Re: The confrontation between AJ and Tony
Posted: Wed May 03, 2006 9:51 am
I have to say, I read the beginning of this thread and found myself in almost complete disagreement with nearly everyone who posted -- but the back-end has been right in line with my thoughts, especially the contributions of FOMW and EdaMaria.
AJ IS -- I repeat -- IS good, if you consider goodness to be innocence and capacity to love. Sure he does some seemingly mean stuff as a kid like locking little bacala in the garage and playing with the ouija board, but my cousins did the exact same thing to me when we were that age. AJ may do a line of coke in the bathroom, or be drinking under-age, but notice also that we never see him incapacitated either via drugs or alcohol. He's not drunk or excessively high at any point.
He has never really shown a capacity for truly "bad" acts, until the moment when he came so close to killing Junior. People seem to forget that although his plan would have led to him getting caught as a matter of course, the size of that knife and Junior's condition would have certainly made it possibly and even likely that if AJ had actually made a killing stroke on Junior, it would have succeeded.
As I have said earlier, AJ has never had pride in himself, partly because he constantly seeks Tony's approval -- but it sometimes has appeared that the only way AJ can get Tony's attention to begin with is to screw up. As I think back, I think the only time I can remember Tony expressing pride in AJ was after the football game when AJ got in and made a play. Tony offered to take him to get ice cream, an offer which I believe AJ rejected.
At any rate, AJ has given up trying to secure Tony's pride and approval through methods like school work, gainful employment, and really, what else is there for a 19 year old to gather pride from his father in?
Some of the points made about Tony wanting to shuttle the blame onto Carm for problems on the home front strike particularly true for me. Tony has never encouraged AJ (with the one possible exception of football, but AJ is not built to be a football player, and never will be). So, given this lack of attention from his father, a lack of a sense of self-worth on his own part (witness his loser friends who only use him for his money or his father), AJ tried to get his father's approval by acting out his father's favorite part in the Godfather.
Not to beat a dead horse, but I have seen such a lack of sympathy for AJ, without the commensurate evaluation of Tony's actions which have made AJ the "man" that he is, that I feel I need to make the case that AJ is not flawed, it is rather Tony's flaws reflected in AJ that make AJ who he is.
Keep in mind how Tony never does a favor for nothing -- AJ agrees to help his "friend" out with the landlord problem, then gets stuck with the bill. AJ doesn't have power, self-assurance, confidence, or pride in himself. Admittedly he hasn't done much that would help him acquire any of these things, but lets not dismiss him as useless due to his own choices -- some of that behavior has been transferred onto him by Tony.
And last, for those who think that the AJ material is purely filler, I could not disagree more. Who is in a better position to force change on Tony's life than his only son, who he genuinely LOVES and CARES ABOUT. I would argue that scenes involving Tony, Carmella, Meadow, AJ (and I would have argued Christopher in the past, but I'm not so sure now) are the PUREST scenes in the entire show, and the ones that ought to have every viewer on the edge of their seat soaking in every word spoken. This show is about Tony's life, and I don't see Chase taking the easy way out and effecting change on Tony's life via incarceration by the Feds. I think its all going to come from the core nucleus of his immediate family.
In other words, don't be so hard on AJ, he's his father's son, and the more Tony begins to realize that, the harder its going to be for him to look in the mirror. Recall that the Tony we have seen in flashbacks to his teenage years was a rather sullen, intimidated, rebellious (robbing a mafia card game for god's sake), and father-dominated wimp of an individual. And look how Tony turned out.
</p>
AJ IS -- I repeat -- IS good, if you consider goodness to be innocence and capacity to love. Sure he does some seemingly mean stuff as a kid like locking little bacala in the garage and playing with the ouija board, but my cousins did the exact same thing to me when we were that age. AJ may do a line of coke in the bathroom, or be drinking under-age, but notice also that we never see him incapacitated either via drugs or alcohol. He's not drunk or excessively high at any point.
He has never really shown a capacity for truly "bad" acts, until the moment when he came so close to killing Junior. People seem to forget that although his plan would have led to him getting caught as a matter of course, the size of that knife and Junior's condition would have certainly made it possibly and even likely that if AJ had actually made a killing stroke on Junior, it would have succeeded.
As I have said earlier, AJ has never had pride in himself, partly because he constantly seeks Tony's approval -- but it sometimes has appeared that the only way AJ can get Tony's attention to begin with is to screw up. As I think back, I think the only time I can remember Tony expressing pride in AJ was after the football game when AJ got in and made a play. Tony offered to take him to get ice cream, an offer which I believe AJ rejected.
At any rate, AJ has given up trying to secure Tony's pride and approval through methods like school work, gainful employment, and really, what else is there for a 19 year old to gather pride from his father in?
Some of the points made about Tony wanting to shuttle the blame onto Carm for problems on the home front strike particularly true for me. Tony has never encouraged AJ (with the one possible exception of football, but AJ is not built to be a football player, and never will be). So, given this lack of attention from his father, a lack of a sense of self-worth on his own part (witness his loser friends who only use him for his money or his father), AJ tried to get his father's approval by acting out his father's favorite part in the Godfather.
Not to beat a dead horse, but I have seen such a lack of sympathy for AJ, without the commensurate evaluation of Tony's actions which have made AJ the "man" that he is, that I feel I need to make the case that AJ is not flawed, it is rather Tony's flaws reflected in AJ that make AJ who he is.
Keep in mind how Tony never does a favor for nothing -- AJ agrees to help his "friend" out with the landlord problem, then gets stuck with the bill. AJ doesn't have power, self-assurance, confidence, or pride in himself. Admittedly he hasn't done much that would help him acquire any of these things, but lets not dismiss him as useless due to his own choices -- some of that behavior has been transferred onto him by Tony.
And last, for those who think that the AJ material is purely filler, I could not disagree more. Who is in a better position to force change on Tony's life than his only son, who he genuinely LOVES and CARES ABOUT. I would argue that scenes involving Tony, Carmella, Meadow, AJ (and I would have argued Christopher in the past, but I'm not so sure now) are the PUREST scenes in the entire show, and the ones that ought to have every viewer on the edge of their seat soaking in every word spoken. This show is about Tony's life, and I don't see Chase taking the easy way out and effecting change on Tony's life via incarceration by the Feds. I think its all going to come from the core nucleus of his immediate family.
In other words, don't be so hard on AJ, he's his father's son, and the more Tony begins to realize that, the harder its going to be for him to look in the mirror. Recall that the Tony we have seen in flashbacks to his teenage years was a rather sullen, intimidated, rebellious (robbing a mafia card game for god's sake), and father-dominated wimp of an individual. And look how Tony turned out.
</p>