It can be entertaining if you get interested in the personal interplay between the characters...as can any show (if it's well done)...once you get to know the characters well. It's strictly a matter of personal taste as to whether you can stomach the violence that goes along with it. If I hadn't already been drawn in by knowing the characters well in the early episodes, I would not have continued watching it as long as I did.

I wouldn't be hasty to judge people for watching it. It is no reflection on their basic character, in my opinion.

On the other hand, I do agree that an entertainment media that puts hundreds of thousands of images of violence in front of viewers every year (and I am not talking about just "The Sopranos", but about TV in general, and videogames, and movies) does have an overall damaging effect on the consciousness of a society. It de-sensitizes people. It numbs them. It hardens them. It makes them cynical. This is not a good thing.

The reason it's being done is that it makes money. People pay to see violence. A system where every decision comes down to what is most profitable will always move in the direction of excess and moral breakdown as time goes by.

"The Sopranos" in fact is an allegory for what has happened in society generally...but to a less extreme extent....the loss of innocence, the loss of decency, the breakdown of moral order, all for a lousy buck. And that is "The Road to Perdition" to quote the title of another gangster film. People are fascinated by gangsters, because the gangster represents the general public's own darkest possibilities, totally unleashed and running wild. This always leads in the end to self-destruction and the loss of all one had cherished in life. The loss of love, the loss of intimacy, the loss of peace of mind, the loss of self-respect and of respect for others.

It's a giant tragedy. Such tragedies were popular entertainment even in ancient times. Read some of Shakespeare's plays or the Greek tragedies, and you will find similarly heinous forms of popular entertainment about the darkest side of human nature.