The biggest controversy surrounding The Godfather was the claim that it’s racist against Italian-Americans. Upon its release in 1972, a backlash occurred against the Francis Ford Coppola effort by the Italian-American Civil Rights League, headed by Joe Colombo, because they conflated the mafioso with real Italian-Americans. Joe Colombo was a mob boss, and being in social justice warrior mode, he want to push back against the usage of the terms ‘cosa nostra’ and mafia away from the pop culture lexicon. And while Joe Columbo hasn’t claimed responsibility for the threats made against the crew and producers - car windows were shot, and angry phone calls were made - his public image did create a significant footprint in the controversy.
The Sopranos have always used this stick in the mud satirically. After all, it came from a lineage of mafia-centered pop culture, including The Godfather and Goodfellas, which has some of its alumni like Michael Imperioli, Lorraine Bracco, and Tony Sirico. Some of the characters during the first season take offense to the stereotype. Tony gets caught on the spot when Meadow asks if he is involved with the mafia. Jennifer Melfi (played by Lorraine Bracco) argues with her family at the dinner table about the treatment of Italian-Americans in the media. As much as that narrative was one of the least interesting threads in the show, the issue surrounding Italian-American racism was observed quite profusely. From current standards, you might laugh it off as hysteria, because Italian-Americans are whiter than say, Native Americans (whether or not Italian-Americans can count as minorities is another conversation). But there are still conversations out there, trying to claim that this kind of pop culture remains hurtful to the community.
That is where Christopher - an episode from Season 4 and written by Michael Imperioli, who plays Christopher Moltisanti1 - comes in. The New Jersey crew hears about a protest being held for Christopher Columbus day. The crew take offense, especially Silvio Dante (Steven Van Zandt) because Columbus was a hero to his people, more specifically the Italian-Americans. Sitdowns were offered against the Native Americans, but nothing productive came to light. The mob gets into a fight with the protesters, with Artie receiving the Moe Greene’s Special as a result.
Meanwhile, Tony tries to distance himself from the drama, although he is broadly supportive of Columbus, whenever AJ and Meadow, offer their opinions.2 (Hilariously, AJ gets his insights from the infamous Howard Zinn book A People’s History of the United States). It’s only when Silvio is pent up about him again, after a conciliatory meeting with a Native American casino owner, that Tony convinces him that it did not matter in the long term, because it is a silly fight he got himself into. And Tony’s not wrong.
Christopher Columbus is one of those issues that won’t go away because people are pissed that he’s in the echelons of history, while others try to defend his place as right and honorable. But a culture war is not a simple battle of the wits, consisting of intellectuals trying to figure out their differences and come to a compromise. On Talking Sopranos, Michael Imperioli says that he wrote this episode, through a connection with a journalist from The Village Voice, so he was well-intentioned in making it as nuanced as possible, in contrast to what some fans believe was an endorsement of Christopher Columbus.
The essence of Christopher is a gang of criminals getting involved in a heated topic that has little to do with their activities. Even Ralphie, who we see getting his anus manhandled by Janice, gets involved in this affair. It naturally follows David Chase’s postmodern instinct to deconstruct the mob genre and satirize that to its endpoint. That it involved one of The Sopranos’s consigliere, who doesn’t usually get his own episode, seems like a baffling choice. But the episode works because ultimately none of it matters. And it’s made all the more ridiculous, considering that Bobby Bacala’s wife Karen died from a car accident, which is far more important for the crew to care about.3
To say that Christopher is unbeloved by Sopranos fans is an understatement. Some have considered it to be the worst episode in the series; a filler hour that had minimal impact on the characters and overall plot of the Season. Following its episode, Dominic Chianese and Lorraine Bracco, among cast members, weren’t allowed to appear at Columbus Day Festivities in New York, despite being invited by then-mayor Mike Bloomberg.
But the best defense for this episode is how much it aged well. I don’t usually argue that way, because my belief in art has always been that it’s a product of time and imagination, not being weighed against present standards. Culture wars, whether they are online or offline, typically bring a lot of passionate time, but it’s also a waste. Tony may sound delusional whenever he talks about Gary Cooper, but I get the appeal of that. He was indeed the kind of person who is quiet and peaceful, in contrast to Silvio confronting protesters who should have nothing to do with him, as his first priority.
Silvio is not the only one who comes to the defense of his infamous ancestor. Carmela and the mob wives attend a lecture bemoaning Italian-American racism, that is filtered through the mob movies that I already mentioned. The punchline is that the mob wives exist in the ranks, once the speaker attempts to disassociate them with the culture. The moral here is that a lot of these characters speak in groups, rather than the rugged individualism that Tony put to high affection in this episode and later in Watching Too Much Television. That kind of groupthink constricts their critical thinking.
The Sopranos is no stranger at portraying issues of race and it will be brought back in The Many Saints of Newark, set in the backdrop of the 1967 Newark Riots. The Sopranos is not a show interested in politics, but it hints at subtle tensions Italian-Americans have with other races, particularly with African-Americans. Christopher doesn’t have to be subtle, given the bombastic nature of the issue, inflated by a mob’s delusion of self-worth.
There have been many filler episodes in The Sopranos and Christopher is certainly one of them. Given the show’s serialized nature, fillers are usually dismissed as non-essential to the plot. But that’s not essentially the point of having them, which is to understand what drives the characters. While we see Silvio being driven by his own pride and swallowing it, this isn’t to say he’s exactly the center of attention. We also see Ralphie’s kinks and Bobby’s sensitivity, both of which were further emphasized from being exploited by Janice. These are memorable character moments that are buried in the episode’s sensationalism.
Christopher, the episode, doesn’t establish new morale for The Sopranos but instead enhances a layer that has already been familiar to these characters. The difference between this and the older episodes is that already, the show is rife with different kinds of controversy - it was too violent and vulgar. We didn’t expect the show to be a pawn for a culture war. It was never designed for that.
More or less surprised, that an episode does not put Christopher Moltisanti more on the spotlight
Hilariously, AJ gets his insights from the infamous Howard Zinn book A People’s History of the United States.
Come to think of it, the episode’s meat reminds me of Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, where it’s insisted that the drug addict storyline is far important than the romantic passions of the African-American man.