"The Wire" on HBO

Prez partially blinds a child. Later he shoots a fellow cop quite possibly because he's black.

The Shield does do a good job communicating what ulysses said on another thread: the police are indistinguishable from a gang. But it's also sensationalist trash (not nec a criticism)

I've never rewatched it, but iirc the cops in Treme are depicted far more negatively

Doesn't Kima join in beating up a handcuffed suspect in the box in like Episode 1?

That's Bird in the interrogation room midway through S1

Bubbles is beaten for no reason by a cop after Kima gets shot

I've always thought Simon and co. put it in intentionally, but they didn't really hammer it home to complicate viewers' feelings for characters (as evidenced by people not noticing the constant brutality).

Trevor Noah did a bit about cop shows the other day where he pointed out that even when the show is honest about how police actually operate, you still end up rooting for them on some level because the show presents them as Just Trying to Do Their Job.

#teamshitbird

"better things aren't possible" could be the message of this show, or generously "modest reforms on an institutional level are sometimes possible for a time through the efforts of dedicated but unorthodox high ranking public servants". no wonder obama loved it so much

since we seem to have reached a place where opinions other than total adulation can be expressed without being shouted down, this piece was a pretty damning account of one of the show's biggest failings: "In The Wire, it is boys who are at stake. Women and girls are bit parts in a compelling drama played out by men"
https://www.popmatters.com/women-and-the-wire-2496134929.html
(the assumption that the show's racial politics is obviously unproblematic, or largely separate from its gender politics, is unfortunate- its portrayal/non-portrayal of black women and girls is particularly horrible)

I seem to remember this and similar arguments receiving a pretty vicious response at the time, I assume partly because of their undeniability. the usual line that it's just depicting a patriarchal world is bullshit when it uncritically regurgitates assumptions and stereotypes from that world, like whose working and personal lives are interesting and complex, and who is just a bitch/punchline/plot device

Worrying about how sympathetic and/or complexly portrayed every single character is and whether or not that has something to do with the gender, race or cultural background of that character is a pretty terrible way to watch television, imo.

this seemed to be the general attitude when this came up at the time. shut up and consume this flawless cultural product which indicts the society we live in so brilliantly. the thinking man's south park fandom

Bubbles is beaten for no reason by a cop after Kima gets shot

Man, a sentence is a long time for you, isn't it?

that THR conversation-article is better than some other recent ones but it's still pretty thoughtless.

they go the entire time musing about what to make of 'how' certain characters and their actions are 'shown' without giving any thought at all to what it means that they would have to say the same things about characters who haven't been pre-selected by the 'police are glorified on tv mmkay' line that their reactive bending to the topic of the moment has led them to adopt.

for instance, you are certainly led by the way the show is made to feel sympathy for bodie when he's killed, but then you were feeling more sympathy for his victim wallace three seasons earlier.

pretty much the entire barksdale crew plotline poses the same problem. a lot of them, you cheer when certain things go well for them, sign when not, and you don't assign some of their morally worst actions their true weight because it's happening within a fiction and there are internal reasons for everything being the way it is and the way the fiction invokes and transforms your sympathies is not ever a straightforward reflection of the way you'd react about 'the' real world the fiction supposedly 'represents' in a way that can just be read off the screen.

(a big function of the stansfield crew plotline is to make that more evident. and the parallelisms that are set up by having the kids slide into social positions occupied by the older characters, having the co-op leadership change, etc.)

Man, a sentence is a long time for you, isn't it?

God only knows what this is supposed to mean. You quoted my reference to Bubbles... who no one else has referenced.

But given your desire to insert yourself: "the beatdown given to Kima's shooter (Wee-Bey) is presented as outside of the ordinary run of things" is 100% incorrect. Brutality and beatings are a constant presence across the show - from the 'good' protagonist cops to the meatheads on the street level.

"I demonstrated moral ambiguities and the pathology that leads to abuses" - wendell pierce, after assaulting a woman in public for supporting bernie. nice guy who definitely has cool opinions worth listening to

so you're going to be that kind of troll

That's Bird in the interrogation room midway through S1

This came up on David Simon's Twitter the other day. I don't know how to embed a Twitter thread, but here's the exchange:

Simon: Even among the hardest street police I knew, the ones who tell you privately that if you fight a cop, or run from a cop or cuss a cop, they’ll get licks in — it’s over when a man is in handcuffs. The cops who killed George Floyd are cowards.

A commenter asks: In the S1 scene where Kima, Landsman, and Daniels work over Bird in the interrogation room, the last shot we see of Bird he’s cuffed to the table. Did they uncuff him? Because it wasn’t explicitly shown. Not trying to play ‘Gotcha’, just genuinely curious.

Simon: My assumption was that his "finally" polite request that they at least uncuff him before they whip his ass was honored. I think Kima would do that.

This strikes me as some serious J.K. Rowling shit. At that point in the show you don't know that much about Kima or any of the cops except McNulty, but I thought part of the show's point was that it doesn't matter who the cops are as individuals bc they act as a gang. Why is he trying to walk that back, now of all times?

the wire is sophisticated copaganda, it was literally co written by a cop. its creator sat at his computer and scolded black people for not protesting police murder with enough civility for his liking. his show is a masterpiece of 00s centre leftism. that's an insult and a compliment. it's a good show compromised by a horrible worldview. he is insufferable as a human being

so you're going to be that kind of troll

the kind of troll who thinks we shouldn't take advice from men who assault women? sure

sounds like you've got everything sorted!!!! congrats

so now this is a bad show?

afraid so, pack it in, lads

I wish someone would tell D Simon to pack it in years ago, notwithstanding how overrated this septic pile of garbage is!

