The Sopranos Vs. The Wire

institutions do shape people's lives and the way the Wire represents that remains powerful even if the institutions have changed

sopranos also represents this idea. (the family being an institution.) and both shows use changes in criminal behavious as an analogue for changes in capitalism -- an old idea but an effective one. series 2 of 'the wire' is pretty exceptional in being directly about changes in capitalism (a lot of the time).

and both have a big waterfront development thing going on.

but the sopranos does all that and has some female characters too.

some dude pretty much OTM (except for maybe secondary to a lot of superior films part.)

"but the sopranos does all that and has some female characters too."

Uh yeah so does the Wire.

okay, yeah, i know very little about the Sopranos. i maintain that the Wire is more generous emotionally because it loves its characters and it's okay with the viewer loving its characters, but that is based on a comparison with, like, three episodes of the Sopranos, so i don't really know what i'm talking about.

I haven't seen the Wire (yet) - is it really male dominated...? One of the best things about the Sopranos is the totally amazing female characters/acting (Carmela, Janice, Livia, etc.)

i don't know, the female characters thing is my only criticism of the Wire. it has female characters of course, but it's way less successful at representing women's lives than men's. i always figure simon genuinely has trouble doing that and knows it and kind of stayed away from it.

the family being an institution

i think the Sopranos uses the family more as an idea. and by the end of the end on the Sopranos, i didn't give one shit about any of the characters except for Christopha. the Wire seems to have richer characters

Shakey, there are female characters on the Wire and some of them are great, and the actors are all fantastic, but the show doesn't seem to me to be about women's lives in the way it's about men's.

there are no female characters in the wire as strong as carmela or livia. one other aspect of s05's relative badness is they basically wasted amy ryan.

I'm not getting that impression (about characters) through seasons 1 and season 2 (so far)---The Wire could be seen as radical (again, so far) in that it DOESN'T allow any great characters...people seem pretty much caught in the ant-farm.

Kima would be the exception, and maybe this is bullshit of me, but it seemed to me that it was easier for the creators to write her because she's a lesbian.

there are great characters on the Wire that is crazy talk!

Well it's not a show about characters. None of the characters are as strong as Carmela frankly.

it seemed to me that it was easier for the creators to write her because she's a lesbian.

wtf

there are no female characters in the wire as strong as carmela or livia.

None of the characters are as strong as Carmela frankly.

i dunno, i feel like 90% of the characters on the wire are more interesting/strong as carmela or livia

also, another possibly dumb question:

sopranos = postmodernist?
wire = modernist? (i said above it reminded of Naturalism in the Dreiser mold, almost)

i know how that sounds, but so many of the other female characters appear mainly through their connection to the male characters, as girlfriends + mothers. desire for women seems to be so central to the way characters are written on the wire...kima fits in with that better than most of the other women on the show. i fully acknowledge that this could be total bullshit.

xpost to Shakey

eh its okay I was just perplexed at what you were getting at. (Again, I haven't seen the Wire yet)

"i dunno, i feel like 90% of the characters on the wire are more interesting/strong as carmela or livia"

In this case, I think strong = developed.

and both shows use changes in criminal behavious as an analogue for changes in capitalism

^^ the reason i love the wire and only like the sopranos is due to the structure of both 'businesses'. talking about the drug game, you can't help but deal with the nature of capital cos it's a parody of a business ('buy for one, sell for two'). your customer is degraded and addicted but the methods run in parallel to real business ('i may be just a gangster i guess -- but i want those fuckin corners')

the mafia system is pre-capitalst, it's basically feudalism. the sopranos' money was always vague. i guess in one sense it left the show 'free' to dig into family and psychology and all that stuff. i've said all this before somewhere, probably on this thread.

the wire never had any fucking dream sequences either

other boring shit about dads: the Bible, Hamlet, etc.

Both about sons, surely?

