The opening credit sequence of 'The Sopranos'.

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        The final step in the opening credit sequence is the title screen detailing ‘The Sopranos’. The viewer is presented with a black scene in the centre of which is the white block letter spelling out ‘The Sopranos’. This title screen itself may semiotically provide much information regarding the themes of the television programme once its layers of meaning are extricated and analysed. Treating firstly the importance of the simple colours of this screen- black and white- the themes of the show are visible. The traditional semiotic meaning that is assigned to these two colours aid in the production of these themes. White is mostly explicitly recognised as the colour of the good, the virginal/pure in contrast to the assigning of the colour black to the evil, the mysterious, danger, death and malice. The assigning of meaning to these two colours can be traced back in anthropological terms to the Western worlds view of white people as being good whilst the ‘black’ people from the continent of Africa were inherently evil and not to be trusted. This dichotomy was later applied to the notion of the ‘goodies’ versus the ‘baddies’ and can be seen in the title of graphics detailing a main theme of the show- the good guys or the police, reflected in the white, battling against the bad guys or Tony Soprano and his mafia family, reflected in the black. These colours can also represent the struggle in Tony’s world between right and wrong and his struggle with his morality and religious faith. Throughout the series, Tony has many crises of faith and a few attacks of conscience. Thus the black may reflect Tony’s dark side, with his underhand dealings and deadly intent, and the white may represent Tony’s faith, his belief in Catholicism and his need to do good in some form. However as the graphics show the black impedes on the white possibly illustrating the fact that Tony has a great struggle between right and wrong.

        To analyse the typography of the sequence it is again possible to find meaning implicitly embedded in it. The letters spelling out ‘The Sopranos’ are thick and have blunt edges. The letters in the original are also large and white and stand out prominently from the black background. The typography used is illustrated below.

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This may be analysed semiotically as being a reflection of the character of Tony Soprano- solid and dependable with a large stature who is rough around the edges; possibly a reflection of his brutal streak. It may also serve to provide meaning about the Soprano family as a whole- large, close-knit and very prominent in society (reflected by the white standing out against the black background). Finally the representation of the downward facing gun as spelling out the ‘R’ of ‘The Sopranos’ is important for the assigning of meaning also. According to Freud, the gun can be ...

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