Anyone else think tony is underrated as a father...

anyone else think tony is underrated as a father? people here act like he's a horrible father but he genuinely cared for them, wanted the best for them, showed them unconditional love and spent time with them. thats impressive considering what type of person he usually is

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I wish he was my father

Yeah, he was a good father, but in a "bad" situation. He could've prevented AJ from forming a life with the lovely Nia, though.

His kids are both spoiled, entitled brats and AJ almost ends up killing himself after struggling with depression and an existential crisis for years, so no, he was a bad father.

Same
He was a great father, Anthony was such a faggot if i was him i would like to be involved in the "family" with my father

Yeah, that was all his fault.

thats more carmellas fault plus the fact that they're fucking rich

Needs a bit more of a nurturing side to balance out how cruel and childish he could occasional be but I wouldn't mind him as a father.

youtu.be/PrwtSL4lpoQ

No, he wasn't. You raise a child with actions not with your feelings.

this. he tried to made them proud of their roots (the church built by the grandfather thing), he encouraged/supported them in almost every little whim, he assured they got decent education.
in the end, his children were the only thing that mattered. despite making hundreds of thousands of dollars, he wasn't pursuing a lavish lifestyle like johnny sack, for instance

No, he was a bad father, but it can't all be blamed on him. Both his parents were very bad and gave him fucked up ideas on what being a good parent is, but he did try, and he didn't want them to go into crime. But he was a shitty father
How is it are Carmela's fault?
>He was a great father, Anthony was such a faggot if i was him i would like to be involved in the "family" with my father
Tony didn't want that for AJ, even if AJ was able to handle it

>His kids are both spoiled, entitled brats

That's despite Tony's efforts. He was constantly trying to get AJ to not be such a fuck up and continually calling out Meadow on her bullshit.

>How is it are Carmela's fault?

She was a stay-at-home mom with an endless bank account, yet she still fucked up raising their kids.

>How was it her fault?
>Because she fucked up
brilliant explanation

Both parents spoiled them, the scenes with Tony being pissed at AJ are the most typical sort of Soprano behavior, they constantly fuck up for a long time and then get violent at the results.

He wasn't a good father but he did a hell of a lot better than his parents

Meadow and AJ weren't toddlers.

The both had this hostile, punitive, reactionary sort of parenting style which meant they never truly bothered to understand what was going on with their kids until something happened.

Your point being?

Carmella would always complain about Tony spoiling the kids yet would insist on huge donations to schools and stupid shit like overpriced tea and cookies traditions with meadow. Who do you think bought AJ all the video games that Tony hated with a passion?

imagine being tony's son. what would you do?
would you try to get into the business?
remain "clean"?
take a business/law degree to start "cleaning" the business?

make nice money on the side on associate level fuck catching bodys

He was a better father than his own father

This.

They also constantly undermined eachother's authority in front of their children, giving them no real structure to follow, like how Tony gets so pissed off with Meadow he essentially sends her to Europe. When Bobby and Janice double-team Bobby Jr and send him back up to do his homework, Tony is fucking stunned. He had no idea it could be so easy.

Tony and Carm did that plenty.

it sucks that they never have a meadow/tony incest plot

>Meadow trashes Livia's house
>Comes home drunk
>Carm wants her to answer for herself
>Tony says let her go to bed
>Turns into a Tony vs Carm argument

>AJ stays in New York getting high
>Comes home with no eyebrows
>Carm is beside herself, Tony says it was just a couple of beers
>Carm says they can both go fuck themselves and leave

I'm not saying they were terrible or anything, but their teamwork skills were never that great.

Apples and oranges.

Scenario one was the middle of the night and you forget the united front they used the next morning.

Scenario two, both Carm and Tony are livid and only argued later about how big of a deal it was.

They were both together on little things like homework more oft than not.

youtu.be/XS7mjqqhrBQ?t=200

Carm there is basically admitting she's incapable of putting her judgement as a parent in front of her own insecurities as a "competitor" to Tony.

To be fair Tony didn't fully hate vidya
youtube.com/watch?v=Kxy-qjy_cGM

That scene where Tony picks up AJ from the police station after nearly killing Uncle Junior always gets me, it's why I think Dr. Melfi's quick jump at the end to label Tony a straight sociopath was just an excuse on her part to finally drop him out of her life.

reminder that is was livia's fault:
youtube.com/watch?v=pHfhbk-oPFw

The Sopranos is my favourite show, but goddamn are the fans retarded

Did you post that to support what I said?

It wouldn't even be a conversation at that point if it was the common approach.

