David Chase’s Media De-Fragmentation Miracle
June 18th, 2007
A lot of electronic ink has been spilled over the proliferation of media choices in the modern world. What happened last week - the final episode of the Sopranos and the debates over its meaning - has made me think that maybe we as an audience aren’t quite as fragmented as our media choices. If you are questioning just how many theories there are for what the ending “means”, I invite you to peruse the almost TWELVE THOUSAND posts over at the HBO.
I am amazed that I am still talking, thinking, and reading about this 1 hour of television 7 days after the initial airing. I have been racking my brain to try to come up with another scripted television event that has caused such long lasting discussion and the only thing I can think of is “Who Shot JR?” (please add a comment if you can think of another). That was a huge television event, but back then there were only 3 channels and the world had yet to know the competition of cable, internet, mobile media, & DVD. David Chase’s brilliant ambiguity has not only caused this tidal wave of speculation, but leveraged all of the associated meda to keep the chatter going.
How did he do it? He littered the final 2 episodes with a minefield of real or potential symbolism for us to ponder. I have heard deconstructions of the diner scene that rival any college english seminar discussion. Maybe he tapped into some sort of need that we didn’t realize we had to puzzle things out for ourselves? Regardless, he clearly demonstrated that American audiences can have longer than the MTV-length attention span when given material that invites them to rise to the occasion. Now back to our summer schedule of mind-numbing reality shows and reruns. Or maybe I’ll just keep re-watching the Sopranos finale and reading conspiracy theories…
Other posts by Virginia.
Joe O says:
My wife about threw a fit after the episode. I chuckled.
I have not ever seen such a stir over a show that is OVER!! The line from Seth Godin’s book, “Small is the New Big” comes to mind: “if people are being critical of something they are talking about it”. I surf the web in very specific places and almost all of those corners had some Soprano Theories, even ESPN. I love the comment you made about the “MTV attention span” and that could be a good thing.
June 18th, 2007 at 9:14 amJake McKee says:
While I think we do have the ability, thanks to Chase, to ponder on things, I’m not convinced that was his intention. The last few seasons have been more about him playing out his own personal, film school undertones and symbolism than delivering a good show.
Personally, this show followed the same trend as the drunken uncle:
Stage 1: He’s a nice guy, lots of fun, everybody loves hanging out with him because of his alcohol induced humor.
Stage 2: On random occasions, he drinks a bit too much and the humor turns into puking in our plastic potted plants. Everybody laughs it off thinking, “hey even I’ve had a bad night too”
Stage 3: The drunkeness because habit, but we still love him. He’s our uncle, after all, we need to stick by him because we just *know* he’ll get better.
Stage 4: He refuses to listen to anyone suggesting that he might need help, despite the fact that he’s driven off his friends and family who only pay attention to him because “he’s family”.
Stage 5: We attend his funeral after he wraps his car around a tree. Gone is the humor, the funny lovable person we once knew. We all try to figure out what we could have done differently to have helped him out. We somehow blame ourselves and look for hidden meaning in events that have none.
Yep, that’s the Sopranos. The drunken uncle.
June 20th, 2007 at 8:56 amChristy says:
Two days of thinking about this, and all I can come up with is a lame example of another television “event” that got people talking, but it’s not even close to the “who shot J.R.” magnitude: Luke & Laura’s wedding on General Hospital.
Terrible example, but I say this to illustrate that your point is *extremely* valid.
June 20th, 2007 at 9:04 am