Wicked Nerdery

The Sopranos was THE television show of the early 2000s.  Everyone watched it.  They discussed, debated, examined, and quoted it (“Oh, poor you!” and “Toodle-fucking-oo?” were particular favorites in my family).  There were show-based teeshirts – still have my Satriale’s Pork Store one – and cookbooks.  At the center of it all, the man at the top of the mob-chain and patriarch of the titular family, was Anthony “Tony” Soprano.  Tony could’ve been the classic mobster with a simple psychopathic personality, but the writers (and Mr Gandolfini’s wonderful portrayal) made him so much more.  He was a complex man and became an icon for TV’s anti-hero.  He was also possibly the first male with borderline personality disorder in pop culture to go mainstream.

In order to show what I’m talking about I’ll go through the nine key symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder (of which one need only have five in order to be diagnosed according to the National Institute of Mental Health) and show just how mobster Tony Soprano fit them.