Mobsters: How are they likable?

This past weekend, I started watching HBO mobster series “The Sopranos.” I am about half way into the second season, and I feel stars in my eyes when I watch the show. I feel like I have seen all the mobster movie stereotypes: expensive cars and jewelry, guns with silencers, hairy Italian men smoking like chimneys and more. However, I cannot stop watching.

While watching all the R-rated material, I started to wonder why I am so infatuated with the movie mobster lifestyle. Why do I, and many others romanticize such a cruel, hedonistic lifestyle? There’s infidelity, murder, robbing, heavy drinking and strip clubs. It is everything one should strive to stay away from; yet, in these mobster movies and shows, we make these oppressors into heroes.

A possible explanation is that these infamous mobsters serve as antiheroes: protagonists who lack typical hero characteristics. “Despite clearly doing improper things for (at times) corrupt reasons, antiheroes still function as ‘‘forces of good’’ in many narratives,” said Daniel M. Shafer and Arthur A. Raney in their article “Exploring How We Enjoy Antihero Narratives.”

I find myself rooting for these characters because they are strong men who want to care for their families and people around them. Their masculinity is not challenged by hugs and cheek-kisses or holding someones face or neck when talking to them, but when asked about if a boss is going to therapy, he feels like members are trying to make him less of a man. Their uniqueness is inspiring and terrifying at the same time.

I admire their strength and responsibility, and sometimes even envy their mellifluous accents at times, as silly as that may sound. I relate to their cynical lifestyle, but obviously not for the same reasons. Though I can be repulsed by the values and lifestyles at times, these characters do make me realize how easy my life is, and that staying determined and hard-working can get me far in life.

So tell me, who is someone in a show or movie you find yourself rooting for, even though you kind of feel like you shouldn’t be. Let me know!