An Examination of The Wire
HBO’s Mutiny Against the Police Drama
On June 2nd, 2002 the Home Box Office network premiered their groundbreaking and in some ways revolutionary series, The Wire. The program was of the type that would easily defy passing definition as it transcended the genre of police and crime drama; the show itself was, after all, about much more. Over time, The Wire remained a little known, highly appreciated and yet unrecognized chronicle of the plight of an entire city, it presented Baltimore through the eyes of an amazingly diverse group of characters and stories. Though the show itself went without being honored with its due, during its run, it truly became a certain kind of cultural phenomenon among a few, as the work to which people looked when it came to depicting reality, complexity and hardship entering the realm of overdetermination as masterpiece. The Wire, was not only a mirror, in the unflinching examination of a city in the throes of rapid self destruction, but also a reaction to the lack of reality and sociopolitical accountability on network television and the news media in general. The Wire exists specifically to deconstruct the somewhat irresponsible myths popularized as reality by most television entertainment.
Over the course of its five seasons, The Wire strove to depict the human condition in its truest urban form, therefore maximizing the potential of television as the “People’s machine… a populist apparatus [which, at its best] subverts patriarchy, capitalism, and other forms of oppression.” (Miller and Johnson 265) Treating its characters as family members and embracing the deep fundamental flaws in good people and the warmth and creativity among the bad, all the while refusing to let any character be defined by either adjective. The Wire begins, following a group of police officers and the criminal organization that they are pursuing, it continues on, making a statement about its postmodern intentions with each season, by adding equally complicated worlds and expanding its universe to encompass the lives of heroin addicts, judges, shipping union workers, politicians, teachers, students, social workers and finally newspaper reporters. What may be the true antagonistic focus of the show are the particular bureaucracies that restrict each and every character in every world that The Wire examines, even down to the criminal enterprises. In short, The Wire, is a show about adults from a perspective that is intensely professional and adult in its detail and focuses, being completely within the perspective of the breathing environment that is Baltimore.
Television, as a medium is certainly no stranger to the genre of police drama. The genre has continually been defined and redefined with the onset of several so-called revolutionary series. A prime example of this re-designation is the CBS program CSI: Crime Scene Investigation which premiered in 2000 and has since remained atop the critical and popular pedestals as one of the best shows on television. The years before The Wire premiered, network television audiences were captivated by “gritty” programming such as NYPD: Blue, and CSI, which depicted a specific amount of realism in their respective worlds, deciding cases in single episodes and maintaining a fairly simple morality among their characters. It was precisely this “neatness”, perhaps forced upon these series by the parameters of network television that creator David Simon hoped to work against, he writes about The Wire,
Suddenly, the police bureaucracy is amoral, dysfunctional and criminality in the form of drug culture is just as suddenly a bureaucracy. Scene by scene, viewers find their carefully formed presumptions about cops and robbers undercut by alternative realities. Real police work endangers people who attempt it. Things that work in network cop shows fall flat in this alternative world. Police work is at times marginal or incompetent. (Simon 36)
The market of dramatic entertainment is built on the idea that those who are chosen to be followed in these series’ are individuals who are quite clearly the best at the jobs that they do, especially in the police force. With The Wire, the audience is faced with a group of officers at its center who are foolish, brash and very admittedly, the individuals who were deemed undesirable to their own divisions.
Criminals are neither stupid nor cartoonish, and neither are they all sociopathic. And the idea-as yet unspoken on American TV-that no one authority has any reason to care about what happens in the American ghetto as long as it stays within the ghetto… (Simon 36)
David Simon, the so called “Angriest Man In Television” (Bowden) is a retired newsman from the ranks of The Baltimore Sun. Simon, in an interview for The Atlantic was quick in focusing his anger, and probably his inspiration toward the “editors and corporate owners of [The Baltimore Sun who had, in his view] spent the past two decades eviscerating a great American Newspaper.” (Bowden).
Television’s mad creation also owes a great deal to David Simon’s writing partner, Ed Burns. Burns, was a police detective for twenty years and soon after his retirement, he wrote a book with David Simon and subsequently went into teaching at an inner city school. In an interview given with HBO, Burns compares his experiences, teaching in the Baltimore Public School district to his preparation for Vietnam. His observations concerning the fact that the vast majority of the pre-teens in the school had not only been criminally neglected by the school system, to the point that they were, for the most part unable to read anywhere close to their age level; but they had also by en-large been emotionally scarred by their experiences at home or in the streets. “Lots had been stabbed. All of them had been abused, one way or the other. So when you put them in a classroom with a curriculum that doesn't compute with their world, everybody has a way of surviving, right?” (Burns) In this, the realization of anger that speaks to the restriction of power at the hands of knowledge, the shameful economic drawbacks of urban environments are mentioned, undeniable in their purpose.
