"The Wire" on HBO

lol, number none is taking the place of whiney g weingarten in this discussion

hey guys which scene is the "fuck" scene

you guys need to indulge your cornball tendencies imo

horseshoe you're just trying to feel superior

I love the show though! Just saying i've encountered people who watch it that way. Also, broadsheet journalists

j0rdan look at the realism this way ... ppl like prodigy from mobb deep bcuz his rap style feels visceral & 'real' -- but when he raps 'got a rusty gun, but that shit still spit,' that would actually be a stupid thing to use as a weapon, but it SOUNDS badass? like, there's a tension between realism vs. dramatic license going on in any form of entertainment. the guys that wrote this show were by & large fiction writers

― deej, Wednesday, March 9, 2011 4:29 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is a stretch, deej

j0rdan in the first season, when mcnulty and bunk are investigating a murder scene and realize the shooting took place in a different way than they'd thought + find the bullet and say "fuck" over and over the whole time they're reenacting the shooting

i don't think number none is way out of order to suggest that people cite some dumb ass reasons for liking the wire, eg "realism" 99 per cent of the time. is that really why it's a good show? i don't think so. it's just become the thing people say about it.

x-post otm...so much broadsheet bullshit about this show. news journalists get horny for this realism bullshit.

I watched the show before there was any hype about it and I still hated the "fuck" scene.

Favorite show ever tho.

i am going to say any scene with bunk in it is fine by me

xp

it's realist like a realist novel...it's still fiction

i don't remember the "fuck" part of that scene

bunk is really the best -- he really turned it on during the homeless thing

this is a stretch, deej

― little humma boy (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, 9 March 2011 21:34 (2 minutes ago) Permalink

how so

'realist fiction' is exactly what both of these are

All the realism praise is cos people like to think they know about "the streets" and so on after watching The Wire.

I did get to use the word "burner" in convo w a friend who was considering becoming part of a drug distribution arrangement, and she was totally shocked that I knew what one even was. That was kinda fun.

Sounds like you've got some pretty street friends

why are you being such an asshole about this reason that people like the wire that you made up?

Lol no.

I don't think i'm being an asshole. All i'm saying is i get that impression from a section of the show's audience. Again, i love The Wire and i love it cos it's entertaining, funny etc.

acting superior about people acting superior

a solitary rap line vs a whole character in a TV show

maybe compare rick ross & omar little

the thing about realism in fiction is that unrealistic (or I guess improbable) things happen in reality all the time, like people surviving falls from a 6th floor

xxxxpost to like 20 posts when realism in The Wire was discussed

sorry Number None i misread the tone in your comment to Laurel. wire threads make me so touchy.

a solitary rap line vs a whole character in a TV show

― little humma boy (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, March 9, 2011 3:45 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wtf dude its just a parallel example of dramatic license

im trying to explain what ppl mean by 'realism' w/r/t the wire is similar to 'realism' in rap music

its not a 'stretch' its an 'example you are already familiar with that might help you approach it with the expectations of fiction'

i really like the mcnulty/bunk murder-reconstruction scene. the "fuck" part is pretty irrelevant: it's several minutes of guys doing a job, which is both interesting and rare on TV, and there's this whole other additional enjoyable layer where we have in fact had this murder described to us, earlier, by an unreliable narrator, and so there's two layers of crosspollinating suspense: 1) will mcnulty/bunk succeed in reconstructing the murder; 2) will mcnulty/bunk's reconstruction of the murder reveal to us inaccuracies in the description of the murder already presented w/ implications about the character, priorities, and concerns of the guy who described it? pretty elegant scene. dunno what else people want from fiction.

the repetition of fuck kind of just sets off how absorbed they are in their work

they say it sort of meditatively

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10fHQS2tvKg&eurl=

oh yeah plus it's funny. i just meant it's not the detail i would choose as synecdoche for the scene.

xp

considering how often the wire is described as 'operatic' im a lil confused why ppl get so stuck on 'realism'

every time i open this thread its people talking about whether it's "real." someone should seriously send this to HRO

mean, an openly gay rebel gangster (who just so happens to find tons of other gay gangsters to be his boyfriend AND partner in crime) that can steal hundreds of thousands worth of drugs just by showing up and walks around in a trench coat as kids flee the streets and go "oh my god it's omar" -- it's just really fantastical nonsense at times -- and i ALWAYS resented how this superhuman character was not able to kill avon from point blank range in the beginning of season one, which sorta undercuts the whole notion of the character

^^^totally agree with this (sorry I'm late to this thread). silly as fuck

you!

j0rdan mo collier

u have a v pessimistic view of ppl's motives & its impugning your ability to be rational while critiquing this show imo

also lol hmm this reminds me of somebody who could it be...

I wasn't particularly fond of the opening scene. seemed contrived and writerly, and if you're striving for street realism, do you really think a gangbanger is going to be seen chilling out in public with a police detective at a murder scene?

^ my first post itt, what's funny is I really dig the omar character, I guess I will forgive a lack of realism if it's done with style

didn't really like the "fuck" scene either, seemed like some tv screenwriter watercooler shit

Churchy Mo Lady

also agree that Bunk was the best/most well acted character in this show

xp

it's not really a lack of realism! it's what realist fiction is made of! like have you ever read a dickens death scene? i always end up sounding like that awful baltimore sun editor from season 5 on wire threads.

I wasn't particularly fond of the opening scene. seemed contrived and writerly, and if you're striving for street realism, do you really think a gangbanger is going to be seen chilling out in public with a police detective at a murder scene?

this really isnt that unrealistic. they never say hes a gangbanger, just a dude shooting dice, & ppl do talk to the cops all the time

that scene's just not very well acted.

also they keep making mcnulty like re-describe the scenario every time he asks for more details and it starts to feel weirdly like it's being done for people who can't understand what the guy he's talking to is saying. which is unfortunate because mcnulty's own accent in that scene is kind of a trainwreck.

i'm glad whiney could swing by

scenes that I think are overrated - chess explanation and "you want it to be one way"

mean, an openly gay rebel gangster (who just so happens to find tons of other gay gangsters to be his boyfriend AND partner in crime) that can steal hundreds of thousands worth of drugs just by showing up and walks around in a trench coat as kids flee the streets and go "oh my god it's omar" -- it's just really fantastical nonsense at times -- and i ALWAYS resented how this superhuman character was not able to kill avon from point blank range in the beginning of season one, which sorta undercuts the whole notion of the character

yeah his myth is played up a lot but it is treated as myth, not truth

that scene's just not very well acted.

― difficult listening hour, Wednesday, March 9, 2011 4:08 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah this is true. there are moment w/in esp the first season that scream 'im acting'

Anyone wanting 100% realism from this show is insane, it's all about the cartoonish excesses of the characters, that includes the cops as much as the ridiculous and massively enjoyable standoff between Omar and Brother Mousone. Should've had more Brother Mousone actually.

Actually what I'm saying is that the realism makes the show but without the occasional cartoonish excess you miss out on either the heightened drama, the comedy, or both. How many dudes like Stringer Bell do you think there are around?