Credit: Photo Illustration by Jacqueline Mellow/The New Republic --- Dats a nice house ya got dare Christie, what a shame if something were to happen to it. - The HoundDogio, aka The Daawwggster
The New Republic has created a few chuckles and now a tiff with Jacqueline Mellow's satirical depiction of Governor Christie on top of a famous scene of Tony Soprano checking his mail in a bathrobe, with gold chain, in front of his gorgeous mansion. Eddie Scarry, who runs a blogs site affiliated with Glen Beck called The Blade, asks Is this ‘Sopranos’-like photo illustration of Chris Christie racial?
And, I've seen many Kossacks ask "is it wrong that I am smiling?"
The New Republic it out with an exhaustive report on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie‘s (R) career, painting an unflattering portrait of a man who got to the top of Jersey politics by navigating his career like a mobster, punishing his enemies, rewarding his allies, and with a cunningness to appear clean handed. ...
There is something overtly Italian-American stereotypical about it, markedly a reference to fictional crime boss Tony Soprano.
“Christie is half Sicilian,” remarked one person on Twitter who saw the image. “If someone portrayed a black politician as a gangsta I know exactly how The New Republic would react.”
While Governor Christie's office declined to comment, Stephen Silver, of TechnologyTell answers "No, it’s not racist to compare Chris Christie to Tony Soprano:
Ready to re-litigate that whole “is The Sopranos guilty of stereotyping Italian-Americans?” fight, combined with the Chris Christie/George Washington Bridge scandal, along with right-wing attempts to play the left-wing identity politics game? ...
The photo isn’t just “overtly Italian-American stereotypical.” It’s Tony Soprano. The house is Tony Soprano’s house. The bathrobe is Tony Soprano’s bathrobe, and the necklace is Tony Soprano’s necklace. The photo is almost certainly an official image from a Sopranos episode, with Christie’s head photo shopped onto James Gandolfini’s body.
For the first several Sopranos seasons, it was a tradition in the season premiere for Tony to go down his driveway in a bathrobe to get the newspaper- Sopranos recapper Alan Sepinwall always used to beam with pride that the paper he picked up was the Newark Star-Ledger, which employed Sepinwall at the time. It’s an iconic image that I imagine most people reading the TNR article recognized immediately. ... Political observers have been comparing Chris Christie to Tony Soprano for his entire career, mostly because Christie is a large man from Northern New Jersey in a position of power who’s known for behaving aggressively.
The "Silverado Slammer" adds that most people don't even know that Governor Christie is half Sicilian, and no one has implied that Christie has any times to the actual mafia. If any stereotyping is going on it is about Republicans, and as Glenn Beck and Eddie Scary very well know, this is considered perfectly O.K. in modern media
Oh, did I mention that it is Friday Night Silly Time. Readership drops off so much Friday night I declare this a lonely hearts open thread. Hope you are having fun.
But, just in case The Slammer is wrong, I'd like to apologize to any members of the real mafia that may have been offended by comparisons of Governor Christie's thug-like behavior, abuse-of-power, and bullying.
2:33 PM PT: I hope no one makes a Spanish Inquisition out of this. But, just in case, 714Day has come to the rescue with this link: