The Wire

[mostlikely2]

I have this theory about television, specifically popular television drama. Shows that are wildly popular -- not cult programs, but seriously nationwide popular -- have a thing that they give us. You go back to the same restaurant twice a month because you expect a certain dish or a certain flavor, right, so what keeps people coming back? What is

Comments

[cucumbersarnies]

The Wire = not robots. One of the things I love about the show is that it gives equal weight to all the characters- that you can sense a life beyond the page for them, and that though it is angry at the world, and moralistic, it's not angry or judgemental towards it's characters.

[mostlikely2]

"Angry at the world" and "moralistic" are two of my favorite things! Thanks!

[cucumbersarnies]

And you also get a functional knowledge of the drugs trade, and Jimmy McNulty's naked torso. It's the show that just keeps on giving.

[spectralbovine]

I've never thought of the show as being moralistic, I guess because, like you said, it's not judgmental toward its characters. I think the show may recognize that such things as morals exist, but it doesn't really care whether people have them or not.

It's very angry at the world, though. So very angry.

[spectralbovine]

I am just about to start the fifth season of The Wire, Jacob! A post will be forthcoming.

For my money, the theme of the show is "America is broken." I haven't seen The West Wing, so I don't know how it scores on the Hope Meter, but I don't think it's overtly hopeful, per se, although there are glimmers here and there. But it's definitely not emotionless; in fact, it's one of the more emotionally engaging shows I've watched because they are people, not robots. Very very much people. So much people. These are human beings, through and through.

[mostlikely2]

"America is broken" is also one of my favorite things in the world. This show is sounding awesomer and awesomer.

[spectralbovine]

I think you'll really dig it! It's extremely dense. It's all about unpacking the information in scenes and putting together the story that happens between them. It's about parallel thematics you don't even recognize at first. It's about the changing world and the way that individual ideas have trouble flourishing in an institutionalized society.

And there's an infamous scene in which two characters spend almost five minutes saying nothing but variations of "Fuck."

[faithellen]

My husband and I just recalled that scene today (as we expressed ourselves about Expensive Plumbing News)!

Jacob, The Wire pulls no punches about how things function, without being high-handed and didactic about the morals. The people are awesome.

And as relatively recent transplant from MD, the Baltimore accents make me smile.

[nicole_anell]

Yes, they're people inside a world that dehumanizes people at every level. That is what I take away from The Wire -- the system is fucked (and it's not getting fixed because the more power you have to fix it, the less you care to) and there are no heroes, but almost everyone has a part of them that's decent and real.

P.S. This.

[meegup]

ive never seen the wire, so i cant speak to that

[mostlikely2]

Well, it's probably a situation where your point of entry/contact colors where you go with it. I find the emotional high points of Lost to be really unengaging, because I approach the show as a paint-by-numbers exercise for the unused 90% of nerd brains, and BSG's complete disinterest in same doesn't bother me at all -- but I know plenty of people who find BSG unemotional, whereas it gets me in an extremely personal place. I mean, I totally know what you're saying -- part of my job involves reading page after page of those complaints and discussions, and I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't try to incorporate at least awareness of those other points of view

[meegup]

"Maybe it's a job or writer thing, actually"
heh
and i do have a ridiculously detail oriented job thats sort of like bizarro writing
and while bsg is completely unemotional for me, i do actually...periodically when i need a certain something that it gives me, go back and read the last bit of your season 3 finale recap. (and god bless you but i never read any of your TWoP stuff otherwise at all...but THAT one...i come back to again and again)

[mostlikely2]

Sorry, that was not the best phrasing. "Writer" needs an adjective in front of it.

[pastels_badge]

Everybody else has already covered a lot of the things I like about The Wire, like the political critique, the complexity, the interlocking themes, the ensemblyness of the characters, but I will also point out that I like how the show features quite a few gay and lesbian characters and one that's basically genderqueer, and these things aren't treated as some huge weird thing. I do wish that Kima's philandering phase would be captured with the same detail as McNulty's, but for the most part the show does a really good job of representing queerness without making a fuss about it.

[mostlikely2]

I didn't even know there were female characters, much less any sexuality issues at all.

I thought it was about a respectable drug dealer named Omar, the labor class, the F word, and like ... the fourth estate. That's literally all I know about the entire show.

[pastels_badge]

Omar's gay, dude! And in many respects the most lovable character on the show. So is Kima Griggs, one of the main cop characters. And in the last few seasons there's this woman who works for a dealer named Marlo as a sort of enforcer who is super androgynous, sort of in the vein of the "aggressive" thing but to the point where characters ask her her gender regularly.

[mckennl]

SNOOP! A believable butch/trans woman gangster! Who is played in all of her marble-mouthed glory by a butch/trans former gangster from Baltimore.

Ahem. Sorry, I just love Snoop so much even though her character is a ruthless stone killer.

And Omar is gay and out and the scene where he goes to the store in his satin pajamas is ... breathtaking.