Flipping the Script

 When it comes to TV and movies, I don't like to know how the sausage is made. But full disclosure, I find it hard to resist the inside info when it comes to "The Sopranos". As luck would have it, there are a bazillion YouTubes about all things Soprano. 

It's kinda crazy to me that people that people spend so much time gossiping about a fictional show. "Why did this happen? Why that? How 'bout this theory?" Shit like that. My first thought is always, ask the writer. It's their story. It's not ours to add anything to it. It's not "The Bible", after all. 

Story arcs are different though. I've been seeing a lot of a particular arc in The Sopranos that always befuddled me. This is the storyline of Vito Spatafore being outed as gay. They spent a lot of episodes on that, too many in my opinion. The actor who played Vito, evidently heavily pitched it to the writers and they ran with it. It was at once an unexpected turn and then an unnecessary one. 

Vito was a captain under Tony. A character you saw fairly often, who stood out because he was quite fat, easily 300+ pounds. Otherwise, he was unremarkable. He made a couple hits and got teased about his weight- Christopher called him a "parade float". 

If there were to be a storyline about one of the characters being gay, Vito would be the least likely choice. Maybe that was part of the brilliance of The Sopranos? Nobody saw that coming! We're all like Homer Simpson in wanting our homosexuals to be handsome, hunky and flaming. 

I imagine any TV cast is cursed with jealousy. Someone will always want their character to have more screen time. Can't fault an actor for that. More time, more money, more fame. Actors often believe they know their character better than anyone else. I've heard that some cast members would go to David Chase (the creator and writer of the show) and say things like: "I don't think my character would do this..."

Chase would look at them and say, "Your character?" 

That had to put them in their place. And he was right, they were his characters. 

Being open to suggestions is fine though. A character being gay and literally flipping the script was good idea. But Vito?? Even if he was the last guy one would expect- and he was- his grotesque weight was an odd choice.

Before I first binged Sopranos last year, I had heard there was a storyline where one of the crew got caught blowing a security guard. I could appreciate that that would be a major mistake in a mob family and that in such a macho world, the guy would get clipped. No doubt. 

But to make it a major storyline where he leaves both his families and runs off to hide in New Hampshire and fall in love with another gay man, only to leave that new life to come back to try to get his old job back as well as his wife and kids, well, that was too much. 

This happened at the tail end of the series and perhaps the writers were getting tired. This should have been one or two episodes like when we suddenly find out Eugene Pontecorvo was snitching for the FBI and trying to get his family to a new life in Florida, away from his work family. His suicide was a shock but made sense. 

But the actor who portrayed Vito pushed his arc and Chase and the writers bought it. I've heard that other cast members were pissed about this. I can see that. Why not them and their character? Were they chopped Gabagool?

Also heard that after the show, some cast members still begrudged him his fleeting fame. Word is the actor is still scratching out a living hanging onto the show, selling himself and junk memorabilia. Truth be told, not a lot of the actors had much success beyond the show. Though it was arguably THE greatest episodic television endeavor ever, it didn't launch a lot of careers. Can't say that it killed a few either though, as some 20 years later, these actors are still getting a lot of acclaim for their greatest roles. And they fucking earned it, as Christoper would say. To have been part of an ensemble of television greatness that will probably never be topped, is quite a reward in itself.

Colonel Henry Blake should have seen that coming.