I'm not doing the comedy being-a-dick thing anymore, but part of my Sopranos issue is that despite loads of watching it I never really felt like it was about anything, or about anything that wasn't sort of mundane and badly captured; I tended to feel like it was just telegraphing Great Dramatic Significance and self-seriousness atop drama that was actually quite conventional, even hackneyed, and difficult for me to care about or even relate to due to the weight of Great Dramatic Significance being loaded onto it.

people spend a third of their lives dreaming, y'know

dreiser is not a modernist, so no fkn way.

sopranos is kind of "postmodern" in that it makes big references to godfather/goodfellas.

but 'the wire' is straight-up pre-modernist storytelling. as is 'the sopranos' really.

I mean there isn't one character in the Wire who gets as much screen time as Carmela gets. Her arc is a centerpiece of the entire show. Maybe McNulty gets that kind of development in the Wire, but he's basically the only one and the entire fourth season basically ignores him.

they're both great shows and "which has better characters" is a pointless argument. for me it boils down to the wire's journalistic realism style vs. the sopranos' more personal, idiosyncratic and IMO more artistically accomplished approach and i will probably always lean towards the latter.

yeah, enrique is right. lol dickensian aspect, but i would compare the wire formally to the nineteenth century realist novel + to shakespeare.

horseshoe otm about everything in this thread

the different characters don't get as much on screen time as Carmela, sure. i agree with that

the wire never had any fucking dream sequences either

― kuntrie/hardrock-tributes (goole), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:28 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ultimately this is all you really gotta say

esp re: this

i maintain that the Wire is more generous emotionally because it loves its characters and it's okay with the viewer loving its characters, but that is based on a comparison with, like, three episodes of the Sopranos, so i don't really know what i'm talking about.

― horseshoe, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:20 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

Kima would be the exception, and maybe this is bullshit of me, but it seemed to me that it was easier for the creators to write her because she's a lesbian.

― horseshoe, Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:23 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hahaha horseshoe on the money with life in general

the wire isn't really journalistic realism!

xpost ade, your post about not finding the sopranos characters human is basically what i've been stealing all through this thread.

aw you guys. <3

the mafia system is pre-capitalst, it's basically feudalism. the sopranos' money was always vague.

this is an interesting point - but I think there's a number of situations where its made clear how they make their money (like when they "bust out" the Scatino guy's sports store). It isn't about a product, its about predatory behavior, pure and simple. They find someone gullible enough to get involved, and then they take everything. Its not really capitalist in that there's no market forces involved, beyond maybe competition between the crews/families.

x-post

the wire isn't really journalistic realism!

no but that's it's "style"

i've only watched seasons 1-4 of the wire, so maybe i'm setting myself up, but the last episode of the sopranos was some straight up i don't know how to end this, so it's gonna end all weird Don't Stop Believin/onion ring/dream sequence bullshit. i don't see how the end of the wire could be any worse

btw i dont think you have to hate one to prefer the other! anyone writing off the sopranos for dumb reasons like it's about mobsters or it has dream sequences is really missing out!

Seriously, though, post-being-a-dick, if anyone can explain to me better than the countless slavering articles over the years what the meat of the Sopranos was, beyond a run-of-the-mill family-and-work drama about people who happened to be really unpleasant, I would appreciate it in a seeking-to-understand-not-argue kind of way

it's about the drug trade in baltimore

season 5 is worse than the previous 4, but i maintain that the end of season 5 recovers and i cried like 5000 times in the last two episodes.

xpost to Que

it's gonna end all weird Don't Stop Believin/onion ring/dream sequence bullshit

so wrong

so wrong

how was that a good ending of a TV show?

...

what the meat of the Sopranos was

its about a man who corrupts and/or destroys everyone he comes into contact with. Like Le Strada.

oh yeah, let's have THIS conversation

what kind of question is that? you think all shows should end with a 20-minute montage sending off the characters?

Bobby 'Bacala' Baccalieri: I mean, our line of work, it's always out there. You probably don't even hear it when it happens, right?