Abstractions in TV Criticism:
Where's the Anarchy? Is it really about Sons of Patriarchy or Post-Racialism?
****Probable spoiler alert, not because I'm detailing the plot lines, but because in analyzing this fiction, I might let details slip that could ruin the show.
America's critics ignore the awful fiction of anarchy in the show "Sons of Anarchy." Why? Most critique it as action-packed and hyper-masculine (mostly true) while at the same time simplifying or eliminating anarchy altogether in favor of pursuing their own pet forms of literary criticism. Thus, anarchy is MIA while SAMCRO (Sons of Anarchy) faces off against apparent enemies from Glenn Beck, because a neo-nazi double-dealing enemy looks like him, to all of the supposed evils of conservatism (See Bellafante). In a way, the show presents a dystopia of sorts, but one I think is much more complicated than the narrow and sometimes completely off-base gender, ethnic, and racial criticisms of the show.
To understand the show, the abstraction of AUTHORITY is essential, particularly the relation of a rebel motor cycle gang to both law enforcement and other rival "underworld" gangs. To represent authority in the show, the central literary device used in seasons 1-2 is dramatic irony. A simple diary contains hidden, authoritative knowledge that everyone seems to want to get their hands on. Inside is both a 1970s radical anarchist manifesto and a sordid tale of the Club's quite imperfect past. Its author implicates the Club's president, Clay Morrow, in past Machiavellian machinations. In this show, that means murder within the brotherhood, which operates outside of the law. Let's deal with the literary comparisons first and the influence of tradition through a diary.
"Hamlet" Comparisons: Revenge, Ghosts, and Classic Inter-Family Blood Feuds"
The show is "Sons of Anarchy," so literally, Jax Teller is the "son" of an anarchist diarist and as a literary parallel, the diary in the show is just like the ghost in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Most critics pick up on the Shakespearean parallel. The radical diary is so important to the story because the past problems of the Club haunt the protagonist, Jax. I think that this "ghost of the past" illustrates that no perfect world exists after violently ending the oppressions of one "society" for another. His father, John Teller, wrote about the fanciful wishes of anarchism, while idolizing and quoting Emma Goldman, one of America's foremost anarchists. The father sought an escape from society with its oppressive "evils" and the son might want to try the same thing.
At the same time as he came to this ideological epiphany, John was also messing up his personal relationships. So, he traveled to Ireland to expand the Club, found comfort with someone other than his cheating wife, and had another family. He was happy until he returned to the kingdom he abandoned and was murdered by Clay.
It's the second family issue and the immoral starting point of John as the not-so-just slain father that complicates the rather simple Hamlet analogy that other reviewers like. It would have been a very different Hamlet story if King Hamlet (John) was also a cheating, murderous quitter who left his kingdom partly for selfish reasons. How justified would Prince Hamlet (Jax) have been in avenging his father's murder when mom was the one who was abandoned to raise him with Clay (Claudius) while the King left his kingdom to sleep with other women? Or shirk his kingly responsibilities for a European lust excursion because his ideas and hedonism outpaced reality and his job was becoming too difficult? And did Hamlet have an Irish step sister? And John would have been a criminal by the standards of the 1970s, the 2010s, or during Shakespeare's day. Thus, the Hamlet story base is nicely twisted by post-modernism, if we can even continue the literary parallel in a meaningful way.
But with infinite space on a blog, I will continue. Thus, Jax treats Clay like a father and willingly assists him in enforcing Club business. There's no ickiness with the Clay (Claudius) and Gemma (Gertrude) marriage as there is in Hamlet. In Hamlet, the kingdom is abuzz because of a hasty marriage so soon after the death of King Hamlet. Yet in SOA, they are a happy, loyal, and faithful couple for most of the series, often working together to limit the influence of John, even though Gemma likely knew nothing of Clay's responsibility for John's murder. And though not condoning the murder, Gemma repeatedly explains to Jax how much John did wrong and how the diary didn't do justice to the real issues that ripped apart their family. Clay put it all together for Jax and offered stability, at least more than the defunct utopia that John had tried to create.
In fact, the anarchist diary, the ghost, ruins everything. In a gang of murderers, it's only the death of family that warrants a catastrophic response. Jax butts heads with Clay in the first season only because he starts to read the diary as he's asserting his independence as an adult. The diary fuels this process as did Jax's off-show stint in jail. And Jax doesn't even kill Clay outright either, so there's not (yet) a tragic triple death scene with Jax, Clay, and Gemma all dying because of dramatically ironic circumstances. So, really the only successful Hamlet parallel rests with the diary (as the ghost) and the angry stepson seeking a less determined revenge against his murderous stepfather. Really, Jax is even more unsure and timid in revenge than Hamlet was. So, then what about the ghost of anarchy, tradition?
John Teller Is A Flawed Ghost of Anarchy, but as a Voice from a Diary, A Tradition Followed Nonetheless
So when life becomes difficult, anarchism provides comfort because it provides a way to escape. It is a comforting ideology where problems are easily solved, namely blame "the system," whatever that abstraction means, and where people have the individual ability to do as they want, like they apparently didn't before.
Yet, perfection never came for John Teller and Jax nearly falls into the same traps. Given dad's manifesto, Jax wrestles with the ideas of his murdered father, which then lead to business mistakes, conflict with Clay, and murder, as Clay and Gemma seek to keep the diary and its ideas from getting out. While being protective of him and also limiting their culpability in John's death, Clay and Gemma want to stop the damage. Already prone to hot-headed moves, Jax could run off on an anarchist "crusade" and that could ruin the Club and its business operations that Clay and his cold, hard-headed calculations have built. As television viewers are introduced to these high ideals, read to us by dad as Jax sits pensively, the memoirs illustrate the depressing path from idealism to disillusionment.
"Father anarchy" leaves an artifact to his son that explains all of his personal and business problems as his life unraveled. Jax sees parallels with his own life and family. On top of gunrunning, drug trafficking debates, and dramatically ironic plots between members, there's always the self-interested connivance of his stepfather, Clay, and the secretive, over-protective, and invasive actions of his mother that keep Jax wondering.
Clay gets along with Jax when Jax is most like him; realistic, self-preserving, and loyal. Afterall, he possesses the powerful title of Club President, a very unanarchist position of authority with lots of coercive power. Jax gets into the most trouble with everyone in the club during seasons 1-2 when he is idealistic and wants to steer the Club's business in a more righteous direction. It turns out even anarchists can't create a moral society either.
Maybe it's the types of economic production, the income they're deriving? Drugs, guns, prostitution, and porn should be morally acceptable so long as the individual wants them, right? Wrong. Members rarely agree with the proper "types of business." It turns out that not all humans want drugs, guns, or meaningless "sex." As if that's even possible. At times the other members bring on the smack down against each other like when Jax fails with the porn industry and they attack him. He loses credibility because of the failed venture.
And infidelity is also common among some members both as a tool of revenge, "because she did it too," and also as a way to drive away beloved spouses so they avoid the violent lifestyle that often visits the Club's Old Ladies. So, the men sleep around to "make them hate me, so they can leave and be safe." That only causes the Old Ladies to hold on to the Club tighter, to preserve their way of life with all of its violence and immorality.
When the club tries its hand at drugs, they end up expelling Clay because the transactions brought too much violence. Many members of the gang have committed multiple murders and countless other felonies and misdemeanors that nearly every society on earth has punished for thousands of years. Yet, Clay had gone too far in pushing drug violence in the protected "utopia" of Charming. For this gang, it's a question of relativity, of the degrees of immorality involved with sustaining a not-so voluntary organization!
The irony is that the Club is often tougher, harsher, and more immoral when enforcing their vision of society and Club business than the cops or FBI who seem to be inept and thwarted at every turn. I thought anarchism was a neccesary belief that could rip apart the insidious nature of traditional society and the oppressive conspiracy that runs it? Traditional authorities are pretty stupid if that is the case.
Of course there is the exception of the arch-villainess Agent Stahl, the antagonist who engineers less murders and backstabbing than the Club, but is still a major thorn in the side of SAMCRO. But, she also is also snuffed out by them in vengeance for her ultimately failed machinations. So in the midst of the violence, it still turns out that morality police exist in anarchic motorcycle gangs too! And among murderers, only the badguy murderers get killed and not the "good ones" who've actually committed more violence to enforce their vision. Once the murder threshold has been crossed, what moral barrier does Club Anarchy have left to stand on? Is an anarchist-protected society really better off or less violent? SAMCRO aren't really building a better world, and by continuing to pursue separtism, dominance over Charming, and their own individualist pleasures, they are in fact more oppressive, more violent, and more sinful than traditional authority.