When AJ gets suspended, there is a mutual agreement. When Meadow sneaks out, mutual agreement. When is AJ is playing musical houses, they unite and tell him he's stuck. They argue about military school, but eventually agree he should go.

The common thread in the show, from the Soprano kids to Pussy's, to Patsy's to even Melfi's is there is no clear-cut path. Barbara is fine; Janice and Tony are messes. Meadow goes to Columbia, AJ is a fuck up. Pat Parisi is a successful lawyer, his brother is a crook.

>like Tony and Carmela don't share blame for not dealing with AJ's depression as a result of this

Tony reminds me so much of my dad that it's scary, my mom is pretty much Carmella too, just my family has less cheating and murder as far as I know. He even looked disappointed at me while I shitposted in my underwear the same way Tony did AJ. Don't even get me started on the pulp fights.

My parents relationship has been a thirty year pulp fight. You gotta keep your head on a swivel to not get a phone to the dome at all times in that madhouse, fuhgeddaboudit.

I posted it to highlight how both of them were probably too self-absorbed most of the time and wrapped up in their own personal interests and insecurities to parent as effectively as they could've. They weren't bad, again, I'd like to stress that that's not my point here. AJ and Meadow turned out fine as things went, especially compared to Jackie Jr, or hell, even Chris, who was Tony's other surrogate son.

M-m-y dad was abusive liek Tony too

me and my best friend bonded over sticking up to our dads and telling them not to hit our moms/sisters

maybe you guys needed to lift weights to prove to your dad you werent faggot children

>mfw my parents are FUCKIN QUEERS

AJ was mentally ill, that wasn't his parents fault it seemed genetic

Maybe our dads didn't have to beat our moms due to their crushing disappointment in what a manlet juicehead their son is.

i think youll find your dad had other reasons for being physically abusive towards you

Yeah, like my massive penis probably.

It's not like AJ ever had the makings of a varsity athlete.

It was triggered by Livia's comments when he visited her at the hospital, but then his parents failed to address it adequately and lead to a suicide attempt

I'm not saying they were good, just disagreeing with the idea that Tony is amazed by Janice and Bobby.

As I said, I think one consistent thing about the show and its depiction of parenting is that there is no standard. Kids are either going to make it or not and parenting is just a factor among many. There are a billion contrasts directly made within the series itself.

>being proud of having abusive parents
How sad

>hearing a rant leads to lifelong depression

You're doing quite of a bit of projection there.

everyone has abusive parents
maybe yours were just absent parents

you dont exist for 20+ years without a confrontation you beta faggot

That's even established in the show you donkey

>everyone has abusive parents
no

what did your parents do when you were being a bad person? i guess they told you to keep it up

Sure, it is. About as well as the Sopranos gene.

I never had issues with my parents. I don't know what they did, but I've always accepted whatever my actions brought on.

m8...

Please don't have children of your own

He spunked away most of his money on gambling. He'd squandered most of the family's finances.

I was grounded or had my stuff and privileges taken away.

How's Harpo?

itt beta faggots who worship tv dads because they never had a dad tell them to fuck off for themself

it finally makes sense

I wonder what's French Canadian for I grew up without a mother?

I'll have you know that both of my dads beat the shit out of me regularly, so ha.

I'd love to have Tony as my dad and grow up in that house. No one would ever fuck with you and you got to be around mob people without having to be a criminal yourself.

>When Meadow sneaks out, mutual agreement
Nope. Tony does next to nothing in disciplining Meadow, and the duty falls almost exclusively to Carmela, which is why Meadow hates Carm for the longest time.

>When AJ gets suspended, there is a mutual agreement

Which they barely enforce, and which is undermined by the end of the episode by Tony, who makes ice cream with his son.

>When is AJ is playing musical houses, they unite and tell him he's stuck

I've no idea what you're referring to here. You mean the divorce? There's no uniting. A.J runs off to Tony's, Tony does it his way, A.J doesn't like it, he runs back to Carmela's. It's all initiated by A.J.

>They argue about military school, but eventually agree he should go

This just barely passes, but the only reason they want to send him to military school in the first place is because Tony can't be fucked disciplining his own kid, and at the first sign of misbehaviour, wants to resort to an ass-kicking. Failing that, it's off to military school! The only reason Carm caves is because Jackie Junior dies.

The position you're forwarding is a fucking fantasy. Occasionally it's only technically correct, but even then, by ignoring the dysfunction and conflict that led to the unison, you're blatantly misrepresenting things.

Money on the show made no sense. It's one spot where the writing slipped around all over the place.

>didn't watch the show
>say someone else is misrepresenting things

So provide counterpoints fuck-stick. Oh wait, you can't, you're just struggling with being blown the fuck out and trying to meme your way out of looking a retard.

Can you imagine that, struggling with being blown the fuck out and trying to meme your way out of looking a retard?

Well maybe, but they avoided giving specifics. There's an episode where they talk about Tony only being worth about 5 mil or something because he loses most of his money on gambling.

Nope, because that would require somebody actually arguing with me using points and evidence. Feel free to use those anytime, fucktard.

I do that like five times a day on here to be honest. Sup Forums has a good way of making you realize you're kinda fucking dumb and all those teachers were full of shit.

Tony's a bad father who loves his kids. It's questionable, depending on what you mean by "caring", if he actually cares about them. Does he want them to be happy? He doesn't want them to be depressed, but he also wishes they'd be entirely different people. Does he often do the physical act of caring, as opposed to simply feeling the abstract emotion? No, not often.

A.J's a symptom of all of Tony's failings as a father and a human being. His parenting style veers between being the "good guy enabler" who showers him with affection and material gifts, and the "bad guy" who rages, ineffectually, at his son, belittles, berates, and occasionally cuffs him. He doesn't, for example, sit with A.J and help him do his homework. He doesn't, for example, consistently enforce any kind of punishment for misbehaviour, instead varying between "I'm gonna kick your ass!" and "ehhhh, boys will be boys, let's give him a pass". He blames A.J every time he fails but refuses to take any responsibility for his own son's failings, which is sorta the entire point. He doesn't help set A.J straight, he just verbally abuses him when he fucks up, then apologises, in a vicious cycle.

Meadow's different, but then his expectations of Meadow are very different. A.J's pressured to act like a "man", to be an "Army of One", strong, silent type who stoically goes about his duties. Meadow's got a lot more freedom than A.J, which is possibly why she succeeds where he fails - but even then, it's a compromised success, undermined by her own flakiness, lack of commitment, petulance and entitlement. She goes to Columbia, but afaik, never graduates, and ultimately ends up accepting a position as a lawyer at a mob firm - just a disguised form of handout she's rationalised as helping poor discriminated-against Italian-Americans.

Can you imagine that, arguing with you using points and evidence?

A.J. is his greatest triumph as a father and a man - and one of the few things that makes Tony a better person than his own father. He spared A.J. the same fate Johnny Boy never spared him, 'the life'.

People have a habit of wanting to sentimentalise Tony because of his humanity and warmth, for his expressed commitment to
family solidarity, and his expressed desire for filial love and affection. He also demonstrates powerful emotions, showing himself tenderness and unexpected kindnesses which invite our sympathy. However, part of the power of these instances is his typical attitudes and behaviour, which is predominantly selfish, spiteful, surly and cruel.

People want to believe that because Tony, the monster, is capable of love, that he is, somewhere buried underneath the myriad sins, a "good father" who "loves his children", which is exactly the justification that Carmela offers, pretty much on a daily basis - Carmela is a lot of things, but one facet of her function as a character is as an audience surrogate, much like Melfi. People seek that redemptive tendency in his character. The truth is, however, you have to ask - is Tony available for emotional support? Does Tony support his children beyond money? Is he a consistent presence in their lives? He is not without redeeming qualities - this is not to say he does not love his children, or that he always fails them, as he is certainly capable of warmth, tenderness, and some wisdom, but for the most part, his worst instincts win out, and he fails A.J in imitating his own father. The worst part is, he does not have his father's excuse - Melfi is there to counsel him and work his conscience, but he largely rejects her insight.

Just because he was better than his father doesn't make him good. A large part of the reason A.J was spared was Carmela, not Tony - Tony wishes Carmela would permit him to beat A.J, to knock some sense into him, to put his "foot up his ass", but Carmela, unlike Livia, refuses, because she actually loves her children.

>and he fails A.J in imitating his own father
No he doesn't. If he did, A.J. would be in the mafia instead of living a civilian life. Tony's Father forced him to kill a man at 22, something at 47 he could barely talk about with Paulie for more than five minutes before having to get up and abruptly leave the table. He's incredibly fucked up.

Tony's a great provider but a but of a shite father - he's never around, and when he is he either criticizes his kids or ignores them until Carmela tells him to discipline them. He's not a terrible father but he's deffo not a good one.

In fact, a major issue that recurs in therapy is Tony's (misplaced) resentment of Carmela for protecting A.J from him.

>Just because he was better than his father doesn't make him good.
The moral relativist in me says "yes it does". David Chase has said that Tony and Carm are slightly better people than their parents were, and AJ and Meadow slightly better than them in turn and that was a core theme of the show. Generations slowly growing and building upon and repairing the damage done to them in the past.

