"The Wire" on HBO

a list of my complaints about this show as articulated to-date in this thread (a primer):

1) The way the show handled female characters. The women on this show are relegated to supporting roles and in almost every case are under- and/or just badly written.
2) totally pointless and gratuitous sex scenes
3) the "forget it Jake, it's Chinatown" nihilism re: institutions
4) the constant didactic hammering home of point 3 (w/copious montages in case viewers were having trouble drawing connections on their own)
5) jarring juxtaposition of an essentially fantastic character (Omar) in an otherwise relentlessly "realistic" show
6) cops are generally portrayed in a more favorable light than I find credible

anyway, off to watch last week's episode of Mad Men (which is way better than the Wire nyah nyah)

xp

the message in and of itself was not necessarily earth shaking but using that format as a delivery system was certainly a landmark. no other tv show aside from OZ (and in a less substantive way the shield) covered this ground in any way - homicide couldn't quite get there bc it was on a network although it was pretty great. obviously OZ did it in a different specific venue but covering similar themes of institutional and bureaucratic failure. can we learn about these sociopolitical issues in other more traditional mediums like print? of course, but it's great that mediums like fictionalized TV started to address them, and the wire (and the corner) are both huge parts of that.

xp I mean the only author that portrays cops in a way that seems like it would make sense to you given what you've said would be james ellroy where they are almost exclusively complete monsters, and hey, I like james ellroy so that's aight

I like some Ellroy. in general yeah I don't like cop shows.

I like Cops though. that's a great show.

The Shield. But there are still plenty of people who think that guy was a hero. I think like it's impossible to portray war horrific enough, it's almost impossible not to make working as a cop seem exciting and heroic.

Brooklyn 911 manages

lol Brooklyn 99 damn u autocorrect

3) the "forget it Jake, it's Chinatown" nihilism re: institutions
4) the constant didactic hammering home of point 3 (w/copious montages in case viewers were having trouble drawing connections on their own)

it's not forget it jake nihilism though, there's a lot of frustration about working within broken institutions but the ultimate takeaway isn't cynical

2) totally pointless and gratuitous sex scenes

anyway, off to watch last week's episode of Mad Men (which is way better than the Wire nyah nyah)

pointless and gratuitous sex scenes: something that is clearly not an issue of every prestige tv show including the ones beloved by the person offering this criticism, yea this is just a prob of the wire

getting mad at gratuitous sex in prestige tv is like saying salt is salty

Before loading this 5000 post thread, is this latest 100+ post revive due to Shakey Having Opinions

Shakey and Dave Zirin

to be fair I like/love most of the shows typically touted as worthy of the GREATEST SHOW EVER mantle especially mad men and that one may indeed be the best in a lot of ways...anyhoo getting cranky about unnecessary sex scenes (scenes that are not legitimately offensive or don't prove anything about a character at all) in this age of television is a fool's errand verging on old-man-yells-at-cloud shit

xxp it's mostly that. but not entirely.

I dont need to see boobs in tv showz if it doesnt have anything to do w the story. Boobs are everywhere these days! If its just extraneous bullshit, dont waste my time.

I'm not a 12yo and it's not 1985.

nicky's girlfriend's boobs invalidate any complaints against boobs

so all those times at the (redacted) club in the (redacted) and the burlesque club/various comparable if not literal examples in (redacted) men really were integral to the plot every single time

I mean not for nothing but does matt weiner cut you checks to rep for shows he was partially or entirely involved with where is yr "becker was ahead of its time" hot take

you literally cannot make that criticism against one show and stan for others with the same issue it don't work like that

what's even more ridiculous about doing that is all these shows are good and the things that are criticizable about them are all unique!

http://i.imgur.com/6oNOUsd.jpg

sex scenes were lol, I'm cool w/ the trashiness, gives the show some levity

re:
so all those times at the (redacted) club in the (redacted) and the burlesque club/various comparable if not literal examples in (redacted) men really were integral to the plot every single time

well like I said 6 years ago (ayiyi)

nudity /= sex scene imo. Even so, Tony "worked" at a strip club. Because strip clubs are common fronts for criminal enterprises. And since the world of the mafia is deeply sexist, what better way to play that up than to have the casual exploitation of young women as a perpetual backdrop.

do you even know how to watch television

― Blanket McCulkin (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, September 8, 2009 2:11 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for a show where the exploitation and victimization of women is a running theme, it made narrative sense to have that stuff included. it made sense in terms of that being the milieu those characters operated in, and it reflected the power dynamics that were central to the show.

