The Sopranos Vs. The Wire

the one from the car commercial or the other one?

or was it insurance? i don't remember

anyway, a lot of the Sopranos characters/actors were distinctive looking, whereas most of the Wire characters/actors weren't

^^ in terms of casting intent -- like if The Wire producers were to have given such distinctive hair styles and outfits to the characters, they would be more "identifiable" by the average viewer of the show years later

I mean, popularity ≠ quality. You know this.

I could make an argument for which show is better depending upon which way the wind was blowing that day. But The Sopranos are more ingrained into The Fabric of American Popular Culture than The Wire.

You may want it to be one way, but it's the other way.

more people I know recognize Paulie Walnuts more than they do Snoop or Chris or fuck, even Bodie.

BNBG?

i only saw one episode of sopranos and had no interest in ever seeing it again

― ketchup dood (harbl), Saturday, November 15, 2008 9:19 AM (ten years ago)

lol @ me ELEVEN years ago. must have been 5 years later i watched all of sopranos and loved it and now in the middle of a very slow re-watch on amazon prime. sopranos is better than the wire.

No surprise that the Sopranos is more popular in general - it's an easier sell, a family drama take on the mobster tradition.
The Wire is in the cop tradition but the cops aren't heroes, the not-cops are mostly a new cast every season and largely a group not particularly understood by or sympathetic to the average American.

Of my friends that don't like The Wire, their dislike is generally for one of two reasons:

1. too much focus on and sympathy for cops -- which I won't argue
2. not enough character development or focus on characters as people with agency; characters serve the plot -- which I respect, but consider a matter of personal taste preference, and is more about "why you watch tv/movies" and "what do you look for in a show" etc.

my 73 year old parents started watching it at one point because they had heard good things about it and they worked in Baltimore for a year in the 60s, but they gave up because there were too many characters, plus it was too violent and way too much swearing

The Wire is in the cop tradition but the cops aren't heroes,
Lmao

Sarahell has accurately covered my complaints

Granted they're not heroes in the way they are in like, "Blue Bloods" ... but, they are definitely portrayed as heroes in a lot of ways, and fairly sympathetically.

It does give me a certain amount of cognitive dissonance -- in that I like something that isn't aligned with my politics or ethical beliefs -- similar to liking some music that has misogynistic elements ... it's messy

The most beloved character on the show is the gay guy who robs drug dealers. The cops are primarily corrupt, drunk, lazy and uninterested in actually serving people/making the city safer.

Omar is a joek as a character. He has RPG attributes, not character traits.

Pfffffft

at the risk of repeating myself: The Sopranos Vs. The Wire

The cops are primarily corrupt, drunk, lazy and uninterested in actually serving people/making the city safer.

"The cops" as a system, as an institution, but not most of the individual ones the show focuses on, who are the heroes because they do care and aren't corrupt -- like, in terms of adult characters, after Omar, the most beloved character is Bunk, a cop. And also, Lester Freaman, I mean ... he's the sage, the bearer of wisdom. And the show wants us to empathize with, and like, McNulty -- it gives him so much screen time, so much attention, it does this elaborate series of things to get him "back on the team" multiple times -- the show literally ends with him.

Omar is a joek as a character. He has RPG attributes, not character traits.

apparently he was actually based on a real person.

Yeah we’ve been over this. Being based on a real person doesnt mean the character as portrayed is realistic or believable or convincing.

Most of the characters in the Sopranos felt more like jokes or stereotypes (or references to stereotypes) than actual people, except for Edie Falco's character tbh ... it reminded me a lot of the part of Pulp Fiction with Sam Jackson, Travolta, Walken, and Tarantino ... just East Coast, and whole multi-season show based on the banal, suburban lives of organized crime dudes.

I just read that Tony is only 40 when the show starts. That is insane.

Like Omar is no less realistic, believable, or convincing than 99% of Sopranos characters tbh ... and I don't dislike the Sopranos, and I don't hate Pulp Fiction or everything Tarantino -- maybe your point is that in the context of the Wire, a character like Omar doesn't fit?

Gandolfini was what maybe 36 when the show started?

These boomers aged like (fill in the blank).

Season 1 Don Draper being 33-34 is another one in that realm.

Yeah I just finished the first season of MM on my first rewatch since it aired. He looked age appropriate.

He seemed mid-40s to me but that might be the suits and adultery.

These boomers aged like (fill in the blank).

― Yerac, Friday, October 11, 2019 7:47 PM (eight minutes ago)

idk, I watch Riverdale, and it's like ...Luke Perry, Molly Ringwald, Skeet Ulrich ... oh damn, yeah ... my generation is aging, I'm aging.

Jon Hamm is actually 48 now ... and a Pisces ... (sigh, so dreamy)

Jon Hamm and Christina Hendricks are tall glasses of whole milk in the first season of MM.

they are both very attractive people -- then and now

I am a little surprised that anyone on ILX in 2019 is wondering what edge the show about middle-class middle-age white dudes who shoot people might have in the popular imagination.

There were a few years where The Wire - and Breaking Bad - were definitely the two shows I saw most chatter about. People discovering The Wire and being blown away, other people not 'getting it' and feeling ashamed that they were too simple to enjoy this big complex work of art. But it's changed back again. Don't know why. I might guess that with the glut of new shows, nobody is having time rediscovering old work.

There's a police violence story in season five which plays a lot different now. A white cop straight up assaulting a black bystander. And it's played as a dillema what is supposed to happen to him, with Carver in the end doing the right thing.

I think if it were made even a few years later it would have dealt with police brutality very differently/at all, as opposed to the few very casual instances of “good” cops beating the shit out of unarmed suspects and the prez thing which is more about his angst & redemption

Sarahell is otm that it’s fundamentally pro-cop, or at least: most of us I think would agree that the main problem with the police is not political systems rendering them ineffectual

Man, I'd forgotten Carver's first impulse is to cover the story up. It's only because Colicchio refuses to play along that he writes him up.

tbf tho carv is pretty explicitly presented as a bad cop right? It’s been so long since I watched any of it but I seem to recall he says as much himself

No, Carv ends up as the good guy, definitely. In season five, he is the one person who reforms.

Oh wait I was thinking of the other dumbass in the double act

Herc? Yeah, he is the bad one :)

A Baltimore PD where no white racist cops shoot/kill any black people, truly it is a mystery

Well any innocent black people, i guess i should say

the David Simon vision of social decay is so full of shit - it's no wonder the show get's presidential endorsements.

sorry, probs getting a bit carried away after a few beers - and The Sopranos is dodgy as fuck with politics tbf

Sopranos doesn't wear its bad politics on its sleeve though.

The David Simon vision of social decay is explicitly anti-capitalist and based on decades of journalistic work...

Trying to frame Sopranos as more politically progressive than The Wire is seriously a massive challop

I'm not doing that you tin-eared fucking jerkoff!

Calz explicitly didnt do that

Lol xps