Anarchist Communities Are NOT Hermetically Sealed Environments
(Meaning that you can't simply throw away the abstractions or the human connections with "outsiders" that influenced your individual ideological journey.)
Anarchism is an interesting belief system because of its claims about the ability to rid the world of "tradition" and the ability to successfully devolve authority to the individual, as if abstract conspiracies of the "powerful" are the collective, inhuman monsters who oppress, while anarchists are the human individuals that possess a true moral reality. But, how does the belief in individual morality and communal anarchism apply to the SOA?
Well, the answer stems from the diary and the club charter, the former as the supposedly revolutionary document meant to educate the "sheeple" of the 2010s and the later as the founding artifact of the Club. Really though, as a product of another era (the 1970s), they are traditional artifacts just as much as the Constitution and patriotic symbols they would replace.
These artifacts guide the superclass of anarchists in their leadership of SAMCRO and its supportive underclasses (Old Ladies, local law enforcement, shops, prostitutes, "mules," etc.). Those initiated into the SOA community are thus the moral, individualistic resistance to the oppression of American society outside of it. Then, the non-member community of Charming serves as not only the base for SAMCRO, but also the subject people to the superhuman, moral anarchists that rule over them. The community is ruled because local law enforcement is on the Club's payroll at least early in the early seasons. The townspeople go to the Club's front shop for service. If they step out of line, disagree, challenge the moral situation in their town whether at the hospital or in their schools, they face violent discipline and coercion, which are two very unanarchic concepts. A real parallel to this would be anarchist destruction of property in street protests, where the mere act of ownership of businesses acts as a justification for the destruction of their property by self-righteous anarchists (See Occupy Wallstreet's closer of the Port of Oakland, etc.)
If the show is useful in any way, it would be to show idealistic people that you can't always have what you want and that immorality or your past DOES NOT disappear just because you have chosen to believe something new. Anarchism does not wipe away immorality from the planet and sin stays with people as long as they stay on earth. It is just voluntary belief in something that makes you feel better inside while damaging everyone else in society, a society in America organized around more collective justice and less vigilantism.
This message also applies to the real-life college students most susceptible to the anarchist dribble, a small unhappy group that are worried about things like having to fight the oppression of having to pay for their own poetry studies. The show uses logic and deduction to show how such belief MIGHT change us and our individual morality if put into action. According to this artificial construction (anarchism), whether its promiscuous sex, drugs, or resistance against would-be oppressors, vice is action. That means with absolute anarchist choice, human beings may do things that at least are petty immoralities and at worst violence, destruction, and increased misery. Initiating this form of change seems many times worse than the supposedly evil society itself.
Confronting Rape with "Justice" NOT "Vigilantism"
Many reviewers are concerned with the gender and racial roles of central characters like Katie Seagal's character Gemma Morrow. They argue that SAMCRO's violence is indicative of a male-dominated patriarchy that uses it to maintain its position. They claim that SAMCRO even uses patriarchy to control the loyal women of the club. All interesting and potentially important, but really, what about the effects of ANARCHISM on women or minority rights?
I think leading female characters join leading males on this show because of ideology, because their lives are made unanarchic because they willingly pursue power within the Club. At the same time, they desire the stability that the Club tries to offer its women, even though women can never attain full membership and it has removed traditional means of justice for them. Courts, laws, and police are unacceptable venues for justice because of their particular anarchist ideology and because the Club operates on vice revenue.
So, like their men, the women of SAMCRO seek justice within the confines of the Club, which is much less "justice" than they would receive through legal recourse. But anarchist ideology has not purged patriarchy from the men of the Club either. Even in fiction, we simply can't stop believing. Afterall, it's Emma Goldman, a woman, and not Mikhail Bakunin that Jax is citing while trying to keep his love from becoming ensnared in the anarchic Club lifestyle.
Take the example of "his love," the pediatric physician Tara Knowles. Separate from the Club, she built a strong career for herself. Would Tara, a successful woman doctor, prefer a violent life in a sub-dominant position if she becomes an "Old lady" or economic and social stability as a woman in control of her own destiny? Well, her love for Jax plunges her into the Club, a willing choice that she makes time and again.