all the sex stuff/nudity I can recall in the Wire is by contrast pretty unnecessary - it doesn't tell us anything about the characters, it doesn't impact the story, it isn't central to the plot or within the context of the action, it's just "Daniels is RIPPED here is a shot of his ass while he sexes his wife" or "Sobotka's gf is totally hot let's have some boobs why not"

tbf i was not here that long ago sir

thats a totally reasonable arg. for that show, and i have generally agreed with most criticisms of women on the wire being underwritten but as for the sex scenes themselves they did generally seem to align with how you'd expect the men involved in them to behave - they are generally some sort of sexist if not always virulently so and that makes perfect sense given their professions

which is of course bad all things being equal! but sadly it made sense imo.

the sex scenes are sometimes essential for characterization i.e. mcnulty's pathetic drunken diner waitress experience

anyway idk what kind of bullshit puritan objection to the show this is anyway, oh no they had sex scenes?

It's America, man.

It's not the sex, it's the pointlessness. I don't like filler

Saying that Sopranos critiques the misogynistic mafia culture is having your cake and eating it too, because it's almost certainly meant to titillate as well.

idk I found p much every sex scene involving Tony (or one his henchmen) fucking to be gross and ugly rather than titillating but ymmv

nudity at the Bing is kind of a different thing but I hardly think it's an unrealistic depiction of a strip club, nor was it unrealistic for gangsters to be there. I find most of those scenes sad and pathetic rather than titillating but hey that's strip clubs

Sopranos critiques the misogynistic mafia culture

and Sopranos does this in a LOT of other ways than just the running depiction of the Bing - see "University" for ex.

nudity at the Bing is kind of a different thing but I hardly think it's an unrealistic depiction of a strip club

Actually, it's illegal in the state of New Jersey to serve alcohol where nude dancers are present.

http://i.imgur.com/TPJZ1qg.gif

I knew that law passed in NY back in the 90s, when did that become the case in NJ?

if so that's crazy and I had no idea I take it all back

iirc the Bing is topless + alcohol, which is how it's been in every strip club I've ever been in so this didn't register as unrealistic to me my bad (I have never been in New Jersey fyi)

From well-regarded law journal "Wikipedia":

New Jersey law prohibits strip clubs and "sexually oriented business", where stripteases and erotic dances are regularly performed, from offering both full nudity and alcohol sales.[55] Establishments that possess a retail license and serve alcohol can only offer partially clothed services such as go-go dancing (typically in bikinis or lingerie).[28][56] Clubs that are not licensed to serve alcohol will work around the restriction by implementing a bring your own bottle (BYOB) policy and operating as a "juice bar". Juice bars have the appointments of full bars but only serve non-alcoholic beverages such as water, fruit juice, and flavored carbonated beverages. Such a bar could double as a service counter for the storage of BYOB material and offer ice and mixing services to create mixed drinks using the customer-purchased ingredients. Recent court decisions have held that municipalities that allow BYOB policies for restaurants must allow the same practices for strip clubs.[57][58]

While personal dances are allowed in the state, “audience participation” otherwise known as “touching,” is prohibited during those dances. The regulations also ban woman from dancing topless or bottomless at establishments with an alcohol license.

The second detective in this investigation had a similar experience at the bar with an employee named “Vicki” and later with an employee named “Jessica”. The women performed illegal dances and solicited the purchase of an alcoholic beverage.

thanks for the new dn

http://i.imgur.com/qkZHoc0.gif

Thank god this show wasn't called American Wire.

lol

“audience participation” otherwise known as “touching,”

Wait, is Shakey arguing for only yucky sex on TV? ;)

true that every sex scene in this is a ridiculous horror

― goole, Tuesday, January 13, 2015 1:09 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like, to the point where i wonder if they weren't staged and shot ineptly but contemptuously

― goole, Tuesday, January 13, 2015 1:10 PM (3 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my own personal conspiracy theory is that HBO has a boob quota, and the wire team filled it by staging every sex scene for minimum libidinal and maximum humiliation value for everyone involved.

Seems like they were mostly released from the quota after the first season or two when they became the lead Respectable Production for HBO.

idk I found p much every sex scene involving Tony (or one his henchmen) fucking to be gross and ugly rather than titillating but ymmv

They existed and were generally with incredibly attractive women - it's kind of a shifting goalposts to say "I thought they were gross so they don't count," because you could say the same of The Wire's sex scenes. It's not like either was staging True Blood-orgies or pretty people.