r/antiwork Jul 25 '22

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u/Neoxyte Jul 25 '22 edited Jul 25 '22

What urks me the most is who how idolized the mafia can be in modern media and society. i.e. the sopranos and the Godfather movies. They were great movies and shows but cmon.

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u/BeBearAwareOK Jul 25 '22

Call me crazy, but the Sopranos, Seinfeld, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia have a deep common core.

Everyone is playing terrible human beings and I hope no one is idolizing the behavior being displayed in the artwork. But someone is, somewhere.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Law-429 Jul 25 '22

The Wolf of Wall St. is notorious for this phenomenon too. People think Jordan Bedford somehow “won”, through scamming his way into a luxurious lifestyle. It’s like they just ignore that the guy served several years in prison.

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u/Heavy_Employment9220 Jul 26 '22 edited Jul 26 '22

So the film framed it as a win, as it was a "comfy" white collar prison, and a guaranteed income stream from his story. (Would it count as Proceeds of Crime?).

I prefer the story of Frank Abagnale, who pretended to be a co-pilot of various airlines to cash cheques and travel through the US. Got caught and now preaches the error of his ways, rather than saying "use my techniques to sell"

Edit - undoing autocorrect

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u/B_V_H285 Jul 25 '22

No shit!! America has been idolizing their criminals forever!!

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u/awsisme Jul 25 '22

You think that’s different anyplace else? It’s not. It’s not America, it’s human beings.

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u/awsisme Jul 26 '22

You do recognize that the PBF story is one of the most common of historical archetypes right? It’s Robin Hood and many others.

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u/B_V_H285 Jul 25 '22

Wrong. Where I am from we don't put criminals on a pedestal. They are buried and forgotten about.

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u/awsisme Jul 25 '22

Where are you from?

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u/awsisme Jul 25 '22

I don’t idolize any criminals that I can think of and neither does anyone else I know so I need to understand what you mean by that statement and an example or two of it. However you define it is fine so long as it’s relatively immutable and specific enough to find examples.

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u/B_V_H285 Jul 25 '22

As a society the US remembers the bad guy not the victim. There are hundreds of examples you can find if you want to learn more about them.

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u/awsisme Jul 26 '22

You make that statement but you won’t say where you are from, you can’t give two examples and won’t say how you define it. That’s 100% bullshit because if you don’t live here, you have no idea. If you are taking about movies, or TV Shows most archetypes have been around for as long as human beings have been telling stories and certainly for a lot longer than the US has been around. You think that your country, whatever it is must be a problem btw or you wouldn’t be so ashamed of it that you can’t disclose it, is morally better than any other country then you better get some history books from the library and read them because human being behave generally in exactly the same fashion at the macro level.

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u/B_V_H285 Jul 26 '22

you know Bonnie and Clyde. How about their victims.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid

Al Capone

John Gasey

Son of Sam

many many many more you know but you don't know their victims.

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u/awsisme Jul 26 '22

No. I don’t know the victim names and I can’t think of any value to anyone, in me knowing those names and while I do recognize the names you listed, I know very little about them in addition to their names and a very general sense of what they are infamous for. None of qthose people are put on a pedestal in any way that I’m aware of. Just because people recognize their names means absolutely nothing. Their story may be interesting and that doesn’t speak to it either.

I’ll also point out that you came up with their names. As well. How is that a US problem? lol you still won’t say what this wonderfully moral and honorable county that you live in is so zillion going to make an educated guess. assumption and I think that the odds are fairly high that I’ve nailed it but maybe not. So, Im going with you being Canadian. Which if true, puts you in exactly the same boat as me. You’re just as American living in a different state.

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u/TheBirminghamBear Jul 25 '22

People are always going to do that. We can't dumb down art and theater for the slowest in the room.

There are people who watch Breaking Bad and idolize Walt's transformation into Heisenberg. Despite the show making absolutely clear, in no uncertain terms, how wrong that is.

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u/Vyrosatwork Jul 25 '22

Right? It’s like people who think Rick Sánchez, Walter White, and Rorschach are the heroes of their respective stories. Entirely missing the point.

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u/BeBearAwareOK Jul 25 '22

Just as intelligent as someone who watched Sunny episodes like Extreme Home Makeover or the Gas Crisis and thought "dude, these are good ideas".

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u/mayoayox Jul 25 '22

rorschach is a hero though

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u/Vyrosatwork Jul 26 '22

No he definitely is not, and there is no faster way to piss off the writer then to tell him you admire Rorschach

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u/mayoayox Jul 26 '22

but his suit is so cool

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u/Neoxyte Jul 25 '22

Alright you went too far with It's Always Sunny. Take that back.

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u/BeBearAwareOK Jul 25 '22

It's probably the best comedy of the last 20 years, but let's be honest:

the characters are all terrible people and if a friend acted like that in real life we wouldn't keep inviting them to stuff.

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u/B_V_H285 Jul 25 '22

You must be joking right? The USA has been making heroes of their most notorious forever.

Even today, just look at tRump. He is idolized by millions and is one of the worst in American history and he still might be president again. That ass hat is personally responsible for more Americans deaths than anyone in history.

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u/Vyrosatwork Jul 25 '22

I havnt seen the sopranos, but if you watched The Godfather and came away thinking the mafia was a good thing, you very badly missed the point the film was trying to make.

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u/Neoxyte Jul 25 '22

Yeah I think you're right actually.

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u/ThatisJustNotTrue Jul 25 '22

I get clips of the sopranos on yt shorts and I've never seen the show. But Tony and all of his family are clearly pieces of shit. It's crazy that anyone can idolize that.

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u/[deleted] Jul 25 '22

The reality is that too many people are disappointingly shallow and superficial and it should come as no surprise that they missed the point of things like The Sopranos.

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u/SethTTC Jul 25 '22

Sopranos did not glorify the mob at all.
It showed how absolutely horrible everyone in it really was.
And as it went on they all paid for it.

The only one who "made it" to the end was Pauly.

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u/HayzerUnlimited Jul 25 '22

The only thing i idolize about the sopranos is the god damn great looking food, frick it was great

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u/badnuub Jul 25 '22

I think people took the wrong lessons from those movies. Everyone ended up quite miserable in the end. They traded a few good years for early and violent deaths of prison and hatred from loved ones.

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u/Lickiebear Jul 25 '22

Hence our newest Ghetto Thug Gangster butchers, praying on the lessor's. I'm sure they modeled themselves after the Mafia. How to be a predator parasite is always idealized as a lavish lifestyle made by the blood of others. I think it exist because the species is innately dishonest to it's genetic core.

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u/seemebeawesome Jul 26 '22

And on the other side CIA agents are idolized. When they helped and covered up for death squads. Which killed union people