Tony soprano as postmodern gangster: Controlling identities and managing self‐disclosure

Abstract

Mafia lore and the personalities of organized crime figures, both real and fictional, have long fascinated American popular culture. Through an examination of the suburban world of mass‐media gangster Tony Soprano of the HBO series The Sopranos, this paper applies Erving Goffman's theories of self‐presentation and impression management to examine the contradictions of human behavior.