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The Sopranos. CHAPTER 6 A Moral Moral Never Land By: Ida Alvarez. When Is Art Dangerous?. Plato was the first philosopher to worry seriously on the moral effects fiction brings to its audience. He was worried specifically how drama plays the emotions of artist and people.
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The Sopranos CHAPTER 6 A Moral Moral Never Land By: Ida Alvarez
When Is Art Dangerous? • Plato was the first philosopher to worry seriously on the moral effects fiction brings to its audience. • He was worried specifically how drama plays the emotions of artist and people. • Poetry evokes strong emotions in ways that could undermine social stability. • Ideal Society is governed by principles of reason. • A fictional character may influence the audiences emotions : and the willingness to follow rational principles. • Plato said: “feelings of audience and feelings of a character are the same and may feel them even when it is not appropriate, and this emotions can become part of our character and affect the way we act” • Leo Tolstoy in the other hand believes that art itself was corrupt, only art that has to do with Christianity is not corrupt because it had to do with one love. • We simulate characters played on screens • A very good example is found in The Sopranos when Tony’s mother died. He watches public enemy , and sympathizes with the character therefore he is affected by this film.
Why The Sopranos? • Many works feature gangsters and other kind of vicious people. • The Soprano has three different things: First, The Sopranos is an ongoing television show not a two hour movie., • It has more that two day worth of material, it has 52 episodes. This can be really effective because all people get related more to each character because of the time spent watching the program. • Second: the characters in The Sopranos specially Tony are portrayed psychologically and often in a quite intimate manner. • For example when Tony meets Dr. Melfi and tells him about his life. He is always a portrayed as a complete character he is a gangster with all its implications but always tries to be a good father. • Third: the show strikes for verisimilitude, many places like the FBI settings are very similar to real life. • It is a show made in our time period and deals with our same problems like drugs, ADD, competitive of colleges etc. • Plato Says: “when we enjoy it we do the following: sympathize with the hero and take his sufferings seriously” • Tony provides us with the chance to like him, but commits more than 5 killings and orders a few many others, he is evil vicious and morally bankrupt but we still like him.
Is it morally wrong to watch the sopranos? • The soprano leads the audience to identify with a terrible person. • The Show does not change your attitude! It does much more than making ad people look god. • First: Not all main characters like Meadow and Dr. Melfi are bad people. • Many of the characters who are considered to be bad suffer pongs of conscience for the evil they do. • The part that is morally centered in the show turns to balance the immoral acts is doctor Melfi’s office. Here the audience identify with Tony and his victims because she sees Tony’s life in a sophisticated way and allow us to see his life in a different and better point of view. • She constantly reminds the audience that seeing things exclusively from Tony’s point of view is dangerous and provides better ones even though he ignores them. • Plato’s and Tolstoy's moral criticism of art is that their emotional theories of artistic identification are simplistic. • The Sopranos provides us different ways of looking at a Gangsters life and feel different ways about it. • Plato's Idea that art can affect us is correct and can affect the way we relate to immoral characters. • It depends on many factors not just the TV show. The moral reflection it creates for ourselves can even be good for us.