SAMCRO is a social system that tries to ignore the laws and law enforcement's conceptualization and actualization of justice around them. Yet, anarchy is a destructive belief system that attempts to unlatch both men and women from a complicated "authority" itself with lots of "paternalist" and "violent" strains of abstraction. But, anarchism also tries to "unlatch" all genders from "laws," which are just artifact pieces of paper, and "AUTHORITY," which are people's complex abstractions about how people command the duty to obey. Yet, people's respect for authority derives from those artifact laws, which developed over centuries to punish "crimes" like rape. The show might be fictitious, but it does illustrate what might happen when the individual MAN knows best and when MAN thinks he has sealed off his utopia from the corruption of the outside world.
Maybe, it's the anarchy that's to blame when the men maintain that women are going to remain subordinate because only SAMCRO MEN are capable of the right kind of individual moral thinking required of true member of the SOA? Maybe, physical strength, "machoism," and male cunning are ideal parts of this "liberated anarchic experience" and the most a woman can hope for in the anarchic individual world of SOA is to be supportive individuals of their "men?" And women aren't allowed to be members, just "Old Ladies," just a link to their men. Instead of the authors supporting male dominance and violent patriarchy, they could be showing that even anarchists, supposedly the most morally pure individuals of society cannot leave their flawed abstractions behind!
Otherwise, Tara would've chosen her career over a love-affair with a protagonist obsessed with anarchism. Rather than anarchy being the liberation of the mind, in the case of this fiction, it seems quite a few abstractions remain, like "traditional male dominance" or "love." Anarchism seems to be the tool that drags women into a less equal, more male-dominated society that was never roped off from everywhere else. It seems human beings can liberate their minds from very little. And in the act of TRYING to free yourself, more violence and destruction results for everyone else.
So why does this show's anarchy and Club culture affect women so negatively? Why does circumventing the law damage women and a more time-tested concept of "natural rights"?
Well, by circumventing the law to participate with SAMCRO, women can't receive a more time-tested form of justice, one less likely to involve vigilantism or paternalism. In actuality, women have more opportunities outside of the Club and without this particular form of anarchism. Agent June Stahl is a pretty good example of an over-zealous law enforcement official who is the nemesis and antagonist to the male-dominated Club, the protagonist Jax, and the weaker Club women. She is strong not because of her gender, but because of her ruthlessness, which she uses even after the death of her lesbian partner. She twists her partner's death so that she is not held responsible.
Even though Stahl is defeated and killed by SAMCRO, she is just as manipulative, immoral, and prone to illegality as Clay Marrow and her other male counterparts who get involved in vice operations. She is a female symbol of "justice gone bad" and the antithesis to all-American hero wanna-be Deputy Hale who strictly follows the law, seeks to expel the club and root out bad cops. But, the unjust tentacles of anarchism affect even him. His reward for believing in justice is to get killed in a drive by shooting after flirting with the dark side.
While Stahl symbolizes societal injustice and the corruptions of power, it is Gemma who represents not just the effects of patriarchy on justice, but the damage that anarchism and patriarchal vigilante justice can bring to those willing woman followers. As the most powerful woman in the Club, greatest rival to Stahl, and the mentor to Tara, Gemma uses physical violence to beat her opponents up. She proves to be totally loyal to her son, even when he doesn't know she's watching out for him. They grow closer as mother and son as Clay is alienated and his inter-club crimes are revealed.
So how does Gemma fit in with the all-male power structure of SAMCRO? First, the injustice of the Club's authority is on display with Gemma's horrific rape by a rival gang, who happen to be Neo-Nazis. The fundamental injustice stems from the Club doing justice itself, aka vigilantism. The abstractions of anarchism and vigilantism reinforce the predominance of the Club men who either founded the Club or are its successor generations. SAMCRO men either punish the offender for the victimized female, thus preserving the "protective," and thus demeaning patriarchy, or, SAMCRO women pursue their own justice, based on their very human and individualistic perception of what justice would entail. They could murder the male criminal or they could remain silent because that would bring attention to the Club, which could upset its (ironically) criminal stability.
