Glamorization of the mafia

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I'm so sick of watching films & TV shows where members of the mafia are glamourized.
Most are psychopaths and have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
I've just rewatched The Sopranos Season 1 and there's this theme that runs through the season where Tony Soprano has a tender side (as expressed to his psychiatrist). I think that's BS. I mean the bloke's a psychopath. He has no conscience. He doesn't care what harm he inflicts on others. Any "tenderness" imo is all an act.
I think that The Sopranos is a highly sanitized version of mafia life.
What does anyone else think?

The mafia inspires movies and TV shows for the same reason why old west outlaws and street gangs of today do. Sure, they're murderers and thieves, but their fight against the law, and against each other, rightly or wrongly, makes for good drama.

I agree with Kraichgauer. I think our interests are naturally drawn to the dark side of humanity, and whether documentary or drama, it often makes for a compelling and thought-provoking watch. This is especially true of media which attempts to examine the humanity of psychopaths: mafia bosses, serial killers...as much as we want to think of them as inhuman monsters, they're still flesh-and-blood people with (skewed) human emotions. I don't think it's necessarily "glamorizing" to explore that area of psychology, but, of course, it depends on the media in question.

Admittedly, I haven't watched 'The Sopranos', but to use another comparison, I have seen all of 'Boardwalk Empire', another show which follows the mob and organized crime. The protagonists are all criminals and murderers, but the show never explicitly makes them out to be "good" people: sympathetic and engaging, sure, but merely interesting, not "good". The overlying moral is almost always "crime doesn't pay" and few, if any, of said characters make it through the series without being murdered or having their lives destroyed.

However, then you have games like 'Grand Theft Auto' which I would argue do glamorize organized crime, but that's another topic altogether.

I think there are different sides to Tony Soprano. He has no conscience in his work. He seems to have some conscience with his family. I don't think it is an act. I heard an interview of David Chase who created "The Sopranos" and he said mob guys would tell him the show was very realistic. I thought the show was a study in relationships that used the mafia theme to draw in viewers because people would not tune in if Tony and his colleagues sold insurance.