The Atlantic - Latest Comments in One last dis for The Wire

Re: One last dis for The Wire

Jim — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:17:45 -0000

Laborlibert said:

"I don't think your co-workers point was that he related to and fraternized with mobsters. Rather I think it may have been that he relates to the working class culture of the characters."

Of course that wasn't his point, since he doesnt know any and never met any. It was obvious that as someone else mentioned, mob life and hood life are romanticized on completely different levels in America. As for "working class culture" somehow I don't see any Mob figure as "working class" and I don't see that as the allure of The Sopranos to anyone. Tony Soprano lived in a multi million dollar home, hardly the definition of working class.

Mob life has always had this attraction, even to black America(see any # of rap songs for Mob references). While hip hop itself and the rapper lifestyle is appealing to many young white folks, the actual realities that underpin that lifestyle actually isn't so appealing to many which makes it harder for most of mainstream America to relate to it.

Most people can live vicariously through Tony Soprano or Chris or Paulie. Not too many would want to live vicariously through Marlo or Omar or for that matter even McNulty. That difference to me is why the Sopranos was vastly more popular than the Wire even though the Wire was vastly a better show.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

xian — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:56:45 -0000

Was just saying at dinner last night that season 2 was my favorite as well, acknowledging however that it needed the preceding and subsequent seasons to have its full impact.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

Patrick Corcoran — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:42:31 -0000

I couldn't agree more with KCN, I thought 3 was the best, closely followed by 4. The Stringer-Avon dynamic was for me the most compelling part of the show. I liked how they didn't fall in love with their characters and kept the show realistic (i.e. gangsters die and go to prison), but the show never got back up to the heights it reached in season 3.

As far as the Sopranos, I think the biggest difference is that there was no wire character who resonated quite like Tony, because of the breadth of the consequent lack of screen time for characters. The most popular shows have characters who you can fall in love with dominating the screen. Here not so much. As much as I loved the Wire, I spent 20 minutes at the very least in every show waiting for the scene to end to get to more interesting characters/plotlines. You were never far from Tony in the Sopranos, which made it more watchable. The one exception that proves the rule is the episode about the FBI bugging his house, the feds were on-screen like ten times as much as usual. I think it was the first episode of season three. And it was boring as hell.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

KCN — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:34:56 -0000

While I also loved seasons 4 and 2 I am a bit surprised that season 3 is not getting more love here. I can still vividly remember the tension between Stringer and Avon that built throughout the season. Season 4 was amazing, probably my favorite and the acting they got out of those kids was unreal, but as a parent it was often hard to watch.

Just got my season 5 DVDs via Netflix and am looking forward to watching. I don't care if it is the weakest season; a bad episode of The Wire is still better than anything else on TV.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

lizkdc — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:20:14 -0000

Stringer!!!! I can't believe I miss you, you noble, evil bastard.

Also, Idris Elba should be on TV all the time. In a perfect world.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

laborlibert — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:15:27 -0000

Jim said:

"I'll never forget one conversation I had with a coworker about what show was better, The Wire or the Sopranos. His essential point was that he couldn't relate to the ghetto characters in The Wire. My comeback was simple and devastating:

"Oh yeah, how many Italian mobsters do you know and fraternize with?" "

I don't think your co-workers point was that he related to and fraternized with mobsters. Rather I think it may have been that he relates to the working class culture of the characters. After all, the characters were basically exaggerated representations(unless you live in Howard Beach or Morris Park)of white working class people in the tri-state area (Yes, the same white working class that some people around here don't believe exists, or alternatively believe is represented by Foghorn Leghorn). To some degree I was drawn to the show by this, although it eventually caused a backlash for me since as the series wore on I found it to be an unfair and often silly representation.

Or maybe he did fraternize with Italian mobsters and didn't feel comfortable discussing it with you (after all if you lived in a major north-eastern city up until the late 90's you probably would have met or known a few).

And respect to Ofay for mentioning D'Angelo, who was an amazing tragic character.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

James — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:30:42 -0000

If that's true Anthony, you should know better than to read posts about shows which are finished.

Imagine how annoyed you'll be finding out Stringer gets taken out at the end of season 3.

Personally, I'm still upset at Wallace, despite seeing it two years ago.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

John I — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:29:12 -0000

[quote]I have never in my life felt actual sadness and loss at the death of a fictional character but I did with Frank Sobotka. [/quote]

Funny, that didn't hit me as hard as did that of characters that made it through more seasons. Like Bodie. Thank God Poot was saved by Foot Locker.

