shakey omar is based on a real person― GANGSTA KILLER (deej), Tuesday, November 17, 2009 4:51 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― GANGSTA KILLER (deej), Tuesday, November 17, 2009 4:51 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
you want it to be one way
― itdn put butt in the display name (gbx), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:15 (fourteen years ago) link
it's not like he's Bruce Willis in Die Hard.
― sarahel, Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:15 (fourteen years ago) link
do the shakey leg
― GANGSTA KILLER (deej), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:16 (fourteen years ago) link
guys, the thing is: it's the other way
― itdn put butt in the display name (gbx), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:16 (fourteen years ago) link
He is so superhuman that he is SPOILER murdered by a small child in a convenience store.
― windy = white, carl = black (polyphonic), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:17 (fourteen years ago) link
I agree w/ shakey
― super sexy psycho fantasy world (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:18 (fourteen years ago) link
uh oh i'm having a fantasy (about a black, gay, robin hood-type near-superhuman stickup man)
― jØrdån (omar little), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:19 (fourteen years ago) link
I said near-superhuman. His ability to routinely surprise/get the drop on people without getting shot is pretty miraculous
― Valid point, imaginary rude person (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:19 (fourteen years ago) link
i believe the following people have existed in the criminal drug trade: dudes who are "prison" gay on the outside, dudes whose place in the drug ecosystem is to live via stickup and robbing "weak" corners, dudes who try to keep the violence internal to the trade, dudes who are charming and funny, dudes who have survived longer than usual.
whether these have all been the same person, well, who knows.
― goole, Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:19 (fourteen years ago) link
he spends a lot of time surveying, researching his targets - it isn't like he has this consistent stream of "lucky encounters"
― sarahel, Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:20 (fourteen years ago) link
global warming's effects on the delicate drug ecosystem has definitely reduced the number of people with all of those characteristics
― super sexy psycho fantasy world (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:21 (fourteen years ago) link
omar is based on al shipley fyi
― max, Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:22 (fourteen years ago) link
max, al shipley isnt gay!!
― GANGSTA KILLER (deej), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:23 (fourteen years ago) link
imagine a polar bear, swimming towards an ice floe, that will remain out of reach, forever
― super sexy psycho fantasy world (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:23 (fourteen years ago) link
uh oh i'm hearing a zing
― goole, Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:23 (fourteen years ago) link
I don't think it had anything to do with believability, but I did share Shakey's irritation with Omar's gaiety at first - just cause it seemed a bit showy and almost pandering to a certain segment of the audience, like "you're gonna love this guy! he's like robin hood and - get this - he's GAY!".
But that faded pretty quickly for me. Maybe I bought into exactly what I criticized, but I thought it was a really smart and daring move for The Wire to create a thug character that macho dudes would kinda idolize, but make him gay. Way smarter than what the The Sopranos did with their gay gangster.
Plus, you can't deny he was a super fun character - lots of great action, one-liners, comic relief and, as noted, awesome superhero skills.
― Brio, Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:25 (fourteen years ago) link
I forget what show it was, but the main character started putting an ikea bed together and it cut to the character passed out drunk.
― super sexy psycho fantasy world (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:26 (fourteen years ago) link
^^^all true. I don't think he's a bad character per se - he's always entertaining to watch. But it seems clear to me that his role within the show was to allow some wish-fulfillment for the audience. You know, here's a character who will provide the audience with some sense that justice is still possible, that there are good people within this hellish environment that can still come out on top, etc. His appeal is fairly obvious when you look at it this way. Omar is, in many ways, a break from the spirit-numbing nihilism that pervades most of the other character arcs - he's smarter than most everyone else, he's funny, and he's a badass. Qualities every viewer expects in a protagonist in a cop show. The thing is, given the bleakness of the rest of the show, the contrast Omar provides makes his character stick out - he seems, more than many of the other characters, particularly contrived. That's all I'm sayin
x-posts
― Valid point, imaginary rude person (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:26 (fourteen years ago) link
he was gay for the purposes of the show because it showed (even moreso than his rip and run actions) that he was utterly fearless
― jØrdån (omar little), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:27 (fourteen years ago) link
goole is basically otm, but it doesn't change the fact that you all have intractable desires for the situation to be just as you'd hoped. it's just...it's not. it is the opposite.
― itdn put butt in the display name (gbx), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:27 (fourteen years ago) link
lollllll I just realized it was don draper putting his kid's playhouse together. Also realized that nothing in my previous statement actually happens, don just gets drunk and randomly drives around or something.
― super sexy psycho fantasy world (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:27 (fourteen years ago) link
mcnutly does what you've describe iirc
― goole, Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:28 (fourteen years ago) link
lol mc-nut-ly
yeah mcnutty definitely does pass out drunk after a failed attempt at ikea kids beds. he also randomly drives around drunk a lot.
― Brio, Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:29 (fourteen years ago) link
sry I was being really unclear, I was trying to figure out what show ripped the wire off
― super sexy psycho fantasy world (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:29 (fourteen years ago) link
shakey is the best thing that ever happened to the wire
― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:30 (fourteen years ago) link
when this thread gets to 5,000 posts shakey come up from the basement
― super sexy psycho fantasy world (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:31 (fourteen years ago) link
*shakey can
― super sexy psycho fantasy world (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:32 (fourteen years ago) link
Still lolling in my head at the series bible with its 'Stringy Bell'
― five minutes of iguana time (Jon Lewis), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 23:33 (fourteen years ago) link
dont get what gbx is saying itt
― GANGSTA KILLER (deej), Wednesday, 18 November 2009 00:03 (fourteen years ago) link
shakey is saying that omar is kinda this unrealistic, "ideal" character and you do not want it to be that way. you want it to be the other way.
