The Sons of Anarchy TV program on FX is one of the most popular shows on TV right now. The show depicts the life and times of SAMCRO, an Outlaw MC embroiled in constant battle. In the course of a week or less these MF's cap a half dozen people, get thrown in prison only to miraculously have charges dropped, get in several fights, and then work hand in glove with local law enforcement, CIA, IRA, Mexican Cartel, and the Mayor, all of whom happen to be playing effectively as double agents of some kind.
These bikers are married to or date sexy women, even porn stars, that provide for all their needs, who are totally understanding of their man who just before he came home for dinner had to make a side trip from the grocery store to crush some guy's skull in as retribution for disrespecting the club, and then walk into the home ready to make mad passionate love to his Old Lady. Oh, and before we make love, dear, would you stash this $300,000 cash in our safe please?
Clearly the show's writers and producers are on to something, as the show receives very high ratings. They have so craftily created the idealized man and woman, so that the average home-bound feminized mini-van driving male watches the program and wistfully dreams of living such a life and of having the balls to do some of the things that the SAMCRO bikers do. They are fearless, masculine, rugged, domineering, yet gentle and sensitive (tears), loving and kind. In the course of a day these badass bikers can go from planting a few bullets in the head of some enemy to gently tucking in his baby, breaking a smile of sentimentality at the opportunity. So for the average woman watcher these men are irresistable, macho, protective, yet gentle and tender, the ideal man.
The Outlaw biker represents, even in reality to most other bikers, the Stallions of bikers, Ike Clanton and The Cowboys of Tombstone, the 1% of bikers; independent, fearless, and rugged. So that, even the regular everyday biker emulates these Outlaws by riding the same kinds of motorcycles that the Outlaws do, by wearing leather vests adorned with patches declaring his crude side, by adorning tattoos (sin the neck and facial tats), and by joining their own forms of clubs, most of which are but a benign modicum of similarity to real Outlaw clubs.
The days of the Cowboy have virtually passed, and the Outlaw Biker may be the only remnant of independence and freedom that there is in our modern society. Of course, the TV show is dramatized to a great extent because Outlaw Bikers don't actually fight before breakfast, lunch, and dinner and then come home to rock their baby.
The poor slob average guy ritually drives his minivan back and forth from Surburbia to his job each day, shackled by enormous debt, frustrated at living a life of quiet desperation, so when Sons of Anarchy comes on TV he's able to escape, to fantasize, as does his wife, about what it would be like to be free of the "good life" they are currently living.
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