The Sopranos Vs. The Wire

nonwhite people never watch the wire btw

also ilx is trying to give me a heart attack

oh no white college kids

they're coming to misapply your critical lenses

it certainly doesnt go about explaining the behavior of those institutions the way the wire does

I consider this a virtue. Sopranos shows, the Wire tells. Let's consider, for example, the issue of recidivism. When Avon gets out of jail and returns to the street, we've witnessed the entire sequence of events from his crimes, to his arrest, to his trial, to his jail time, to his return to the Barksdale organization and his subsequent problems. This takes what, 3 seasons? and is portrayed very literally, in minutiae. The audience is given a very clear picture of how this guy is not reformed, and in some ways, returns to the streets an even more committed criminal than he was before. After which he comes into conflict with his former partner, and is murdered.

The Sopranos addresses this topic almost completely differently. Richie Aprile, Feech La Manna, and Tony Blundetto all deal with getting out of jail and adjusting to their new lives differently. they each get a few episodes (well, Richie gets almost a whole season, more or less), and how they served their time (lol Richie did yoga), what they did before, etc. is mostly dealt with eliptically and carefully woven into the fabric of the show through references to previous events (the card game that Tony and Jackie stuck up to make their name, etc.), it's addressed via asides and small details. The way Tony deals with Feech is explicitly related to his learning from what happened with Richie ("nip it in the bud", he says), and it's taken as a given that both guys once out would return to their lives of crime and cause problems for everybody. Feech's downfall is covered by a couple of scenes that maybe take up 10 minutes - we don't even see him get arrested, just the look of resignation on his face when his parole officer asks to see his garage. Blundetto's conflict with trying to go straight is so well-done (also written by Matthew Weiner, fwiw) - no one really believes him, most figure he's working an angle, and when he slips back into doing hits it's out of a carefully portrayed jealousy of Tony's financial security and the resignation that it's the easiest way out for him. He has a sudden, almost totally unexpected outburst of violence when he beats his Korean benefactor. What is going through Blundetto's head is never really made explicit or obvious, you have to tease it out from the way he handles different situations and people (getting his truck stolen, resisting Tony's offers of assistance, moodily hanging around Tony's pool with his kids, handling his Korean boss, his relationship with his girlfriend). It's just way more nuanced. By the end it's clear that even with his trying to go straight and having a career path open to him, the pull of easy money and cathartic violence is too much. Blundetto's dilemma just packs so much more of an emotional wallop than Barksdale's cold "I'M A GANGSTA AND I ALWAYS WILL BE" posturing, there's just so much more depth there.

xp

I mean Blundetto seems like a real, 3-dimensional person. Avon is like a caricature by comparison.

the orange is the color orange, all over. the apple never once is colored orange.

re: recidivism depth, what about that boxing dude? and poops (I forget his nickname -- it's like poops or snots or something) at foot locker?

the blundetto story was probably the weakest in the sopranos, v much david chase padding out an extra season at the behest of hbo

the feech le manna parole violation was really neatly done tho

"The audience is given a very clear picture of how this guy is not reformed, and in some ways, returns to the streets an even more committed criminal than he was before. After which he comes into conflict with his former partner, and is murdered."

Avon goes back to jail.

ts: cast of 80 vs. cast of 8

I consider this a virtue. Sopranos shows, the Wire tells. Let's consider, for example, the issue of recidivism. When Avon gets out of jail and returns to the street, we've witnessed the entire sequence of events from his crimes, to his arrest, to his trial, to his jail time, to his return to the Barksdale organization and his subsequent problems. This takes what, 3 seasons? and is portrayed very literally, in minutiae. The audience is given a very clear picture of how this guy is not reformed, and in some ways, returns to the streets an even more committed criminal than he was before. After which he comes into conflict with his former partner, and is murdered.

The Sopranos addresses this topic almost completely differently. Richie Aprile, Feech La Manna, and Tony Blundetto all deal with getting out of jail and adjusting to their new lives differently. they each get a few episodes (well, Richie gets almost a whole season, more or less), and how they served their time (lol Richie did yoga), what they did before, etc. is mostly dealt with eliptically and carefully woven into the fabric of the show through references to previous events (the card game that Tony and Jackie stuck up to make their name, etc.), it's addressed via asides and small details. The way Tony deals with Feech is explicitly related to his learning from what happened with Richie ("nip it in the bud", he says), and it's taken as a given that both guys once out would return to their lives of crime and cause problems for everybody. Feech's downfall is covered by a couple of scenes that maybe take up 10 minutes - we don't even see him get arrested, just the look of resignation on his face when his parole officer asks to see his garage. Blundetto's conflict with trying to go straight is so well-done (also written by Matthew Weiner, fwiw) - no one really believes him, most figure he's working an angle, and when he slips back into doing hits it's out of a carefully portrayed jealousy of Tony's financial security and the resignation that it's the easiest way out for him. He has a sudden, almost totally unexpected outburst of violence when he beats his Korean benefactor. What is going through Blundetto's head is never really made explicit or obvious, you have to tease it out from the way he handles different situations and people (getting his truck stolen, resisting Tony's offers of assistance, moodily hanging around Tony's pool with his kids, handling his Korean boss, his relationship with his girlfriend). It's just way more nuanced. By the end it's clear that even with his trying to go straight and having a career path open to him, the pull of easy money and cathartic violence is too much. Blundetto's dilemma just packs so much more of an emotional wallop than Barksdale's cold "I'M A GANGSTA AND I ALWAYS WILL BE" posturing, there's just so much more depth there.

but wire has words like "burner"

the sopranos has a pretty huge cast, i mean u get to know the family of the supervising analyst of tony's therapist.....

not a lot of ponderous backstory for every crim with a walk on role in three episodes tho

recidivism depth, what about that boxing dude?

yeah this guy's arc is pretty good, altho iirc it doesn't really resolve in any way, his character just kinda fades into the bkgd.

dude is also funny in Always Sunny lol

Avon goes back to jail.

ah shit I knew I was misremembering something. it's Bell that gets murdered, right?

lol shakes bell getting murdered is like the turning point of the show!

a day that will live in infamy :(

i started season 1 of the sopranos at some point recently because of this damn thread. it was pretty good. i should finish it.

Sopranos shows, the Wire tells.

at no point in the wire does a character point to avon barksdale and say "this guy is not reformed and in some ways has returned to the street an even more committed criminal than he was before"

also you're leaving out the giant ironic tragic joke that takes several seasons to set up wherein stringer is portrayed to us as the smart ambitious forward-thinker who wants to go legit and is held back by his childhood friend avon's "posturing", and during his period of total control of the organization in avon's absence takes it in a direction that seems to us WHITE COLLEGE KIDS to be productive and sane and disconnected from avon's apparently irrational honor killings, and to be making an argument for the hoary old analogy between the drug trade and good ol' standard "legitimate" american entrepreneurism; and stringer "comes into conflict" with avon not because avon is a gangsta cartoon but because avon believes there are certain things about the socioeconomic situation into which they were born and to the top of which they've risen that make it fundamentally separate from and unable to successfully interface with the different one stringer wants to enter, i.e., avon thinks the analogy is incomplete; and only after he has sent his closest friend to prison for life in order to ensure his total severance from his origins is it brought home to stringer that he has made a mistake and that he has not escaped but is in fact being cynically used by all the people he looks up to as "legitimate", people whose fundamental sharkiness and sociopathy avon always understood better than stringer. then stringer is murdered, right after understanding this.

i mean that is what is going on with that arc, not "sometimes there is recidivism".

ts: cast of 80 vs. cast of 8

lol waht both of these shows have HUGE casts

yeah, the fluctuation in which one looks like he knows what's up in the stringer-avon relationship over the first three seasons is one of my favorite parts of the wire

xp

at no point in the wire does a character point to avon barksdale and say "this guy is not reformed and in some ways has returned to the street an even more committed criminal than he was before"

this is a hilarious take on avon's characterization tbf

Bell is a more interesting character than Avon, that's for sure

show v. tell is some made-up percy lubbock stuff anyway

at no point in the wire does a character point to avon barksdale and say "this guy is not reformed and in some ways has returned to the street an even more committed criminal than he was before

O RLY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TuvmqJ1SWI&tracker=False&NR=1

I think Sopranos fanboys are kidding themselves if they can't admit the show got unwatchably soap-opera-ish at times in both Seasons 4 and 5.

And I say this as someone who was a fanboy up til then!

yes, law enforcement is pissed that avon got out. it doesn't mean that that's the purpose of his character.

xxp

sopranos had a lot of high points and low points, wire more consistent but less interesting imo, can we lock thread now

No we have to accuse other posters of "not getting it" first!

it doesn't mean that that's the purpose of his character.

I didn't say that it was...?

My point was that the Wire handles recidivism in this really didactic, fairly hamfisted way. and the clip I posted is a perfect example of that.

