When I first heard that this show was coming out, I was dumbfounded. I still am. This is not just some contrived reality show. These are daughters and wives of very well-known gangsters...part of a lifestyle that honors silence and staying below the radar. Now, here they are in a much-hyped, well-publized national television program that puts an underworld front and center that can only operate effectively when out of the public eye. Doesn't that put these women at severe risk?
At its core, Mob Wives is kind of sad. Here are four women, all seemingly capable to some degree and street-wise, who source most of their problems to the very mafia lifestyle they are currently capitalizing on and from which they draw their core identity.
In one episode, Renee, fresh from her confrontation with Karen, admits that Karen made some sense when she said nobody had any problem with her when her father (Sammy "The Bull" Gravano) was killing people...only when he cooperated with the authorities. Essentially, she said their social circle was far more accepting of cold-blooded murder than perceived disloyalty. I can see where this would give Renee pause. What I can't see is how this never occurred to her before, and why up until that point she had been wearing "Mafia Princess" like a badge of honor gleefully devoid of any acknoweldgement of how all that luxury was finding its way to her lap.
What Mob Wives ends up being is a real version of Goodfellas, one of the best movies ever made. The women don't socialize much with people outside of "the life." Their lives are broken out by incarceration intervals - never seemingly all that happy when their loved ones are in the clink, nor when they are home. They attempt to hide their children from the truth about their fathers. They struggle financially They wonder aloud who they are when their identity is so pegged to a lifestyle they really are only tangentially involved with (its their fathers and brothers who are mobsters, not them). In their best times, they try to block their own thoughts of the murders and crimes that got them the Audi and the big house in Staten Island. In their worst times, they are forced to acknowledge that they love and adore men who destroy - and end - other people's lives.
Even so, I can't help but like them sometimes. Karen probably has the best perspective...having re-examined everything she thought she understood when it was revealed her father had killed at least 19 people. Renee, in a fit of honesty, admits she has given up everything - even her own identity - in being loyal to a group of people who are so frequently disloyal to one another. Carla seems completely nonplussed with the lifestyle and almost comes across as someone who could easily do without it. Drita is fun, tough, loves her kids and openly contemplates what kind of life she'll have if she spends it waiting for a man who doesn't know when he's getting out of prison. They are all smart. They all care very much for their kids. They can be funny and interesting and almost warm in a way. But they are also all suffering from the great delusion that allows them to wake up everyday and face the world knowing that everything they do is financed by something unimaginably terrible.
I have a very hard time with this show, because it embodies the deepest criticisms of reality tv by literally glamorizing the worst of human behavior. I am reminded by one of the best scenes of The Sopranos, when Carmella goes to see a Jewish therapist who tells her to take what's left of her kids and leave Tony. He wouldn't even accept payment for the session because it's blood money. It's tainted her whole life and it's up to her to save herself and her kids. He could have been talking to any of the women on Mob Wives. And they'd probably respond just like Carmella, in tears knowing he's right, but unable to give up their material possessions - and self identity - to start anew.
VH-1 really took reality tv from something lighthearted and turned it into something terribly dark and tragic. Glamorizing a lifestyle built on blood is not entertainment. Its exploitation of people put underground by a world that should have remained under as well.
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