"masterpiece of 00s centre leftism" otm

I actually quite like the wire lol

I just find all tv writing with the *touch* of Simon absolutely unpalatable, and I had burgeoning hatred of The Wire at the the time and had my brother constantly proselytising it to me and that absolute king of wankers Brooker doing it in the Graun every week. Couldn't force myself to watch it these days.

The Wire is over, everyone should jump on the Treme bandwagon

well if you do like torturing yourself go ahead!

the John Goldman character in Treme is like some kind of apotheosis of Simonism

what non-Simon shows do you think have that touch?

the Steve Zahn character in Treme is the American Colin Hunt, but played deadly seriously.

Treme is the least-cool show ever. The Goodman character, Steve Earle, Steve Zahn, occasional nods to hip things a dad hears about from their kids like Goatwhore.

I respect it.

goodman ffs autocorrect

No show has been more ‘Steve’ - would you be surprised to find out Goodman’s character name is Steve?

I just find all tv writing with the *touch* of Simon absolutely unpalatable, and I had burgeoning hatred of The Wire at the the time and had my brother constantly proselytising it to me and that absolute king of wankers Brooker doing it in the Graun every week. Couldn't force myself to watch it these days.

How do you feel about Homicide, Life on the Street? I loved it but thought it went downhill when Simon started actually writing for it in Season 5.

lol come on that isn't why Homicide starts to suck

Maude: “It’s really smart. It’s about New Orleans and jazz and Hurricane Katrina and drugs and John Goodman.” Todd: “Sounds exciting.” Maude: “It’s not!”

Homicide was supposedly radical or whatever for the time but it just seems like a cop show to me

It started to suck for other reasons too, but Simon trying to fit the first season of the Wire into Homicide's format and making the whole season about Lewis and Kellerman and Luther Mahoney really didn't help.

I always get Homicide mixed up with Hill Street Blues for some reason.

God only knows what this is supposed to mean. You quoted my reference to Bubbles... who no one else has referenced.

You said that Bubbles had been beaten up for no reason after Kima was shot - the reason is right there in the sentence, he implicated himself and one of the policemen, on edge after Kima was shot, laid into him. I'm not saying it's a good reason, but it's not for no reason.

But given your desire to insert yourself: "the beatdown given to Kima's shooter (Wee-Bey) is presented as outside of the ordinary run of things" is 100% incorrect.

Fair point - it was Bird, earlier in the season, I must have conflated it with Bubbles.

Bubbles didn't implicate himself - he called his friend Kima and got beaten for being black in Baltimore.

wait I thought he just got robbed for his t-shirt money. it's been a minute

you are getting seasons 1 and 4 confused

a lot of the police brutality is at least shown negatively - the stuff that bugged me was when Herc and Carver would beat on Bodie and it would be portrayed as comedy

like this scene - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs-gO1ssqzE

simple human reaction? if you're trying to extract information it's probably best to get real, take the cuffs off, get close, but don't hit or harm

Prez partially blinds a child. Later he shoots a fellow cop quite possibly because he's black.

The Shield does do a good job communicating what ulysses said on another thread: the police are indistinguishable from a gang. But it's also sensationalist trash (not nec a criticism)

I've never rewatched it, but iirc the cops in Treme are depicted far more negatively

― dip to dup (rob), Saturday, June 13, 2020 2:16 PM bookmarkflaglink

why does a show have to make some kind of an over the top depiction of characters as "evil"? are we doing taht thing where we conflate depiction with endorsement again?

besides, there's no sane person who would read this show as an endorsement of the cops. often the police are seen intentionally neglecting to take action that would better their communities, and few of them are governed by any altruism, usually just advance their own careers. the suits up top are routinely seen gaming the crime statistics and sending people out on the street to arrest people for low-level offenses to make it appear they are actually doing something.

the show makes being a cop look like the worst bureaucracy on the planet, just another political organization that doesn't actually do the thing it's intended to do, suits mostly interested in getting re-elected and rewarding loyalists. they sabotage each other's investigations by sending dead weight from their teams to special projects. Freeman falsifies evidence to get Marlo's warrant, they commit fraud to get a wiretap, everybody covers for each other so people like Presbo don't get terminated or see a cell.

if the message is "better things aren't possible", it's because Baltimore police is a cesspool of corruption

At the end of the day the show just likes its cops and their work too much, despite the valid points it scores in other respects

don't agree w/ that at all.

but, I mean, the show is literally about policing in Baltimore, so...it has to be focused on their work. but it shows that their work doesn't bring about any real improvement. they arrest Avon and get the "king" collar, but leave the criminal infrastructure largely undamaged, so that creates a power vacuum that allows Marlo Stanfield to take over, resulting in much more bloodshed, including that of civilians who merely piss Marlo off. they achieve nothing!

The show drips with personal affection for most of the cops. It is amused by them and frequently admires them as people. If you can't detect well :shrug: