Ever since HBO's “The Sopranos” began capturing the attention — and in many cases, the outrage — of TV viewers with its coarse depiction of a contemporary New Jersey mafia don and his dysfunctional family, culture watchers have been weighing in on the meaning of “Sopranoland.”

Books — including last year's The Psychology of the Sopranos: Love, Death, Desire and Betrayal in America's Favorite Gangster Family by Dr. Glen Gabbard (Basic Books) — magazine articles, newspaper columnists and academics have generally praised the award-winning show for its depiction of the suburban life of Prozac-popping Tony Soprano and his psychotherapeutic misadventures.

Last fall, the University of Calgary in Canada added the cult-status TV drama to its syllabus in order to help students understand how “The Sopranos” fits into the gangster film genre. The Sopranos “really do stand up to the kind of analysis I'm used to giving for a Pinter play, a Tennessee Williams play, a Hitchcock film or a Shakespeare play,” English professor Maurice Yacowar told the BBC last year.

The Soprano musings took a much more serious turn in January with the news of two southern California brothers who allegedly killed their mother and severed her head and hands in order to conceal her identity — an act inspired, allegedly, by a recent episode of “The Sopranos.”

Jason Victor Bautista, a 20-year-old hotel clerk, and his teen-age half-brother, Matthew Montejo, 15, were charged with killing their mother, Jane Marie Bautista, leaving her remains in the Santa Ana Mountains. They then told investigators their decision to cut the head and hands from the body to obscure its identity came from a November “Sopranos” episode in which Tony Soprano kills an associate, according to the older brother.

Jason Bautista, who allegedly confessed and led police to the mother's hidden head and hands, according to news reports, went to his classes at Cal State-San Bernardino the day after the murder and Montejo, a sophomore, showed up at Riverside High School. An attorney for one of the brothers alleged their mother physically and emotionally abused the youths.

‘Copycat’ Crimes?

If the allegation about the crime's motivations proves true, notes the Los Angeles Times, the horrific incident will add a new chapter to the “copycat” deaths ranging from eight killings reportedly inspired by the 1995 release of the movie Natural Born Killers to recent deaths and injuries of people involved in stunts based on the “Jackass” TV show and movie.

It also recalls the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre, which resulted in the Federal Trade Commission's report, “Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children: A Review of Self-Regulation and Industry Practices in the Motion Picture, Music Recording & Electronic Game Industries.”

Launched in 1999 and created by Italian-American David Chase (his real name is DeCaesare), a former writer for “The Rockford Files” and “Northern Exposure,” “The Sopranos” revolves around the philandering and crude Tony, whose regular visits to a female shrink and his ongoing struggle with depression and anxiety provide some of the comic relief to the otherwise wiseguy storyline.

Soprano's fictional wife, Carmela, tries her best to keep the family grounded, sometimes with the help of the young “Father Phil,” whom Carmela nearly seduces, or is seduced by, in one episode.

Chase has insisted in interviews that the hard language, nudity and violence are not what drives the show: “Anybody who says violence, cursing and nudity are the reason this show has become the success that it is doesn't know what he's talking about. … There's plenty of violence and mayhem in network television.”

HBO, which is no friend to watchful parents, apparently gave Chase cart blanche to break the traditional TV rules in presenting a “smart” series that pokes fun at the banality of modern American life but which, it must be said, hinges on the inevitable question of “who's going to get whacked this season?”

The violence can be startling. In various episodes during the first three seasons, viewers watched a disturbing scene in which Tony Soprano's psychotherapist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi, is raped in the parking garage of her New Jersey office. Elsewhere, we see a Hassidic Jew who hasn't “paid his bills” beaten over the head with a concierge bell; sociopathic mafia “captain” Ralphie Cifaretto kills a dancer on the parking lot outside the Bada Bing gentlemen's cabaret. One unfortunate member of the extended family who has been courting Tony's sister is fed to the meat grinder down at Satriale's pork store.

Why is all of this worth mentioning? Because the show has an estimated 9.5 million viewers every Sunday night, not counting the overseas audience. In 2000 alone, it won four Golden Globe awards, three Screen Actors Guild awards and a Directors Guild award. It has also won at least nine Emmys since 1999.

Not Everyone Likes It

It should be pointed out that early on, the National Italian-American Foundation denounced the HBO hit, as did the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations and the anti-defamation arm of the Order of the Sons of Italy in America.

“By promoting violence and worshiping at the altar of gangsterism, ‘The Sopranos’ has produced an ugly scene,” the Washington, D.C.-based Italian-American Foundation wrote in a Jan. 28 statement following the Bautista murder. “The time has long passed for HBO to put the public interest before concern for profit. The blood of Jane Marie Bautista's family in Orange County is on their hands. The public has a right to know what HBO is going to do about it.”

Apart from Italian-Americans’ displeasure at being portrayed as mobsters (this was disturbing enough that U.S. Rep. Marge Roukema of New Jersey proposed a resolution calling upon the entertainment industry to refrain from this kind of stereotyping), there was previously little objection to the show's violence, which is often directed at women.

Dr. Joanne Cantor, a professor emerita in the department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the question is not whether media violence causes violence but whether viewing violence contributes to the likelihood that someone will commit violence or if it increases the severity of violence when committed.

Cantor spoke about the psychological effects of media violence on children and adolescents at the Colloquium on Television and Violence in Society held in Montreal last year.

“The most direct and obvious way in which viewing violence contributes to violent behavior is through imitation or social learning,” said Cantor, author of “Mommy, I'm Scared”: How TV and Movies Frighten Children and What We Can Do to Protect Them (Harcourt 1998).

There is a wealth of psychological research demonstrating that learning often occurs through imitation and, of course, most parents know that children imitate televised words and actions from an early age, she said.

Cantor noted that at least 217 empirical studies appearing between 1957 and 1995 point toward the relationship between viewing violence and a variety of types of antisocial behavior. Parents, she said, need to receive better information about the effects of media violence, and they need more convenient and reliable means of understanding what to expect in a television program, movie or video game. She adds:

Parents also need strategies that will help them counteract the negative effects of media violence on their children.

Strategies for coping with media-induced fears need to be tailored to the age of the child. Up to the age of about 7, nonverbal coping strategies work the best.

After the age of 8, logical, empowering information helps children deal with their fears.

It is appropriate to speak out when problematic presentations are aired in contexts in which children are likely to see them and when inappropriate programming is actively marketed to young people.

The founder and chair of the Santa Monica, Calif.-based Center for Media Literacy, Sister Elizabeth Thoman has since 1975 been trying to provide a process by which people come to the media “not as passive puppets but with critical questions, so we process the experience and make better sense out of it,” explained the nun, a Sister of Humility of Mary from Iowa.

Parents can spend all their energy on moral outrage, “but why not work with kids to negotiate those experiences and be more discriminating users?” she asked.

But is that enough?

Just prior to the California murder, Dr. Margaret Crastnopol, a member of the faculty of the Northwest Center for Psychoanalysis and a practicing psychologist/psychoanalyst in Seattle, participated in an online discussion of “The Sopranos.” She asserted the show's writers are depicting what love, passion and desire look like in a climate of largely unfettered greed, corruption and amorality.

“Yes, this is the world of organized crime, but some theorists would say that the potential for similar urges, if not actions, exists in us all,” Crastnopol said.

Lest we forget, Dr. Crastnopol, that includes — parents take note — children, the audience most susceptible to suggestion.

Tom Tracy writes from West Palm Beach, Florida.