I don't think the tv show "The Sopranos" promotes the gangster lifestyle.

There is violence, but it's rather stark and unvarnished, not glamorized (with bullets flying and bodies falling in slow motion like in so many movies these days) and I find myself cursing rather than cheering the gangsters' brutality.

I think that it shows how Tony Soprano is an psychological and emotional train wreck because of it.

It shows how Tony's family is corrupted by their contact with gangsters, and how it destroys his children's relationships with their friends.

It shows how people (like Tony's psychiatrist) can get sucked in by the glamour of the gangster lifestyle and end up being chewed up and ultimately destroyed by even peripheral contact with that lifestyle.

The show depicts Tony Soprano as a walking disease that infects and ruins every good thing he touches.

I wish all the kids who aspire to the gangster lifestyle would watch a season or two of "The Sopranos" and decide if they really want to descend that deeply into Hell.