Capitalism is a pain in the ass.
Even when you know you are getting played, when art is being transformed into empty capitalism, sometimes it can just make you feel strangely happy—before the realization that you’ve been played into caring about a commercial hits. That’s what I felt watching The Sopranos x Chevy Super Bowl commercial.
David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos, directed spot for the electric Silverado, and Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Robert Iler reprise their roles as Tony and Carmilla Soprano’s children, Meadow and AJ. Television critic Alan Sepinwall wrote for Rolling Stone about some of the fun Easter egg shots from the commercial, which mimicked the show’s opening, that show the passage of time from the original series, the changing landscape of Tony’s New Jersey, and all that stays the same.
“For the series’ first three seasons, the credits included a shot of the Twin Towers in one of Tony’s rearview mirrors. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 happened before Season Four was filmed, and Chase removed that shot from later seasons. Here, we can see the Freedom Tower (which opened seven years after Sopranos ended) in Meadow’s passenger-side window. Meanwhile, when she passes her father’s old stomping grounds at Satriale’s, the pork store’s signage boasts “No Antibiotics” — a marketing choice that Tony, Paulie Walnuts, and friends no doubt would have mocked or tried to remove back in their day.”
As one of the many millennials who binge-watched The Sopranos during the pandemic, I got very invested in the relationship between Tony Soprano and his children. With Tony, you have a man who is dealing with the generational trauma of his own parents failing him emotionally, while also living up to the reality of what a father should be in late ’90s America—especially one who works in … garbage disposal.
Meadow was the overachiever who pushed back against her father’s racism and xenophobia, but also got pulled back into his world due to seeing the injustice that made her Italian immigrant family join the mafia in the first place. Then, there is AJ, who is just as sensitive as his father, but was thankfully raised by a much kinder mother, who didn’t feel the need to beat and belittle every part of that out of him.
At the end of the series (spoilers?), we see the family coming together right at the moment before their father is killed—AJ at the table with his parents and Meadow just about to arrive as the screen goes to black.
With the loss of James Gandolfini, the impact of his death as Tony lives on, not to mention that he died while his children were still young, so the bonds we see between him and his fictional children hold strong. It was good to see the siblings hug and care about each other, even if it was for a car commercial. At least AJ would have approved of it being a hybrid.
Although I missed Edie!
(via Rolling Stone, image: Chevrolet)
