The Sopranos Vs. The Wire

what does

me reading the thread is what.

"is"

is begins

hot dogs

hot dogs begin

"slashfic"

slashfic

http://i43.tinypic.com/2l9nrih.jpg

Oh man, got the complete series today. Am in high heaven right now.

It begins. . .

Way way late on this, but to me The Sopranos is about a lot of things, but its main concerns were: parenting and the raising of children, mainly in the ways Tony was affected/shaped most obviously by his mother but also importantly by his father and the way he and Carmela shaped their own children, and to what degree anyone can be expected to overcome their parentage. This of course extends to many threads throughout the series... Uncle Junior and even Paulie as father figures, Tony attempting to "re-mother" himself with Melfi, Ralph's influence on Jackie Jr, the relationship between Tony and Christopher, Christopher's father... I think that's the richest and deepest vein in terms of the show's thematic concerns. And that, of course, ties into another major concern of the show, which is whether/how much people can change, and at what point(s) they can reasonably be expected to do so. Other things I think the show is about/dealt with extensively: depression, therapy, dishonorable people attempting to be honorable (this if what the mafia is, essentially), corruption, heritage/cultural pride (obviously Italian here, but I think it might apply beyond that). And it was also about the love between Tony and Carmela, especially in the later years. People who complain about the show spinning its wheels or doing nowhere are only watching on a surface level, and yeah, I realize how pretentious/arrogant that might sound, but I think every episode had a purpose or theme or joke or something it was conveying... To write any of them off, I don't get.

Don't tell me The Wire is "clearly" the superior or richer show, goddamnit.

sing it, sister.

i think there's a little fronting in about 70% of the OMG WIRE IS THE BEST SHOW EVAR opinions I read on borads and hear IRL

The wire is the clearly superior and/or richer show.

116 Ilxors can't be wrong. . .

almost done with Season 1... its pretty good, as far as cop shows go. Still seems to have a lot of the same problems as most cop shows ("You're off the case McGarnigle!" "No you're off YOUR case, Chief!") in terms of heavy-handedness (lolz innercity kids using crack deals to do math problems! DO U SEE) and character stereotypes (the determined heart-of-gold cop, the noble criminal, the confused young kid caught up in a world not of his choosing, etc.)

I dunno, I'll rent some more but if the acting/character writing doesn't seriously pick up by season 2 I'm gonna say fuck it.

smart move

part of what it comes down to for me is that i don't mind the cliches The Wire indulges in nearly as much as the cliches The Sopranos indulges in

its the other way around for me. I have a very negative, visceral, gut reaction to cop shows and particularly "hero cop" roles.

in every cop show ever

^^^let's count the number of these that the Wire indulges in

i love cop shows

12. lesbionic supporting-actress cop who bails the principal male cops out of life-and-death jams

^^^haha

Hakim Bey's 80s essay on cop shows kinda turned me off of them forever

i think people have "cliches" confused with "signifiers of a genre"

^^^

I.... guess? Care to elaborate?

no, it's totally a cop show cliche when a bunch of cops start running around trying to solve crimes and stuff

makes me roll my eyes every time

no, it's totally a cop show cliche when a bunch of cops start running around trying to solve crimes and stuff

that's not what I said at all but thx for the strawman argument

you really need to discern between joshin' around and vicious attacks on your person

i hate it when cop shows involve criminals and also crimes

quality criticism goin on here

i'm not really disagreeing, there's some eye-rolling moments in The Wire, particularly in the first year (the chess scene, ugh), i just think the show is still really worthwhile for a lot of other reasons. like i said, though, obviously how you feel about a show's given genre trappings is gonna figure into it differently for different people.

i can understand why you'd feel the cliches of cops performing mundane cop tasks on a show about cops might seem to be a little too "cop" but season 1 is like the 4th best of the 5 seasons and the next three get increasingly doper

I think some of this is a byproduct of the overhyping of the wire... it gets talked about with such a reverent tone, about how radical and complex it is, ppl make it sound like joyce's ulysses made flesh, then you watch it and it's just a well-done policier, it's like, uh, okay.

edward otm.

I was thinking about starting a thread about people who are OMG FRONTING with the Wire

almost done with Season 1... its pretty good, as far as cop shows go. Still seems to have a lot of the same problems as most cop shows ("You're off the case McGarnigle!" "No you're off YOUR case, Chief!") in terms of heavy-handedness (lolz innercity kids using crack deals to do math problems! DO U SEE) and character stereotypes (the determined heart-of-gold cop, the noble criminal, the confused young kid caught up in a world not of his choosing, etc.)

i thought the wire was original, and cool, in presenting Jimmy McNulty not as a kind compassionate cop out to fight crime, catch the crook, save the community, whatever but instead as a self-serving, arrogant, smart-ass, dick who will do anything to solve a case, fuck the consequences, in order to prove what an awesome cop he is, and how big a slong he has.

xpost

starting with this post

The Wire will have more historical weight when the era it directly depicts has passed, and will help future generations better understand what happened.

― The rickroll from the hilarious NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP, NEVER GONNA (some dude), Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:12 PM (4 months ago)

McNulty's motivation isn't exactly clear to me (so far). Which has kinda bothered me tbh.

x-post

"how you feel about a show's given genre trappings is gonna figure into it differently for different people"

Nah, the Wire is pretty immune to that. People who hate cop shows love the Wire.
There's plenty of non-mobster stuff in Sopranos to enjoy as well.

Wire is also frequently funnier than 30 Rock, The Office.

not exactly a herculean feat to be funnier than the office

imo

Like, I get that his role in the show is as the "OMG hardass who's gonna crack this case NO MATTER WHAT" but personality-wise - what drives him, why he does any of the things he does, etc. - he's a blank. Which is kinda lame.

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like lolz I am just waiting for the episode where we find out he has a dead brother/father/girlfriend whose loss has driven him to be THE BEST COP EVAR

(plz tell me this episode doesn't actually happen. if it does I'll just stop watching now)

he's basically a combination of alcoholic douchebag, morally righteous cop, and sad bastard who's incapable of doing anything else in his life worth a shit so he plunges everything into solving cases.

" personality-wise - what drives him, why he does any of the things he does, etc"

he's Irish?

whiney i'm sorry if you're not down with the idea that a piece of fiction that accurately encapsulates many of the issues and problems of its era could be useful as a cultural artifact for later generations to understand that era. but i mean honestly, if in 20 years Baltimore is a completely different place than it is now, and my children want to ask me what it was like in the 80s/90s/early 00s, i will probably show them The Wire or give them a copy of the Homicide book. those, to me, are valuable documents of that place and time. it's not some grandiose far-fetched proclamation to say that people might still be watching DVDs of that show in 2035.

yes

what about diplo

not exactly a herculean feat to be funnier than the office

― @kanyewest (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, May 15, 2009 1:38 PM

and if anyone knows funny it's ^^