It is precisely the anger and confusion that both men display that lends The Wire its realistic, cynical and responsibly objective stance. The Wire is a supremely logical step from Simon & Burns’ book, turned Emmy Award winning HBO miniseries, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, which chronicles the tribulations of a family of drug addicts on the streets of Baltimore. During the run of The Wire, Burns and Simon would collaborate with the accomplished likes of writers such as David Mills, Richard Price (Clockers) & Denis Lehane (Mystic River); in addition to attracting directors like Ernest Dickerson and Clark Johnson.
Instantly as the series begins, even in the first conversation of the pilot, the audience is faced with an idea, that what follows is to be witnessed and considered but will not be simplified, digested or explained at length. The conversation is between a police detective and a witness in the murder of a man known as “Snot Boogie”. What is demonstrated is a very certain brand of logic that defies logic. This logic is not, however without its own meaning and truth, it is simply that it has remained unseen or perhaps unexamined on television or cinema. It then becomes the audience’s plight to move forward with the series in hopes if grasping the several kinds of logic and natures at work, herein lies much of the genius of The Wire.
For the spectator, the series exists as a kind of assault of representation of a culture of destruction, manifested in every facet of the community, even those who strive only to improve it. It can be said that it is at times difficult to understand, precisely because of its sense of authenticity which is quickly achieved by the fact that it refuses to decipher its codes; from the vernacular of the street, to the show’s lack of explanation of the bureaucratic events unfolding, such as the labyrinthine lengths that officers must navigate in order to acquire the necessary means to do their work.
In this spirit of hardship and reality, The Wire manages to establish itself completely against the trends of television police drama. Post CSI, in an effort to breed success, nearly every police drama was either based in forensic science (CSI Miami, Crossing Jordan, NCIS, Cold Case) or on an obscure crime-solving technique involving recreations, unique skills and precise tests (Numbers, The Mentalist). Liberated by the so-called “Digital Revolution” television was able to augment and visually sensationalize the world of criminal forensic science. Filmmakers of all kinds found that, “instead of building a miniature spaceship, practitioners could create one on the computer and it could then be [animated] on the computer and finally composited on the computer.” (Berger and Hollander 587) It seemed to be almost a protest when two detectives, McNulty & Moreland (Dominic West & Wendell Peirce) play out an entire scene, examining an old murder, using nothing more technologically advanced than a pen and a marker.
What is perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the show is that every character in the show is intelligent enough to recognize the problems and the causes of Baltimore’s social decline, but even those in the positions of most influence and power are utterly unable to do anything about those problems because of red tape, monetary limitations or urban politics. It is then perhaps most fitting that the new subject of the final season of the show is the news media which would ideally be reporting and commenting on the troubling phenomena at the center of the city’s problems. It is a testament to the minds at work that it is made especially apparent that each world is very firmly connected to each of the others which adds an epic scope to the spectacle that is difficult to find even in film.
True to form, however, the fifth estate is not the original or sole sources of insight. The Wire tends to comment on its worlds subversively; entire concepts and ideas, frustrations held by all can be expressed by people who are on the outside of each respective world. In a way, it therefore refuses to establish an ideology, thus allowing the audience a simplistic morality. Capturing the essence of the continuum, a character by the name of Slim Charles once said, “It’s what war is, you know? Once you’re in it, you’re in it. If it’s a lie, then we fight on that lie!” (Glover) Charles’ quote is very specific to his particular situation; however it can also be compared and applied to nearly every character that graces the vast stage of The Wire. A particular example of this concept occurs in the third season, in which the mayor, desperate to improve the numbers in terms of murders committed, issues an order to produce those numbers by any means necessary. In doing so, the police Majors are forced to massage the numbers, or in the case of one of the city’s worst districts, the Major strikes an agreement with the drug dealers, creating a place that becomes known as “Hamsterdam”. “Hamsterdam”, is a section of a neighborhood in which the police agree to allow the sale of illegal drugs in exchange for the promise that no violence will occur among the murderous organizations that plague Baltimore’s streets. Though the legality of the area is of course non-existent, it’s very concept is one that raises countless controversial problems concerning ethics, none of which are necessarily simple enough to simply dismiss the specific benefits of the action.