Rather than showing the chain reaction of events from illegal decision-making, Peggy Seggal's horrific rape scene and strained coverup is viewed by one reviewer as an "extension of America's conservative reactionary wing." What?? A number of problems ensue from this form of criticism. First, reactionary is an abstraction that suggests a reaction to political events. But, every person reacts to changes in some way. Why must reaction only be extreme, especially when you look at the death and destruction that SAMCRO is responsible for? Isn't there a reasonable criticism for all of the characters on moral grounds? Why must the antagonists, rather the ideological opposition to anarchism and murder be murdering Neo-Nazis? Is the only legitimate criticism for more open immigration policies one that comes from Nazism? That's ridiculous hyperbole and an argument about the immigration debate that really isn't present in the show. If anything, it's the ease with which violent Mexican gangs and SAMCRO do business across the border that should warrant notice from critics and not a look-alike actor whose racism doesn't go as far as his willingness to make lots of money off the Mexicans.
Instead, doesn't "SOA" show both the violence and humiliation of rape, but also how BELIEF affects all people in a complicated world? Rather than strict lines of gender, nativism, or racism, where there's some sinister patriarchy versus an idealized, solitary, and moral woman, isn't the show making the larger point that MORAL AUTHORITY, sexual, racial, and political, does not disappear even when an obvious immorality, a crime like rape, is committed?
Maybe in the idealized "Wild West," victims of rape would be avenged by the victims themselves, rather than others. However, if Clay or any other male figure were to avenge his wife's rape, wouldn't he be "patriarchal" because his sense of vigilante justice overrides Gemma's? Bellafante ascribes Gemma's actions as both "victims and agents of vengeance." But, is all decision-making that crosses genders really indicative of the absolute presence of the patriarchy abstraction? If all laws that exist in the fictional world of the show protect men before women, are women the only persons capable of deciding how to confront such an injustice as rape? Are they the only persons capable of judging an immorality and responding to it? Does a society of men and women have an interest in preserving laws whereby someone other than the victim or the other figures in their life respond to a rape?
Obviously society does. Bellafante misses that women too can buy into bad abstractions, like SOA, without having patriarchy be to blame. Is it the patriarchy of the rapists, and their message, or the threat of a patriarchal response that stops Gemma from disclosing it to the police or Club authorities? Or is it that she is committed to her belief system and that means SOA is paramount? And if Gemma conceals her rocky relationship with Jax's father and Clay's role in the failure of that relationship, is she acting patriarchal because she believes she's acting in Jax's best interest by keeping him in the dark, thus overriding his ability to decide, or is she acting maternally, as mother knows best what will keep her son from harm? Is a maternal mother a moral secret-keeper when the information may lead to violence whereas a step-father is less so because of his sex or the exclusive history of people of that sex? Is Gemma more moral than Clay because of her sex if she pursues vigilante justice instead of Clay?
In a fictional motorcycle anarchist gang, women still face the terrible problem of disclosure. While avoiding the law, Gemma is willing to suffer the humiliation in silence rather than risk giving the gang's white supremacist rivals an opening to humiliate Clay. Her secrecy is part desire to prevent her rapist from winning, but also because she's committed to acting within both the SOA anarchist abstractions and within marriage. Telling Clay "would ruin him." Her decision-making is both grasping at power after the sexual power struggle of rape, but also restrictive as her SOA beliefs cloud her sense of justice. Should she end the terror brought by racist rapists if that means the end to her way of life and all of the illegalities perpetrated by the Club? She didn't think so, so she stuck it out.
Is it really the patriarchy abstraction that prevents her from disclosure or is it her commitment to being an "Old Lady" to anarchism that stops her disclosure? It is fiction so we can't ever know. But, rather than the "corporate neo-nazis" being indicative of the partriarchalism and racism behind supposed right-wing talk show hosts, aren't they really a fictional example of another ideology that thrives outside of prevailing justice abstractions?
The show's about the anarchists, not the Glenn Becks.
"Post-Racialism" won't be more REAL without "Laws" and accompanying justice
In SOA, some critics have found strange criticisms about "post-racialism." Ms. Bellafante wrote that the show "presciently captured the ugly nativist strain running on the edges of American life, the mentality that has led to false beliefs about the president’s birth status and talk of denaturalizing “anchor babies." What an awful line! Where in any part of Sons of Anarchy is there a serious theme of nativism, birth status, and denaturalizing immigrants coming from law-abiding Americans? The cross-racial murders seems a bit more important than the intolerance of one season's Neo-Nazi enemies. And the only talk of babies or birthright citizenship occurs because the IRA stole Jax's son and priests refuse to give him back because they feel he could lead a better life with a caring Irish (Catholic) family. Is that Irish racism against American anarchist bikers?