Sopranos was also guilty of characters doing out of character things to move plots along toward the end...also enjoy how Tony killed or had killed 70% of his social circle

i mean the strength of the wire's big "dickensian" Thesis isn't in what it says about the decay of the american city; it's in the way it attributes that decay to a systemic inertia that does not require that its human components be evil or destructive or exclusively selfish to persist anyway. (cf. what pains the show takes to explain the motives of very nearly every single character, even the ones who in early episodes are set up as straightforward obstructive Bad Guys.) and then the way it proposes that this inertia isn't a specific quality of american government or laissez-faire economics or the drug trade but in fact common to all systems, that any social system erected by human beings is going to be dragged gradually towards collapse by the cumulative and inevitable selfishness that exists in every one of its members. and then the way it singles out for lionizing not people who Save The World and Bring The Condition Of Our Cities To The Attention Of Those That Can Help, but people who sacrifice for and elevate individual other people (namond, bubbles), because that's the only kind of behavior that's really in opposition to decay. it is pretty universal and cosmic and not really a slate article.

haha most of that clip is given over to the stringer/avon thing, including references to their childhood in which stringer's naive political ambitions are quietly revealed to have been there all along! but yeah there is that thing at the beginning where daniels says "this is some bullshit". but that's not God telling us about recidivism; that's a police detective who locked up a criminal being upset that the criminal is being released.

like i'm not arguing for this show over the sopranos which i have actually never seen, just saying the show has a whole lot more going on than Important Social Issues.

it attributes that decay to a systemic inertia that does not require that its human components be evil or destructive or exclusively selfish to persist anyway

any social system erected by human beings is going to be dragged gradually towards collapse by the cumulative and inevitable selfishness that exists in every one of its members

were those not ok

i think he's saying they contradict. but they don't

oh, yeah, that's why "exclusive" is there. almost everyone in the wire, even someone like landsman who at first is set up as evil, cares about other people and about society and stuff. it's just that they are also looking out for themselves, and the combined weight of that is what's so hard to tug against.

people who sacrifice for and elevate individual other people (namond, bubbles), because that's the only kind of behavior that's really in opposition to decay.

i hadn't really thought about the show this way before. i'm not sure that i completely agree with the second part (also feel like the show is pretty invested in human institutions, fallen though they may be) but i love your wire posts!

xp

(one of the weirder exceptions here btw would be what's-his-name the criminal lawyer, who is an EVIL JEW WHO ONLY CARES ABOUT MONEY)

yeah that character is a problem. feel like s1ocki pointed that out at some point, maybe in this thread?

fwiw theres some real glass houses stuff to the psychoanalysis of wire fans, as if fans of a show abt hypermasculine mafia archetypes wouldnt have its own problematic fandom

but i guess the wire has the added OOOH RACE thing to throw in there so theres that

i do enjoy watching tv shows with more than one nonwhite character in them, full disclosure

"(one of the weirder exceptions here btw would be what's-his-name the criminal lawyer, who is an EVIL JEW WHO ONLY CARES ABOUT MONEY)"

I love that EVIL JEW.

oh, yeah, that's why "exclusive" is there. almost everyone in the wire, even someone like landsman who at first is set up as evil, cares about other people and about society and stuff. it's just that they are also looking out for themselves, and the combined weight of that is what's so hard to tug against.

― difficult listening hour, Thursday, 10 March 2011 21:05 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is really banal shit tho, 'ppl who aren't entirely bad do bad things'

well it wasn't his whole point, he was just explaining why you didn't really catch him in a contradiction

they aren't strict contradictions but the subtraction leaves only that rather meagre notion

it's basically true to simon's worldview tho

this is really banal shit tho, 'ppl who aren't entirely bad do bad things'

the point isn't that people do bad things, or that people sometimes don't care about other people, it's that the cumulative not-caring-about-other-people of a whole bunch of people over time creates systems and situations that are really difficult to turn around. like the wire is constantly making the "this person is acting as is basically required of him for the preservation of his job, and look how destructive it is, but look how difficult it would be for him to act differently" point about all kinds of different people with all kinds of different jobs, and the GIANT DICKENS/ZOLA SCOPE that can sometimes make the show seem shallow or didactic or less deep than the presumably-more-shakespearean sopranos is necessary to get the perspective the show needs to figure out how these people's jobs got this way.

(even though there is plenty of shakespearean stuff in the wire, like all that stringer/avon stuff above.)

i love tv that is about people on their jobs. i guess the sopranos is about that, too.