It is not in spite of the fact that things are messy and criminally handled, but perhaps because of this fact that the soldiers put forth by each group must charge ahead. All of the characters have found themselves in the middle of something, at times they cannot understand the beginnings in terms of the necessity for things as they are, what is known is the immediate circumstance and the means that must be utilized for their survival. This understanding, or perhaps lack thereof, makes The Wire dirty, but that honesty can yield the kind of truth that is often missing, “what the public wants, unfortunately is the blonde who gets lost in Aruba, rather than the daily grind of agony in the slums of the city.” (Klien)
That is not to say that it is any secret to even the masses that the information given by most news organizations is digested and sensationalized at best, at worst it is generally trivial and narrow in focus, completely ignoring the ugliness that many people of affluence are able to ignore. The information presented to those who can avoid being confronted with the grime clinging to the masses seems to be more about the forays of “decent people” into war with that filth. For instance, a moment indicative of the opinion held by The Wire about the brass of the Baltimore police, in which a commanding officer, Lt. Daniels orders his unit to stage a large scale raid on a number of possible stash houses. The commanding officer makes this order because of pressure exerted upon him to produce visible results in the war on drugs, yet knowingly almost ensuring that the true progress of the case would be hindered because the Barksdale organization would be made aware of the police interest.
The series offered an extremely progressive look into life, especially in its representations of characters that would otherwise be "token" in nature, marginalized or made into undue spectacles. In addition to employing perhaps the largest African American cast onscreen in television history (somewhere around 60-70%), the series offers large roles to its addicts, on the edges of every society and it pays particular credence without special treatment to its characters of another kind, namely, “queers”.
A perfect example of this is a character named Omar, played by Michael K. Williams. Omar appears in the universe of The Wire in the third episode of the first season, known as a criminal who robs drug-dealers in a bullet proof vest, a trench coat and from behind a sawed-off shotgun. Instantly distinctive, Omar has a long defined scar that crosses his face. Though details of Omar’s personal life were never shielded from audiences, actor Andre Royo, who portrays “Bubbles”, revealed that after the third episode aired, he was approached by a number of men, “hard cats” identifying themselves with Omar’s profession and style. It wasn’t until subsequent episodes that many of these individuals would renounce their personal similarities with the character upon the discovery of his homosexuality. (Royo) According to Williams, it was made clear to him that Omar was a character who was intended to be limited to the first season; however, the writers found themselves bringing the character back to play substantial roles in each of The Wire’s five seasons. (Williams) This is a clear statement because the series refuses the marks of conventionality, seemingly at every turn by working completely against whatever stereotypes may arise for each character.
Another of these clear protests is one of the show’s most beloved characters, a man known as Stringer Bell, played by Idris Elba. Stringer is the second in command of the Barksdale crime organization. At first glance, he seems simply to be a quiet observer, unwilling to trouble himself with the bloody business of heroine beyond its financial element. As the show continues, the audience discovers that he is in fact somewhat of a genius, taking business classes in his free time and applying the techniques of his study to legitimize the money of the enterprise. Bell’s efforts are set toward the aims of betraying his gruff nature. His partner, Avon Barksdale, on the other hand, aims specifically to stay within the parameters of his nature, sealing himself within the tragedy of the world which he could have potentially escaped at the hands of Stringer Bell. Though Bell is a mastermind, he is not stereotypically omnipotent he is more of a man without a country. (Harris) Though his intellect and temperament gains him entry into new strata of legality, in the third season, he finds himself the victim of a white collar scam, which ultimately leads to his demise.
The last element of the “perfect storm” of contributions to the shows creation is, of course the existence of the Home Box Office network (HBO). Being that the station is a cable network, it is effectively un-restricted in comparison to network television. Because it does not suffer from the content restrictions of an NBC or CBS, its shows are free to explore the darkness and vulgarity of their worlds. It is this element that allowed The Wire to be so truthful. In terms of its structure, it allowed the show to progress at a much slower pace than would be tolerated on a non-cable station but was imperative in order to establish the amount of detail that gives The Wire its emotional power and bite.
