A key reason Tony Soprano stopped having panic attacks was that he used his sessions with Dr Melfi as an avenue to relieve the stress and guilt he experienced from his violent actions. Therapy allowed him to feel better while continuing to be a violent criminal — but his conscience was never fully unperturbed. Throughout the series, it is implied that Tony is wracked with self-reproach from his criminal activities. There are two ways he can manage this guilt: by changing the actions that give rise to it, or by reinterpreting his actions so that they no longer produce guilt. Throughout the series, Dr Melfi tries, in an unbiased and nonjudgmental way, to guide Tony to change his actions. But often Tony’s sessions merely enabled him to justify himself and continue his criminal acts.
Gradually, thanks to therapy and medication, Tony’s panic attacks subside. But they resurface near the end of season five. Tony is playing golf with New York underboss Johnny Sacrimoni. Johnny says something that leads Tony to subconsciously realise that he has to do something horrible: murder his beloved cousin to prevent a bloody gang war. His body responds with extreme guilt and stress. He collapses.
Yet armed with an understanding of Tony’s origins, the viewer can’t help but feel for him. Of course, Tony is also presented as a relatable — a distant cousin to “likeable” — husband and father, under pressure at work with his employees, trying to fit in with his neighbours and caring for his elderly mother, despite her mistreatment of him. But is this enough to understand why the audience roots for such a reprehensible character?
One reason viewers might excuse Tony Soprano’s misdeeds is because we have sympathy for his plight. In fact, researchers at Harvard Business School and Northwestern University have suggested the existence of a “Virtuous Victim” effect, in which victims are seen as more moral than non-victims who have behaved in exactly the same way. People are inclined to positively evaluate those who have suffered. The audience understands that Tony had a terrible childhood, so when we see him do reprehensible things, such as commit violence or cheat on his wife, we find ways to excuse or downplay it.
More intriguingly, recent research suggests that Dark Triad personality traits — comprising narcissism (entitled self-importance), Machiavellianism (strategic exploitation and duplicity) and psychopathy (callousness and cynicism) — are highly correlated with victim-signalling. In other words, people with dark personalities are more likely to broadcast or feign their victimhood, perhaps to gain sympathy and other rewards, while also getting others to excuse their transgressions.
Does Tony view himself as a victim? He does. In the pilot episode, Tony tells Dr. Melfi that he sees himself as a “sad clown, laughing on the outside and crying on the inside”. He characterises himself again as a “sad clown” in season four, but this time Dr Melfi is sceptical, replying “I’ve never seen it.” She explains that his wife, in a couple’s therapy session, also gave a very different perspective about Tony. Although Tony believes that he responds to inner sadness with outer humour and gregariousness, he in fact expresses his emotions with rage and compulsive eating. Tony views himself one way, but those closest see him as someone completely different.
Sprinkled throughout the show are other indicators that Tony believes he is a victim. In season four, his best friend from high school, Artie Bucco, is in the hospital after a suicide attempt. Tony visits and asks Artie to imagine Tony finding Artie dead, and then asks: “How am I supposed to feel?” He seeks pity from his suicidal friend.
In the following season Christopher, his nephew, accuses him of trying to seduce Adriana La Cerva, Christopher’s fiancé. He tells Tony that he knows Tony was in a car with Adriana alone at night, and that they were going to buy drugs together. Tony becomes enraged and shouts, “So what! I can’t relieve stress every once in a while? I don’t got enough f*****g problems?” Tony’s crew is holding Christopher down, and Tony has a gun in Christopher’s face. Even here, Tony pities himself, and urges Christopher to sympathise with his plight.
Tony is not a sad clown putting on a cheerful face. He wants people to sympathise with him, even as he inflicts violence on them. In a chilling scene, Tony beats up the college dropout son of his late friend Jackie Senior. Tony punches Jackie Junior and tells him: “All I ever did was tell your old man what a good kid you were, and all you do is f******g hurt me.”
By the final season, Tony is even more morally compromised and monstrous than he was at the beginning of the show. But he has fewer panic attacks. Does this mean his treatment was effective? Dr Melfi, in the penultimate episode of the series, terminates therapy with Tony. He responds with dismay: “I think what you’re doing is immoral.”
In The Sociopath Next Door, author and psychologist Martha Stout explained how some people weaponise pity to manipulate others: “More than admiration — more even than fear — pity from good people is carte blanche. When we pity, we are, at least for the moment, defenceless… All in all, I am sure if the devil existed, he would want us to feel very sorry for him.”
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