“This is gonna sound stupid, but I saw at one point that our mothers are… bus drivers. No, they are the bus. See, they’re the vehicle that gets us here. They drop us off and go on their way. They continue on their journey. And the problem is that we keep tryin’ to get back on the bus, instead of just lettin’ it go.”
Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) mused about his mother in nearly every episode of The Sopranos, but not many of his thoughts summed up his complicated relationship with Livia (Nancy Marchand) quite like the above. Every decision Tony made, every problem he experienced, and every stressor that pushed him to a panic attack could be traced back to his feelings for his mom.
During this therapy session with Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco), Tony almost completed an epiphany that could resolve his mommy issues. He digs deep for the approval of Livia despite knowing that she’s already moved forward and absolved herself of any wrongdoing during Tony’s formative years. Tony pieces together the universal conquest for children to gain independence and stop pinning the responsibility of life’s outcomes on a maternal figure.
Unfortunately for Tony, he may be able to identify his parental issues in therapy, but he’s never able to produce a tangible change in his outlook on life. Livia lorded over Tony’s psyche, doing irreparable damage to his self-image and potentially pushing him over the edge to a life of immorality and crime. This storyline on The Sopranos spawned an entire generation of screwed-up sons who needed a lot more tender loving care during TV’s antihero era.
Behind every criminal protagonist on television during the early 21st century, there was a mother, or a lack thereof who influenced and came to define their sons’ lives. Walter White (Bryan Cranston) never speaks to his mom on-screen throughout Breaking Bad’s five seasons. In fact, she’s barely mentioned in passing conversation other than when Walter lies about going over to visit her when he’s in fact cooking meth in the desert with Jesse (Aaron Paul).
Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) is forced to watch his mother get brutally maimed in a shipping container during his formative years on Dexter. Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) and his mother, Gemma (Katey Sagal) interact in a way that flirts with incestuous energy on Sons of Anarchy. Gemma’s iron-fisted control over Jax and the motorcycle club he runs exemplifies a morbidly unhealthy evolution of the mother-son dynamic that carries on the legacy of Tony and Livia.
Without pretending to be Sigmund Freud, astute fans of the antihero era have probably observed just how vital the mothers are in each of these popular dramas. The moms of TV’s most famous criminals echo the efforts of a puppet master – a ventriloquist who’s pulling the strings and mouthing the words of the atrocities that emanate from their kin. Who your mom is doesn’t set your destiny in stone, but each of these series helped to craft a narrative about the everlasting irony of the person who should be your greatest protector also becoming life’s grandest roadblock.
Taking a look at the men who created these characters can give us at least a little bit of insight as to how mommy issues became a prevailing TV trend in the early 21st century. The Sopranos’ David Chase has talked ad nauseam about the symmetry between Livia Soprano and his mother growing up, most recently in Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos. The other Golden Age shows also feature men in the creator’s seats.
Vince Gilligan of Breaking Bad hasn’t spoken a lot about his mom other than the fun fact that she wanted Walter to get away with everything at the end of the series. Not a lot of information exists on the childhoods of Sons of Anarchy’s Kurt Sutter or Dexter’s James Manos Jr. Could the mothers of the antiheroes in these shows be based on the creator’s moms? It’s hard to say for certain, but art such as these series is often quite personal.
There are plenty of men who have poor matriarchal figures during their youth who don’t grow up to be serial killers, drug lords, or mob bosses. It’s a broad generalization and a bit of a stretch to blame the despicability of all of these men on them not receiving enough motherly affection, not to mention a tad misogynistic. Parenting is only a piece of the pie. After the dessert goes in the oven it’s up to the other ingredients to play their part in completing a recipe.
The influence of the women at the top is rather a fork in the road for Walter, Tony, Dexter, Jax, and so many others. They all choose to travel on the less desirable path of their own accord. The pattern of controlling women just gives each program a little something more psychoanalytical for fans to dig into if they so please. The personalities of each criminal mother can even be interpreted as playing a part in the wives each of these men ends up marrying.
Walter’s maternal influence in his upbringing is unclear at best and non-existent at worst. Skyler White (Anna Gunn) represents the opposite of this ideal; she’s overbearing, uptight, and often asked by her husband to climb out of his ass and give him some space. This dichotomy between who Walt chose to marry and her assumed differences compared to Walt’s mother makes fans wonder whether he was actually trying to find stability that he didn’t get in his earlier years.
Walt rebels against Skyler, choosing to liberate the confines of matrimony with methamphetamine. Skyler turned into public enemy number one according to ignorant machismo-infused frat boy fans at home, but a critical and audience reanalysis of her character since the series finale has allowed cooler heads to prevail. Skyler is a moral person. Being rigid isn’t a crime, but poisoning children and bombing nursing homes certainly is.
When looking at how similar Carmela Soprano (Edie Falco) is to Tony’s mother, Livia, it becomes a lot trickier than when juxtaposing Walt’s mother and wife. Carmela shares some parallels to Livia, but she’s also a distinctive character. Both Carm and Livia knowingly go along with their husband’s mob life. They also victimize themselves while overlooking deeper sins committed by the men in their lives. Whacking someone in the crime family? All in a day’s work. Cheating on your wife or putting your mother in a nursing home? For shame! Tony is bombarded with lectures from both his mother and wife in regards to domestic atrocities, but hardly ever made accountable for the occupational transgressions.
The male antiheroes of the Golden Age of Television have equally complicated female characters in their orbits, but ultimately their sins belong to them. While Walter got both overactive involvement and no guidance at different times in his life, his transformation into Heisenberg can be blamed solely on insecurities and an ungodly-sized ego. Tony tries hard to please a mother who can’t be satisfied, then has a chance to redo a similar relationship with Carmela and incessantly ignores her pleas for fidelity.
We can proclaim that the women of these shows make their presence felt, but the men make the final call in how their journeys form. Maternalistic power was only wielded by these ladies due to an instability deep within the psyches of the evil men at the top of the ticket. They lorded over their fates and used their mothers and wives as an excuse for wickedness. It makes all of these classic series fascinating interpretations of the misogyny lying in the wake of American society and it’s one of the indelible legacies of the antihero era.
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