"The Wire" on HBO

there's a shot of d someplace in season one where he's in front of a refrigerator and prominently placed on top of the refrigerator is a box of lil debbie's oatmeal creme pies and it always makes me want one (dozen).

lol this show's highly prominent embrace of utz chips completely inspired my love of them particularly the elusive (in MA) crab chip

http://www.thenation.com/blog/206121/game-done-changed-reconsidering-wire-amidst-baltimore-uprising

Now, I cannot help but recall all my favorite Wire moments through a lens that has me wondering if the show was both too soft on the police and incredibly dismissive of people’s ability to organize for real change. In the season that took place in the public schools, where were the student organizers, the urban debaters, and teacher activists I’ve met this past month? In the season about unions, where were the black trade unionists like the UNITE/HERE marchers who were—in utterly unpublicized fashion—at the heart of last Saturday’s march? In the season about the drug war and “Hamsterdam,” where were the people actually fighting for legalization? In the stories about the police, where were the people who died at their hands? It all reveals the audacity—and frankly the luxury—of David Simon’s pessimism. Perhaps this pessimism, alongside the adrenalizing violence, created, as Jamilah Lemieux put it in Ebony, a show steeped in the voyeurism of “Black pain and death” for a liberal white audience that “cried for Stringer Bell and a burned out CVS, but not Freddie Gray.”

I am not saying that art should conform to a utopian political vision of struggle like some dreck from the Stalinist culture mills. But I am asking a question that I wasn’t before: Why were those fighting for a better Baltimore invisible to David Simon? I don’t mean those fighting on behalf of Baltimore—the (often white) teachers, the social workers, and the good-natured cops who are at the heart of The Wire—but those fighting for their own liberation? Why was The Wire big on failed saviors and short on those trying to save themselves? And if these forces were invisible to David Simon, shouldn’t we dial down the praise of the show as this “Great American Novel of television” (Variety!) and instead see it for what it is: just a cop show? There’s no shame in that. I’ll even call it the greatest cop show ever, a cop show with insanely brilliant dialogue, indelible performances, and more three-dimensional roles for black actors than 99 percent of what comes out of Hollywood. But all the same—still just a cop show.

the inevitable retconning thinkpiece!

In the season about the drug war and “Hamsterdam,” where were the people actually fighting for legalization?

there were several scenes with them iirc

a liberal white audience that “cried for Stringer Bell

who cried for Stringer Bell? Wallace, yes. D'angelo, yes. Dookie and Bubbles, sure.

Why was The Wire big on failed saviors and short on those trying to save themselves?

There were quite a few characters trying to save themselves, and most of them failed at it.

Though I do agree that The Wire is pretty much a cop show.

There were also several scenes of police brutality carried out by the "good" cops

In the stories about the police, where were the people who died at their hands?

if this didn't bother you about the Wire... man, I dunno...

there was a scene with iirc keema & a bunch of other cops kicking the shit out of a guy lying on the ground, tbh I felt quite comfortable hating all these ppl

Prez killed another cop by mistake

Also blinded a kid and got away with it!

only half-blinded, c'mon!

always baffled when people try to tell me the cops were not the "good guys" in the Wire

xp

though apart from the dead undercover cop, there were just a good number of beatings but no deaths

i didn't read the whole article but what hoos posted is pretty much otm. i loved the wire but as years have passed it is basically just a cop show

always baffled when people try to tell me the cops were not the "good guys" in the Wire

that's a simplistic view -- both sides -- like so much of the show is about good cops vs. bad cops, both in terms of motives, ethics, behavior and competence

The show is pro-cop, too much so imo, but was never not going to be and it's simply wrong to say it doesn't show that stuff

Carver's final big descision in season five was choosing to fire an underling for being too brutal. And yeah, there were a bunch of people trying to save themselves, deacons, former addicts. Cutty was pretty much the epitome of this, perhaps he became a standin for too much.

On the other hand, yeah, after hearing all these stories about cop brutality in Baltimore, it does feel as if The Wire was too positive about them.

my thought was "Wow, sounds like there are a lot of Caliccios in BPD"

They focused on the 'good' cops, but there were plenty of shitty cops on the periphery. And even most of the 'good' cops had their shitty moments.

str treme being a lot more critical of the police from what I saw

I'm trying to remember if McNulty ever gets violent with a suspect. I'm pretty certain Bunk never does.