-j

Re: One last dis for The Wire

Anthony Damiani — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 04:35:51 -0000

[quote]I have never in my life felt actual sadness and loss at the death of a fictional character but I did with Frank Sobotka. [/quote]

I just started watching Season Two, as it airs on BET.

Thanks. :P

Re: One last dis for The Wire

Whitey — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 02:38:48 -0000

Dude, if Al Gore can win a Nobel Prize for turning the Cliff Notes of the Wiki page on global warming into a documentary, no award means anything.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

Jim — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:54:14 -0000

Oh and this is an awesome interview with David Simon, must read material

http://sepinwall.blogspot.com/2008/03/wire-david-simon-q.html

I forgot to mention that Season 4 is my favorite. I wish they had switched Season 4 and 5, showing how the hood just starts the same vicious cycle over again with the kids would have been a perfect ending to the show.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

Jim — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:42:34 -0000

The Wire was way too deep for the masses. I'm sorry, you had to be a thinking person to truly get that show and connect the dots. That rules out about 95% of America, of the other 5%, most couldn't get the ghetto stories and were turned off by the slang. Also, shows that illustrate society's ills will never get their just due, not in a country that likes to sweep stuff like that under the rug. I consider myself lucky enough to not only get the smaller points about ghetto life and "the code of the streets" due to my own upbringing in the hood, but also get the larger social commentary that runs throughout the entire series. Certain angles you just had to watch the shows more than once to truly grasp. There's no way this show could ever be loved by that many people in this dumbed down country. No way...

I'll never forget one conversation I had with a coworker about what show was better, The Wire or the Sopranos. His essential point was that he couldn't relate to the ghetto characters in The Wire. My comeback was simple and devastating:

"Oh yeah, how many Italian mobsters do you know and fraternize with?"

He was speechless. Nothing else needed to be said.

BTW, here's a great blog on the Wire:

http://heavenandhere.wordpress.com/

Re: One last dis for The Wire

Ofay McCrackerson — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:04:33 -0000

Season 1 is the best. D'Angelo was the heart of the show. Where the fuck is Wallace?

The Emmy thing is all about ratings. Like, absolutely terrible shows like 24 and Boston Legal win all the time because they are popular, the Wire really wasn't on anyone's radar screen until the Season Four DVDs came out and people finally started catching up on On Demand. The show was ready to break out big time, but Simon blew it this year, unfortunately. I mean, I still dug the season, but it was by far the worst.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

John I — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 23:07:59 -0000

God I miss the Wire. I perk up when I find threads like this one where people are still analyzing it and debating the merits of SE2 vs Se4. I think they will persist for a long time after folks let the Sopranos finale go.

I was drawn to Ziggy, not because he was an appealing character, but because he completely nailed a number of real Baltimorons I've known - the ridiculous leather coat, an appetite for getting in on the game without the brains to pull it off. In Soviet Baltimore, you don't play the Game, the Game plays you.

And I really dug the way Se5 tied a lot of threads together, with the institution that is supposed to keep tabs on the system completely missing the story.

My humble tribute:

http://www.thejennifers.com/2008/SimonSaysRough.mp3

Re: One last dis for The Wire

Shawn — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:24:34 -0000

@jstn:

Omar was indeed the most compelling television character in recent memory; maybe ever.

And yet, in the end, no one really seemed to know who he was outside of his little world. THAT is part of the genius that was the Wire. They took small-timers and gave them faces and names and made you care about them; and then reminded you how small they really were. Before Simon's anger got the better of him, it was a wonder to behold.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

Chica1 — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:02:50 -0000

The Wire was the best show on television hands down! I started watching it after I heard Obama's praise of the show. I watched via Netflix because I'm too cheap to pay for HBO. I like season 2 also but I loved season 4. I knew kids just like that when I was in school - so much promise but no real way out. I don't understand Emmy voters and I guess I never will.

I mean, how does Two men and a half win?! Has anyone ever watched How I met your mother?

Re: One last dis for The Wire

jarrodmyrick — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:00:10 -0000

Season 4 for me but commend you all for Season 2 respect: twas ballsy and brutal and different

Re: One last dis for The Wire

Marc in Big D — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:31:21 -0000

I loved The Wire from first episode to last and I always felt that Season 2 was just so utterly transcendent. That was Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, just something that would be studied for centuries were it of the written word.

