A Defense of AJ
The Sopranos has some of the most iconic and beloved characters in all of television. Characters we love to follow and draw us into every scene they are in. It also has some of the most hated and reviled characters as well. Character’s like Jackie Jr, Janice, and of course AJ Soprano.
AJ serves as a punching bag for most of the community. People love to mock him for being spoiled, weak, and the absolute opposite of his powerful and respected father.
However, are we missing something? Is there more to this character that meets the eye? And is it possible that father and son are more alike than we think? Let’s take a look at the parallels between Tony and Tony. That is AJ’s name after all.
Anthony Soprano Junior is the youngest child of Tony and Carmela. Unlike his overachieving sister Meadow, AJ isn’t particularly motivated. He has a D average in school, and prefers to spend his time skateboarding or playing video games rather than actually putting effort into anything.
As the series goes on and AJ grows from a child to a teenager, these problems only get worse. He is eventually expelled from school for cheating. He drops out of community college, and is fired from his job at Blockbuster for stealing. After spending his time and money partying in New York, he eventually spirals into depression and attempts suicide. After getting out of the mental hospital, he has plans to join the military, but drops them when his parents arrange a cushy job at a movie studio for him instead.
All in all, AJ seems like a spoiled and bratty kid. He doesn’t appreciate anything his parents get him, and pisses away all the opportunities their wealth affords him. It’s understandable why the community looks down on AJ so much, especially when compared to his masculine and powerful father.
However what I think most people miss, is how alike Tony and AJ really are. Tony even comes out and says this directly.
“You and me, we react without thinking. That’s why I get mad at you, you know? I see myself in you.”
Tony Soprano
Tony and AJ are very similar when it comes to their troublemaking. Livia says she was always being called to the principal’s office when Tony was in school, just like AJ gets in trouble with his. And when AJ is being considered for ADHD, Carmela notices that many of his supposed symptoms are things that Tony has as well.
However it goes beyond just their behavior. They both deal with emotional problems as well. We learn in the series that the panic attacks and depression that Tony suffers from are hereditary. His father and even more distant relatives suffered from them as well.
And later in season 3, we see that AJ suffers from panic attacks as well. These attacks keep AJ from going to military school, which Tony hoped would straighten him up. As AJ’s depression grows to the point of suicidal thoughts, Tony believes his genes are responsible for how his son turned out.
Another connection between the two lies in the poem “The Second Coming” by W.B Yeats. AJ becomes depressed after reading the poem for his English class, as it reminds him of the horrible state of the post 9/11 world. He becomes fixated on terrorism as a constant source of worry and depression.
Not only is Tony also obsessed terrorism and homeland security when he is depressed, Melfi uses a line from the poem to describe how Tony feels about the world.
“The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;”
Knowing that AJ suffers from the Soprano curse, it’s interesting to look back on his earlier behavior. How much of his lack of interest in school is just him being lazy, and how much of it is him being depressed. After all, Tony himself found it hard to function when he was going through his bouts of depression.
In fact, Tony and AJ’s depression is so similar, they share the exact same line of dialogue when it comes to how they feel about the world.
“Why can’t we all just get along?”
Tony & AJ
If that’s not the writer’s screaming at us to see Tony and AJ are the same, I don’t know what is.
But if Tony and AJ are so alike, why do they seem like polar opposites? After all, Tony is able to climb to the top of the mafia world, while AJ can’t make it through school. Tony has women crawling all over him, while AJ cries in bed when a girl breaks up with him. Tony is everything we want to be. AJ is what we fear we are.
The main difference between Tony and AJ, is how they deal with their depression. Tony externalizes his depression through rage.
“Rage is depression turned inward.”
Melfi
Throughout the series, we see him taking his anger and frustration at himself out on other people. It’s implied that he learned this behavior from his father, who did the same thing to him.
“If Carmela let me kick AJ’s ass like my father kicked my ass, he might have grown up with some balls.”
“Like you.”
“Yeah like me.”
Tony & Melfi
AJ however, internalizes his depression. He doesn’t have the mafia to enable him to take his aggression out on other people, so instead he focuses it inward and it attacks himself. Though Tony sees this as weakness, Melfi points out that Tony is jealous of AJ for having a mother who protected him, unlike his own mother Livia.
“But I have to point out, what you resent Carmela doing for AJ, protecting him from his father, is the very thing you had often wished your mother had done for you.”
Melfi
The twisted irony of Tony’s disappointment in his son, is the fact that what he really hates is himself. Tony hates that he has to have this tough persona in order to survive in the world of the mob. And despite the fact that he commands respect and power, it does nothing to alleviate the internal doubt that he feels gnawing at his soul.
“I got the world by the balls and I can’t stop feeling like I’m a fucking loser.'“
Tony
And if you want yet another example of parallels, Tony describes AJ in the exact same way.
“He’s got the world by the balls. Every fucking advantage. And he hits one little pothole and he goes into hysterics.”
Tony
Now Tony says that AJ grew up with every advantage and has no reason to be depressed. However AJ’s childhood was far from perfect, and in reality, his upbringing might actually be the cause of his depression.
In the Season 2 episode Full Leather Jacket, AJ announces he wants to go to Harvard or West Point. However Tony immediately shoots him down.
“Well you might see them on television, but that’s it.”
Tony
Later in Season 3, Tony reminds him of his desire to go to those schools, but AJ denies having said it.
“No way I’d ever have said that. I could never get in.”
AJ
At this point, AJ no longer believes that he is capable of making it in school, and a large part of that is due to his parent’s hypocrisy. Tony undermines his education with distractions and presents, and then belittles him for being better than he is.
And it’s not only limited to Tony. Even though Tony says Carmela coddled AJ, there are plenty of instances of her putting AJ down as well. In the same episode, when AJ spills the milk, Carmela makes a snide remark about it.
In Season 5, when AJ proudly announces he got a C on his Billy Budd paper, higher than his usual grade, Carmela insults the grade, and you can immediately see the smile leave his face.
Now you might say so what? No one’s childhood is perfect, and at some point you need to grow up and move past these things. And I agree with that. However it’s clear that these moments had a profoundly negative effect on AJ. He says this himself in therapy with his parents.
“You called me an animal.”
AJ
And if we are going to say that you have to just get over childhood trauma, what about Tony? He’s still fixated on the problems with his mother even in the final episode of the series.
And speaking of Livia, another parallel is that while Tony and AJ both suffer from a genetic predisposition to depression, it’s aggravated by their relationship to Livia. Livia is a constant cause of Tony’s panic attacks, and AJ later cites his conversation with Livia in Greengrove as the beginning of his decline.
“It’s all a big nothing. What makes you think you’re so special?”
Livia
One of the themes of the show is the idea that toxicity is a black hole. It swallows everything around it, and brings down not only the people who are toxic, but those around them as well. I’m not saying AJ wasn’t a spoiled brat. He had plenty of problems he can’t blame on others. However I do think he was a victim of the same toxic world that swallowed his father, and he deserves to be more fairly judged because of that.
