rest of us.
The HBO series concludes after six seasons spanning 8 1/2 years, having broken new ground for television: portraying a hero who is thoroughly evil, a man who corrupts everyone he comes into contact with while appearing perfectly ordinary to his neighbors.
And he suffers from the same worries and fears the rest of us do -- even if he occasionally relieves the tension by killing someone.
And yet, despite the fact that most people watching the show agree that Tony is "thoroughly evil," there is no debate, none that is visible in major media, regarding whether or not The Sopranos glorifies violence or "the criminal lifestyle," whether the Bada Bing! rationalizes sexism or degrades women, or whether the combination of such things "debases" American culture.
The Sopranos is hardly the exception to the rule in primetime television. From Law and Order to Fear Factor when Americans turn on their television sets, they are looking for guns and titties, and any channel not offering one or both is going to suffer in the ratings.
Contrast the media's uncritical appreciation of The Sopranos with their cultural illiteracy and blanket condemnation of Hip-hop music. While I can't think of a single Op-Ed in the Washington Post or the New York Times in recent years questioning whether The Sopranos is in any way responsible for the continuing existence of organized crime, the Media is comfortable laying the blame for dismal public education, drugs, poverty, and recidivism squarely on Hip-hop, as though there were no other factors.
Sociologists have a term for this pathological facet of black life. It's called "cool-pose culture." Whatever the nomenclature, "cool pose" or keeping it real or something else entirely, this peculiar aspect of the contemporary black experience -- the inverted-pyramid hierarchy of values stemming from the glorification of lower-class reality in the hip-hop era -- has quietly taken the place of white racism as the most formidable obstacle to success and equality in the black middle classes.
How utterly convenient.
It is perhaps, the most convenient aspect of arguments centering around "personal responsibility" that such arguments always apply to other people. While Thomas Chatterton Williams above is content to argue that Hip-hop is the "most formidable obstacle" to black success, there is no one arguing that The Sopranos is holding back Italian Americans or encouraging kids from New Jersey to join the mob.
There is of course, no reason for Americans to feel guilty about pervasive systematic racial bias against Italian Americans, and therefore nothing to gain in providing a rationale for dismissing ongoing suffering in the black community. But arguing that the sometimes glorified, often candid and rarely simple portrayal of crime and poverty in Hip-hop music is responsible for the circumstances of urban devastation is like saying Tony Soprano inspired John Gotti.
Note how quickly the Media was willing to blame Hip-hop for Imus' racist comments, as though Jay-Z made him do it. The narrative of personal responsibility is suddenly and conspicuously absent.
The rising angst about rap lyrics was spotlighted this spring during the fallout over radio talk-show host Don Imus' smearing of the Rutgers University women's basketball team. Imus called team members "hos," then later noted in his defense that the word is commonly used in rap songs to describe women.
Imus non-defense set up a debate in the media over whether his comments were any different than those made by rappers, as though the objectification of women was a problem isolated to Hip-hop music. It is simply easier for most Americans to blame someone else for their problems, especially when those problems contain a racial element.
The hysteria of rap music and culture reached a high point in Delacambre, Louisiana this week when baggy pants were outlawed because of their association with Hip-hop.
The new indecent exposure ordinance in this Cajun-country town of about 2,000 carries penalties of up to six months in jail and a $500 fine for being caught in pants that show undergarments or, in the mayor's phrase, "private parts." "I don't know if it will do any good, but it won't hurt," said Delcambre Councilman Albert Roy, who introduced the ordinance. "It's obvious, and anybody with common sense can see your parts when you wear sagging pants."
Low-hanging, baggy pants have become a fashion fad, mostly for young men in the hip-hop culture. Several residents objected that the ordinance targeted blacks.
Broussard denied any racial motivation. "White people wear sagging pants, too. Anybody who wears these pants should be held responsible."
There's nothing new under the sun, and racially selective laws that target black style certainly have a historical precedent.
"A wave of vulgar, filthy and suggestive music has inundated the land with its obscene posturing, its lewd gestures," spewed one newspaper in 1899 about jazz.
When jazz swept through Chicago, the playing of saxophones and trumpets was banned after dark; "reckless" new jazz dance steps like the bunny hug, the turkey trot and the lame duck were outlawed.
Glorification of violence, the objectification of women and glamorizing the criminal lifestyle are some of the oldest and most persistent aspects of American culture. From Cowboys to Mobsters, to Rappers, Americans have always admired alpha males with an unrestrained lust for capitalism, and this is not likely to change. What should change is our habit of blaming art for imitating life, particularly when it lets us off the hook.