― itdn put butt in the display name (gbx), Wednesday, 18 November 2009 00:09 (fourteen years ago) link
pretty easy to get imo
― itdn put butt in the display name (gbx), Wednesday, 18 November 2009 00:17 (fourteen years ago) link
it's not like he's routinely performing superhuman acts - his supposedly superhuman feats consist solely of jumping off that balcony.
superhumanly breaking one leg and fucking up the other ankle
― zing touch me I'm (sic), Wednesday, 18 November 2009 01:26 (fourteen years ago) link
imo the way omar died was a statement on his seemingly superhuman status
― SMH (ice cr?m), Wednesday, 18 November 2009 02:24 (fourteen years ago) link
I agree,
And apparently that Jump off the balcony was based off true events, I think it was even higher in real life, actually.
― EDB, Wednesday, 18 November 2009 02:39 (fourteen years ago) link
Omar is a trap! He's inextricably part of the drug dealing institution, killing young black men, which, Lester reminds us, nobody cares about, so audiences become complicit in the things the show is critiquing.
― Leee, Wednesday, 18 November 2009 05:28 (fourteen years ago) link
Not reading this... but ... Omar the best character on TV ever
― I must have five minutes of iguana time (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 18 November 2009 16:15 (fourteen years ago) link
That point about Omar prepetuating the cycle is made super-explicit, right? The kid who kills him is one of the little kids who is imitating him in the street in an earlier season - so yeah the audience who cheers him on becomes complicit in Omar's own death.
― Brio, Wednesday, 18 November 2009 16:22 (fourteen years ago) link
which all loops back into him being a symbolic figure - and remember how he's really into greek mythology?
― Brio, Wednesday, 18 November 2009 16:25 (fourteen years ago) link
xp - i don't know that that kid was one of the ones imitating him in Season 3. I think that kid was being shown to be the next Marlo - emotionless and cruel (see the attempted cat torture scene) - and presumably the fact that he killed Omar would be a notch on his belt, give him cred for his eventual ascencion to the throne.
― sarahel, Wednesday, 18 November 2009 17:39 (fourteen years ago) link
pretty sure it was kenard that was dressed up like omar.
― The Devil's Avocado (Gukbe), Wednesday, 18 November 2009 17:44 (fourteen years ago) link
one of the primary motifs of the wire is that things are falling apart on every level: in politics, in schools, on the corner, in the precinct. All culture is slowly spiraling into darker, less humanistic values and the wire's writers lay the blame predominantly with the country's draconian drug laws.
― I must have five minutes of iguana time (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 18 November 2009 17:45 (fourteen years ago) link
^ basically Kenard will become the new Marlo, but will be even worse - Marlo's one redeeming quality is his fondness for his pigeons, and Kenard tortures animals.
― sarahel, Wednesday, 18 November 2009 17:48 (fourteen years ago) link
Presumably d'shaun, following Kenard, will be the antichrist
― I must have five minutes of iguana time (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 18 November 2009 18:27 (fourteen years ago) link
http://blog.nj.com/alltv/2008/03/the_wire_david_simon_q_a.htmlSo when you introduced Kenard in season three when they're playing outside the stash house shoot-out, even back then you were planning, "Okay, this little kid is going to kill Omar a few seasons from now"?
With one caveat. We did introduce him, and I had it in my mind that I wanted a moment like "The Shootist" or the buried moment in the gunfight at the end of "Wild Bunch." The character that was most in the Western archetype -- and George had a lot of fun with this -- was Omar. The inner city is now the Wild West, the new frontier in terms of American storytelling, it has been for several decades now. We played a lot of our Western film themes and archetypes through Omar's story. I always had that in my mind. There were arguments to be had in the writers room -- there were guys who didn't want to kill Omar, there were some guys who did, some guys who didn't but came around. Everyone gets a say when you argue it down on the merits. I definitely wanted to plant the beginnings of that story if we wanted to go that way.
― Brio, Wednesday, 18 November 2009 18:57 (fourteen years ago) link
thanks, i didn't know/notice that.
― sarahel, Wednesday, 18 November 2009 18:59 (fourteen years ago) link
i didn't catch it until someone pointed out either! it's a cool little detail
― Brio, Wednesday, 18 November 2009 19:08 (fourteen years ago) link
why you guys don't believe in the redemptive power of foot locker?
― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, 18 November 2009 19:10 (fourteen years ago) link
well, sure, I don't think there's a totalizing belief that no one ever gets out, but I think their point/the show's point, is that it's quite rare that someone does - like Poot and Namond - they're exceptions.
― sarahel, Wednesday, 18 November 2009 19:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Isn't Poot a reference to the 'rational actor' argument from the venkatesh/freakonomics stuff? he makes more $ slinging sneakers than drugs -- basically everyone who sucks at it gets out. (e.g. cutty, namond)
― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, 18 November 2009 19:28 (fourteen years ago) link