"The Wire" on HBO

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?"

so much american entertainment product has these kinds of "having it both ways" -isms, idk why it's so hard to parse it in this show in partic

like duh of course the "good guy cops who just care too much" is sort of a fantasy

It isn't hard to parse it's being acknowledged

not fast enough!

Yeah you would assume this show would be held to a higher standard than most but guess not

/I can't even remember who santangelo is
/

"You some kind of Democrat or what?"

nothing tbh

Is he the overtime guy? Who jumps down the stairs?

he says that to mcnulty after mcnulty lets omar borrow a cell phone to call butchie and arrange for some backup in prison

haha nah overtime go is named Mahone

*guy

police union working hand in glove w/ right wing media to justify a beating or shooting death that sent their city into a fury

this common aspect of american policing is not the kind of story shown in the wire.

I feel like police brutality has become a bigger issue and attracted more public attention and fury in the past decade than in the previous two.

i was about to say the same thing, except for rodney king

eh when prez pistolwhips that kid the coverup process, the way they stuff him in a back drawer more or less, is pretty well detailed. it depicts how bureaucracies protect idiots in power (in ANY power) pretty astutely

xp - for example, if the Oakland Riders scandal broke now, it would get really explosive, whereas at the time, there was a lot less visible public anger

*facepalm* yeah, Rodney King

wait the Wire ran from 2002-2008 right?

Rampart LAPD scandal springs to mind as being in the news during that time, I'm sure there were others. Rodney King is kinda like ground zero/the initial big case for this kind of stuff tho obviously

outside of the final season about the newspapers/homeless, it was written 10+ years ago

Sonja Sohn explicitly discusses the experience of playing the role of an abusive cop in situ
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/opinion/sunday/baltimore-taught-me-about-hope.html
kima is still awesome

nice piece, she seems like a good person.

the entire point of this show is that otherwise good people can do bad things, due to system they're a part of. cops don't question the beatings because in order to advance your career you have to fall in line. those who do find fault with the system and challenge it find that they're poweless against it and fail. does the show humanize cops, even ones who do horrible things? even try to make us like them? yes, and that's the point. anyone who thinks that's "pro-cop" doesn't get it

otm

Yeah some of these criticisms feel like a reach to me. I think Simon's own arguments are much more vulnerable to critique, outside of the show: again the drug war was not the crux of the prison industrial complex as much as it was the means to an end

Imo

And like, Simon not being adequately alarmed by police abuse but still portraying it doesn't feel like a failure--it feels like an honest reflection of the dominant paradigm of the time! Social media and protests recently have shifted that perspective so where a lot of people (including the all of ilx who praised the wire unreservedly before) suddenly think, wait, this is a warped perception of reality

That's not a defense of the show, it's a flaw for sure, but a flaw that reflects the period in which it was made pretty truthfully

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!"

― Mistah FAAB (sarahell), Monday, May 4, 2015 2:09 PM (6 hours ago)

i saw this guy irl at whole foods on saturday lol

!!!

i mentioned this in the ongoing police brutality thread, but the actor who plays slim charles, anwan glover, spoke at the rally in front of city hall on Saturday.

he's short. also saw him at jfx farmers market about 4 years ago.