Tony was already deep in the Mafia lifestyle at that point, heisting Feech LaManna's card game and running his own rackets. You're right to an extent in that A.J has been spared a life in organized crime, but it's questionable to what extent Tony had an impact here. Regardless, he still believes A.J should still be "toughened up" and learn to "be a man", like his father "toughened him up". Tony isn't the opposite of his father when it comes to parenting. The problem is, while he might not encourage A.J's delinquent tendencies, he doesn't effectively punish them, and he merely replaces his father's physical abuse with verbal abuse. He's still stuck in the rut of trying to produce a hardass, but he fails in this as he is denied the means. It's still something he laments throughout the series - that A.J is, in essence, a pussy.

The moral relativist in you is missing the point then by reverting to a binary predicated on slightly altered precepts. "Better" in this case means "less bad", unless you're suggesting that Tony, adulterer, thief, murderer, betrayer, hypocrite and liar is intended, by Chase, to be a good man?

Also, you've literally quoted David Chase as saying that Tony is marginally better than the last iteration, not Chase saying Tony was good.

His real lament is that A.J. is too much like him, too "Soprano". He says himself that his genes have condemned his son to a life of panic attacks and depression, just like his own Father and Mother's genes condemned him. He couldn't control this, but he could control the general direction of A.J.'s life, and he directed it as far away from the mafia as he possibly could, knowing the trauma and torment it inflicted on him was not a fate A.J. - or anyone, was deserving of.

His tough talk about being a "real man" and his worshiping of the Strong Silent Type golden generation is entirely bullshit and a defense mechanism created by him to avert all blame for his problems away from his Father (and himself) and onto Livia. The look of resignation and disgust on his face at the end of "In Camelot" tells you all you need to know about his true feelings in regards to his Father's generation of "Real Men" and the myth of JFK. Fran Felstein was a vile, intolerable person and Tony is wracked with guilt over lying to a hospitalized Livia to cover his Dad's ass.

I don't know if you've read it, but the Tony's Vicarious Patricide thread is a good place to start here; thechaselounge.net/viewtopic.php?t=2503.

>not apples and bowling balls

ya dun goofed

That's not really definitively his "real lament" - and I haven't read that, but I did produce my master's thesis on the Sopranos. His "tough talk" about being a man might not reflect an interior reality but his interiority is irrelevant when it doesn't guide his actions. What does guide his actions are a masculine code of conduct which demands of Tony the impossible ideal of the strong, silent type; regardless, though Tony clearly feels things deeply, he is also a violent, murderous thug, who uses force as a means to achieve his ends. The point of the Sopranos may be that external action does not reflect internal essence, but it does not also mean that Tony's feelings excuse his actions.

Tony may lament A.J's depression, but he also says "I hate my son" at a time when A.J appears, comparatively speaking, happy, because his happiness is disgusting to him due to its source in unmanly, childish amusement; he genuinely nurtures hostility and antipathy towards A.J. It is also true that he feels great anguish at his son's suffering, but he is also, to a large degree, the author of it. He blames the putrid rotten Soprano gene, but isn't the Soprano gene ultimately a metaphor for the abuse and suffering handed down from father to son? Meadow carries the gene, too, as does Barbara - so where does this depression come from?

Read the thread. It's quite illuminating.

I'm really close to pulling the trigger and buying the blu ray box. I've already watched the series, but is the transfer worth it? Also, how are the special features?

He was a bad tv father but probably better than a lot of in irl fathers

Hey buddy, buy the blurays BEFORE you pull the trigger or you won't be able to watch them.

>it's not his fault, it's the kids fault! He did his best!
The eternal rationalization of the bad parents, based entirely on cherry-picking and failing to see the general results of a certain kind of parenting over another. Just because some kid with authoritarian parents killed himself or became a failure, or one set of permissive parents raised a prodigy or success does not mean these approached are equivalent, or that the latter is generally superior.
AJ's parents should have sent him to military school, in which he would have developed character, a sense of responsibility, and ability to withstand diversity, but nope, AJ fainted so I guess becoming a better person over the long-run isn't worth making him do something hard, because clearly, nobody in AJ's position could possibly have to deal with something more painful than going to a new and strict school while living away from home.

Get the Blu-ray. Tony's nose hairs look like fuckin' BX cables

Pretty good - right?

Did this guy die or did his character just fade away? To be honest he was forgetful as a character

Mine too, even the same rhetoric and tone when they argued. I don't know if it's an Italian thing or what.

My father had a respectable profession but he still bullied and hit me. Tony only hit AJ once after he was expelled and felt bad about it. Sure there is the whole thing about showing his love through gifts but at least he tried, especially considering how bad his own parents were. I would rather have Tony, no question.