Ignoring all of SAMCRO's murder and immorality, why is it important to analyze the Neo-Nazis as representing some fringe questioning President Obama's birth status? Why does a rival gang who wants minorities expelled from Charming illustrate a political debate over the 14th Amendment and naturalization, especially since SAMCRO doesn't even follow the most basic laws of society and drives them out by inciting murder? Why miss the all-around criminality to score (terrible) political points in a largely unrelated political debate?
If it's the racist group that engages in warfare with SAMCRO over dealing with minorities, only to do business with minorities, then how does Bellafante reconcile "Juice's" aka Juan Carlos Ortiz's complex race issue? Afterall, he's one of the good guy protagonists, a member of SAMCRO fighting the racist Neo-Nazis apparently representing the fringe birther movement. Yet, because the Club is almost 99% white Male, he's forced to conceal his mixed birth (his dad was an African American) for fear of being expelled from the Club. Maybe, SAMCRO isn't so post-racial afterall and maybe the writers are trying to illustrate that intolerance still exists even amongst the "good guys."
In fact, Juice is so concerned about Club racism that he murders a man to conceal his mixed race, not because this fictional America is post-racial and accepting of immigrants, while a lunatic fringe attacks anything different. Instead, Juice uses violence because he's unlatched from justice, because the Club operates a separate authority that violently expels members who don't look like the leadership. Rather than post-racial vigilantes bringing justice to a fringe of hateful right-wingers, vigilantes bring injustice to the unjust and that's because they've tried to do it themselves! And humans who think they've thrown away all of the bad still prove themselves to be quite imperfect.
SAMCRO has proven its members to be quite human, especially when unlatched from more time-tested abstractions like "justice." So, the choice of their gun buyers is not necessarily ideological, in that the Mayans, who organize based on racial and ideological abstractions (anarchic Mexican Indian) are at times both a hated enemy worthy of racial slurs and at other times business partners.
The Failure of Motorcycle Primitivism:
I think "SOA's" altering relationships are a powerful REFLECTION of the author's interpretation of humanity, how limited and dangerous beliefs can be, and most importantly how those beliefs can dehumanize those around us to conform to the ideal. Even ultimate individualism is potentially dangerous or when so-called ultimate individuals organize into so-called voluntary associations. One simply can't claim to lead a simpler life while riding away from the difficulties of society on a complex piece of steel and rubber, wearing metal earrings, a mass produced leather jacket, while protecting yourself with pistols and making money from the sale of high-caliber firearms or synthetic methamphetamine. One can't claim to have purged tradition while one is part of an association with charters, presidents, and a weak democracy through voting. Motorcycle primitivism is just a cover for unhappy people seeking a means for their own power. The rest of us must suffer for their vision to succeed.
This violence is also why fiction is useful as individual tales of morality, to suggest hypothetical outcomes that may never realistically come to pass. While fiction may not be truth, it provides at least a logical construction of what might be. Even made-up abstractions can be useful to those wishing to expand their understanding.
As much as the Club tries to separate itself from the rest of America, it is not averse to the complex beliefs and calculations of non-members. The Club is not hermetically sealed from the outside world, there is no absolute justice by its deciding board. Even banishment results in the tortuous removal of the Club's insignia. (Torture isn't considered a universally immoral action if anarchist individuals deliver it!)
So, even a show can illustrate to its viewers that as much as we might like to destroy the physical things or people around us in order to somehow bring concepts like "harmony" or "liberty" into the real world, we really can't. We arrange, destroy, or create physical things and BELIEVE we have made our lives more harmonious. However, the concept is still abstract.
Stay off your bikes, put down your pistols, and stop selling illegal drugs if you want more "justice" in "America!"
Cited or Influential Sources:
Bellafante, Gina. "Post Racial Vigilantes in a World In Peril." The New York Times. 9/6/2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/arts/television/07anarchy.html?_r=0
Dawkins, Marcia."Mix Messages: Barrack Obama and Post-Racial Messages." Post Identity. Janani Subramanian, editor, Spectator 30:2 (Fall 2010): 9-17
https://cinema.usc.edu/archivedassets/101/16191.pdf
Gilbert, Matthew. "Biker Gang Saga 'Anarchy' has Appeal." Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2008/09/03/biker_gang_saga_anarchy_has_sopranos_appeal/
Christiano, Tom, "Authority", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2012/entries/authority/>.