I have never in my life felt actual sadness and loss at the death of a fictional character but I did with Frank Sobotka. And although the Carver/Randy scene was powerful I was moved even more at the close of 2 with Nick Sobotka surrounded by images of the death of the American working class.

5 definitely had some whack shit going on and I guess it is probably for the best that the show wrapped when it did. In fact, I think the strong last 3 episodes of 5 saved that season from doing serious damage to the legacy of the show.

But such a great show overall. A big part of my life and forever the lense though which I will view the first decade of this century.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

Lesley — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:29:54 -0000

I'm biased. I love the Wire because I felt it really showed how my city is being f$%*ed over and over by apathy, cronyism, racism you name it. I love this city, and sometimes hate it, with all my heart and I saw that same painful dichotomy in the show. It was personal for me. It was a love letter, a work of art. I could care less if America or the Emmy's "got it". B'more had it's moment to shine in the sun in all it's dirty, down home, messed up glory.

It was Dickensian.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

djstn — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:16:07 -0000

I think the Sopranos/Wire distinction has more to do with national mythology. Italian and Irish gangsters (white ethnics) have a special place in America's heart, which is one of the reasons The Godfather is allowed to be both art and popular. It was simply (like the Sopranos after it) a very good piece of cinema that that we already have the predisposition towards.

The black, inner city does not share the same romance or respectability as it seems to exist, at least as far as popular culture, primarily in caricature. To help politicians (literally) scare up votes or record companies to make money.

That said, Omar was pretty much the coolest superhero on the planet.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

KXB — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:38:02 -0000

Season 5 did show some cracks, but it was good to show how even an "honorable lie" can yield awful results. I'm partial to Season 4 myself.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

Thomas — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:25:29 -0000

Lizkdc, shoot me an email. We can talk more about this show. I liked how you approached it.

Thomas

deckard1982@hotmail.com

Re: One last dis for The Wire

lizkdc — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:15:57 -0000

@Thomas

OK, that was whacky.

You and I were clearly typing up our posts at exactly the same time and reaching the same conclusion (too real) via different paths.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

lizkdc — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:09:36 -0000

Well, the popularity problems could have been just external: HBO never came up with any good marketing campaigns for The Wire (it has some great ones for The Sopranos), and the media did not start to really talk it up till late in the game (Seasons 4 and 5).

Or maybe it was the formalism and intricacy. In an age of complex yet popular multi-year serials like Lost and Six Feet Under, The Wire still had them all beat in terms of the subtlety and complexity of many of its threads, constantly looping back within and between seasons in attempt to work on the fundamental mystery of America: "Who f*cked things up this bad?"

But I suspect its small audience may be linked to broader troubles.

One commenter upstream thought The Sopranos did better than The Wire because the characters were white. But I would argue that The Sopranos may have benefitted from the very exoticism of the "Mafia" mythology.

Mafia stories, with their hits and consigliere and vendettas and so on, titillate, but seem distant to most of us. Thus their never-ending popularity.

Whereas the problems of race, crime, political corruption, failing schools, sinking working class way of life, everyday street violence, drug addiction: those hit a huge, huge portion of Americans' lives.

When "The Departed" came out, I didn't see it for nearly a year, because that sh*t was REAL for us here in Boston. Billy Bulger was at my dad's wake. We bought their act, him and Whitey. That horrible family turned out to be the men behind the curtain for an enormous tangle of murder, heroin, extortion and corruption of our police and State House. It's not entertainment when it's your immediate world.

The Wire: just too damn real.

Re: One last dis for The Wire

Thomas — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:47:39 -0000

I love "The Wire." I loved Bunny Colvin and his "out of the box" way of trying to solve major problems in our society. I never got the idea that it was ignored critically because of racism. Hollywood is known for being tolerant of all kinds of people and their problems. What I think bugged Hollywood about "The Wire" is that there wasn't a happy ending at the end of each season. Also, the guy you thought was being set up to be the hero of the show, Jimmy McNulty, was dishonest and untrustworthy and a drunk.

"The Wire," in the end, was just too real. Hollywood loves producing what it thinks of as "authentic" but their efforts rarely match their stated intentions. For instance, how authentic is it for the best friend of the main character in every romantic comedy to be a knockout herself (think Zooey Deschanel) and yet she can never get a date the whole movie. When I watched Alexander Payne's "About Schmidt," I was amazed that the people working at the Dairy Queen that Jack Nicholson visited actually looked like they could work at Dairy Queen, instead of being some young starlet who next week would be dating John Mayer.