In the NYT, Amy Winehouse > James Gandolfini

I think the type of snobs NYT editors hob knob with at New York cocktail parties and such are the type who would think Amy Winehouse is more high brow and culturally more intellectual than James Gandolfini.

 

It's a really bad comparison. Jerry Garcia could have made much more Grateful Dead music. James Gandolfini was done as Tony Soprano.

 

The New York Times once said that The Sopranos ""just may be the greatest work of American popular culture of the last quarter century."

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/06/movies/television-radio-sympathetic-brutes-in-a-pop-masterpiece.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

But, ya know, dooley_womack1 thinks putting Gandolfini on 1A would make it Entertainment Weekly. Gotcha. A true culture maven, that one.

 

That was in response to Songbird's suggestion that the Times might run an A1 centerpiece on Sunday.

Arguing any point here these days is akin to slamming your head against a brick wall.

 

Mencky Jimy's knowledge of me is somewhat deficient, methinks.

 

And of course, declarations made in 1999 are forever binding.

 

The Sopranos (and the Wire) have gotten to be those topics where people argue about who loves them harder.

 

When Deadwood star Ian McShane dies, Khartoum will go postal if that doesn't go A1

 

Tony Soprano may have begat Don Draper - I don't see that as a compliment, but I know it is meant as one - but can we please stop pretending that The Sopranos was some kind of ground-breaking achievement in the art of storytelling? It was a great show that followed in the footsteps of great novels and movies about the Mafia (as well as the real Mafia) and had a main character with some interesting character flaws.

The show was fantastic, but if Gandolfini had died at 81 instead of 51, no one would have even blinked about him being on A19. Tony Soprano is fresher in our minds than J.R. Ewing, so his importance hasn't had time to settle with age.

 

Stepping back for a second, do we give readers what we think they want or what we think they need in news decisions? The New York Times' editors long have been unflinching in making news decisions based on the latter.

 

Between Deadwood and Justified every newspaper in the country ought to just run a full page photo of Timothy Olyphant with "May 20, 1968 - Fill In the Date Here" on A1 whenever he dies.

 

See, I read that line in that piece and think Stephen Holden of The New York Times once wrote that. But I'm honest enough to say I can't prove he wasn't speaking on behalf of The New York Times editorial board.