Meadow Soprano on George W. Bush

[Bob Geiger]

Here’s Meadow Soprano – mob-boss Tony’s whip-smart daughter – on last night’s episode of The Sopranos, giving her opinion of George W. Bush at the breakfast table:

"9/11, 9/11. Bush is using it as an excuse to erode our Constitutional protections and you’re falling for it."

Before any of you ask if I’m trying to turn Democratic Underground into People Magazine, let me tell you why I’m posting this. It’s a sad and discouraging thing for me to say, but I actually have high hopes that mainstream entertainment mentions of reality like this – along with the wonderful closing-argument scene from Boston Public a couple of weeks ago – will hit a much wider audience between the eyes than we or the stenographer media are capable of reaching.

Maybe if the 35 percent of Americans dumb enough to still approve of Bush hear this stuff from a pretty actress, they’ll pay more attention.

But then, Carmela Soprano follows up on Meadow’s slap at Bush by dimly saying "Well, I voted for him."

And to think, I used to like Carmela.

Big thanks to my friend Steve O. at Bring it On for passing this along. Please go there to see the video clip (Quicktime 7 required).

[adarling]

1. well there is one more reason to hate mobsters

there all republican haha. Loved that episode, rewatching it on ONDEMAND...greatest invention next to TiVo haha.

[MadMaddie]

2. Unfortunately, TV is the mode and the method to reach the

masses....The Soprano's has a huge following across the board.....it's cheesy but it does work....

Thanks for the information.....

[endarkenment]

3. I think you missed the point of the whole scene.

The sopranos, to a certain extent, is married to the mob with children, and here in suburban new jersy the stark reality of our situation is laid out by the documentedly brilliant character of meadow, and the weak response of carmela "well I voted for him", was not offered up as a counter argument so much as it was an admission of how disconnected Bush's base has become. I thought the scene was done with the intention not of slapping bush down, but of illustrating the discourse that is taking place across america right now, of giving voice to the truth speakers in every family who are now forcing a dialog across america. Without Carmela's pathetic response, the scene could be dismissed as just more librul bullshit. It is the fact that this is all Carmela can come up with in response that is so devastating.

[BlacknBlue in Red NC]

5. add to that the fact that the rest of the show was about

one of the mobsters being gay, and you have even more of the discourse and disconnect you describe. I found it interesting that no one volunteered another opinon other than: he's gay, he's gotta go (fitting in well with Bush backing the gay marriage ban). The closest was Tony giving a 'live and let live' line to his psychiatrist.

[BlueGirlRedState]

4. Sopranos just like all the other clueless repubs

I thought the episode was brilliant. The Sopranos are no different from other right-winger types who see no contradiction between what they say and the what the Bible says even though it's as plain as the nose on their faces. Carmela is an upstanding, God-fearing, mass-attending, charity-giving housewife who turns a blind eye to what her husband and his associates do.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. Meadow sounded like an idiot

was the point - overblown, taking everything to extremes as the whole family does. Later she is shamed by her boyfriend, as her commitment to equal rights and justice is exposed for the half-baked bourgeois bullshit it is.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

7. Bingo

I agree. Meadow came across looking like an immature princess. It's a little hard to divorce the way her daddy makes his living from her superior posture. One day she will come face to face with it and it will be a great episode. I think Finn "gets it."

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. "Because you can't relate to black people floating on logs"

That's what she says to her mother. And you can, Meadow? Because you work some half-phoney internship at the South Bronx Justice Project, then go home to the gaudy suburban mansion and gossip about Gay Vito with your Mom and her dumbass friend, and end up roping poor Finn into it?

Sometimes people on DU are ridiculous. If anything, the portrayal was negative, because it made people who espouse Meadow's views look just as childish and spoiled as she is. She has the luxury to "relate to black people floating on logs" (the phrase itself reveals her real feelings about race, whatever she might say on the surface).

[TallahasseeGrannie]

9. And I have known so MANY people like her!

She mistakes her opinions and views for her reality.