I really like parts of New Jersey. I'm not fond of the Newark airport.
I try very hard to never even glance at TV shows that 'characterize groups' in the way that show does.
That said, I grew up in a very, very Italian and very mafia town and went to school with a big mafia guy's son. My mom was Italian and I grew up with all the food and the culture and the accents, even the clothes, and even, the macho stuff and all that it entails.
So I am aware that there is a mafia and of some of the history. The history is a long and complex one, but I wouldn't consider it fascinating.
In that town, people regularly wound up dead for 'messing with' the wrong people. There were turf wars between different groups, and people in the different groups were shot by people in the other groups. Small time non mafia drug dealers at junior high and high school, would be killed just as they left school grounds in various grisly ways.
I visited a town similar to that about 30 years ago. What would happen is that people would 'run up north' to this town, which was about an hour from Chicago, to try to escape mob retribution. And someone would be sent along behind them, following them.
I just went there for a bike ride. See the foliage.
I got off my bike, wheeled it into the drug store to get a soda*, and in the drug store, an unpleasant looking person in a black pinstripe suit with a wide collar and a stylish hat, had just shot someone. I won't describe the scene in too much detail.
The shooter was smiling.
I would presume, that he was smiling because he would somehow avoid being successfully prosecuted for the crime. Chicago Machine and all.
So I would say, that kind of thing most definitely does go on in the world, but I have no interest in watching a tv show of it or a show characterizing Italians as 'guidos', which I don't find very funny. I don't think 'The Godfather' movies are 'masterpieces' and I don't find any of it glamorous.
*soda is what civilized people call any carbonated soft drink.