Was gonna say: both Treme and Homicide had stories about police killing innocents

There was that one dude that they all beat in the interview room after Daniels turned off the camera, think mcnulty was one of them

Oh Bird! Yeah, you just don't actually see them doing it.

Yeah and it plays as "this is ok cause he's a prick"

"a prick" is some serious British understatement there. He's a fucking sociopath who has murdered a bunch of people and tortured to death at least one

which character was it? remember the scene but not the guy

xp they do not

in fact, rough rides are actually addressed directly on the show in season 3, episode 3, when they've arrested the guy who shot officer dozerman. mcnulty sees him sleeping, clearly beaten, in the homicide interview room and mcnulty says, "so that's a cop shooter?" bunk sez the kid gave it up, mcnulty asks, "before or after they knocked the shit out of him?" then bunk says something about "the jail wagon had to make a pitstop. it's dark out there on that backlot, western boys mistook him for a pinata."

i think you'd have to reach pretty far - though i'm sure some blog will - to say that the script (that one written by simon and dennis lehane iirc) acknowledging a practice of police brutality with bitterly sarcastic lines by two of its main characters is somehow endorsement or even a "shrug" reaction

feel like that think piece is not very good but it also isn't wrong in the overall thrust which is that the show was great art not agit prop gospel

i think its biggest failing from a propaganda perspective other than being very police-sympathetic would be simon's overall argument about the drug war being the central problem of the prison-industrial complex

Bird! Outside of loyalty to his boss, he had 0 redeeming qualities

(that was a v late xp to sarahell wondering if mcnulty or bunk ever beat anybody)

mcnulty doesn't take part in the beating of bird - kima, landsman and daniels do that

it's a pretty pro cop show but none of the instances of brutality were framed to make the cops look good.

or not bad. they were all pretty unsettling

acknowledging a practice of police brutality with bitterly sarcastic lines by two of its main characters

eh I don't think there's anything in those lines indicating the characters care that dude was beat up or think it was wrong

xp

idk the scene where Santangelo and pals pepper spray the drug dealers then drive them out to the country and leave them there was played for lols

Think he meant bitterness on the writers' part xp

I could almost swear there was a scene where they intentionally went on a bumpy ride in the paddywagon. Wanna say Santangelo was driving.

pplains otm

but, it was a lot more enjoyable to watch the cops retaliate in "creative" ways rather than physical brutality

I can't even remember who santangelo is

Santangelo - short, grey hair. He's originally a homicide cop sent by Rawls to keep tabs on McNulty during the first season's case. Later, he refuses to rat on him and then gets demoted to being a district cop. He may be best known for telling a confused junkie in Hamsterdam, "I hear WMD is the bomb!"

I'm glad someone has finally taken one of the most expansive and multifaceted shows in television history to task for not being expansive and multifaceted enough.

Imagine criticising something

acknowledging a practice of police brutality with bitterly sarcastic lines by two of its main characters

eh I don't think there's anything in those lines indicating the characters care that dude was beat up or think it was wrong

xp

― Οὖτις, Monday, May 4, 2015 2:02 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but this is the point. the audience makes that judgment

i don't think that the audience is necessarily supposed to condemn that behavior

the entire point of the show was that people find themselves caught up in institutions (police force, gangs, poverty) with perverse incentives that ultimately put them in positions over which they have little control.

i don't think that the audience is necessarily supposed to condemn that behavior

― Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Monday, May 4, 2015 2:24 PM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

come on.

are you really that tone deaf? that scene was totally played for a reaction of "Oh those lovable Western District scamps brutalizing a shitbird who shot one of their own!"

the discussion about the beaten kid who shot dozerman is definitely tonally ambiguous but i don't think it's going for teh lols. the moment addressed upthread about the pepper-spraying/abandoning corner kids in the woods almost definitely is, though - in that it's certainly amusing to those characters at that time - and its uncomfortable to the rest of us

I can't even remember who santangelo is

"You some kind of Democrat or what?"