Research within the television industry suggests that most viewers typically only [see] around 1/3 of the episodes of a favored series, and that event ardent fans could not be guaranteed to see more than 1/2 of a series during its first run. Thus producers realized they could not assume that a viewer had seen previous episodes or were watching a series in sequential order, leading to a mode of storytelling favoring self-contained episodes and redundant exposition. (Mittell)
Because of HBO a narrowcast media station, the writers of the show were therefore able to assume that the episodes of the series would be shown several times and that the series would be released on DVD and VHS so that even the most uncommitted viewers would have multiple opportunities to view and fully appreciate the details at work. In fact, since the creation of HBO On Demand viewing, The Wire had, in 2007 been one of the top performing series ever to be displayed in that particular format. (Kaufman 20)
For the most part, the critical reception of The Wire has been uniformly favorable, but not only has the show been praised, it has been rested on a pantheon unseen by almost any work; all without receiving television’s top prize, the coveted Emmy Award. Ken Tucker, of Entertainment Weekly wrote, after viewing part of the third season of the show ““Game done changed,'' says a character early in the third season of The Wire. ''Game the same,'' comes the reply. ''Just got more fierce.''” Tucker continued, “They're talking about running drugs, eluding cops, and staking out gang territory in inner-city Baltimore. But these words also apply to the series itself, an on-going thriller packed with street-smart socioeconomic theories; it's TV's richest, most satisfying experience.” (Tucker)
The unabashed praise, however, truly reigned in with the arrival of the fourth season of the show, in which the focus is shifted to include four inner-city eighth graders who are caught in a system that does not serve nor understand them. With this addition, though The Wire made a clear statement as to its aspirations as an anthropological text (Russell, Duffy and Leonard) with its second season, the show truly solidifies its own relevance, if not in the lexicon, in annuls of television history.
When television history is written, little else will rival "The Wire," a series of such extraordinary depth and ambition that it is, perhaps inevitably, savored only by an appreciative few. Layering each season upon the previous ones, creator David Simon conveys the decaying infrastructure of his hometown Baltimore in searing and sobering fashion -- constructing a show that's surely as impenetrable to the uninitiated as it is intoxicating to the faithful. In its fourth year, the program adds the school system to cops, drugs, unions, the ailing middle class, and big-city politics. Prepare to be depressed and dazzled. (Lowry)
Interestingly, the largest complaint with the show is how densely it packs its story, at times moving at a deliberately slow pace and at times remaining somewhat exclusionary in terms of the edification of the viewer. It cannot, however, be said that those who watch The Wire are unwilling to engage the program, even within material that they do not understand.
Among the much relevance brought through the text of the show itself, there have been several instances in which people have used the show in order to educate or begin discussion on the political, legal, and socioeconomic matters of the day. For example, with the coming of The Wire’s final season, New York Times columnist Sudhir Venkatesh began a series, titled “What do Real Thugs Think of The Wire?” in which he enlisted the help of several individuals who are identified as “gangland acquaintances.” Over the course of the columns, Venkatesh conducts a group interview as they view episodes of The Wire, revealing countless accuracies and nuances taken for granted by the average viewer, revealing the show to be authentic, and the men to be savvy and much more informed than the normal person might think (somewhat reflecting gangland counterparts on screen).
Perhaps the most remarkable development to come from the run of The Wire is a college course, at Middlebury College in Vermont. The course is entitled “Urban American & Serial Television: Watching The Wire” the goals of which are to examine The Wire in the context of television and to use the show as the groundwork to examine social problems in urban America such as the economy, urban education, urban journalism, urban politics, American racial politics, and the drug war. (Mittell, Watching The Wire: Course Info)
Though The Wire may never have reached its rightful, award winning pantheon as a crowning achievement in television during its run, to those who chose to follow it, it has served as an irrevocable triumph. The show, in its five, short seasons, has not only managed to captivate the hearts of its followers, but it has dared to take hold of their minds as well, creating a world that is every bit as complicated, muddled, confusing, hilarious, heartwarming, cold, calculating, untrustworthy and poetic as any world, on or off screen. All that remains is for those on the outside, to “Tap In.”
Works Cited
Berger, Lee and Richard Hollander. "The Digital Revolution." (n.d.): 587.
Bowden, Mark. "The Angriest Man In Television." The Atlantic January 2008.
Burns, Ed. A Teacher in Baltimore HBO. 3 November 2006.
Kaufman, Debra. "The Wire: Too Black to Be A Hit." Television Week (2007): 20.
Lowry, Brian. Variety.com. 7 September 2006. 5 May 2009
.
Miller, Toby and Mariana Johnson. "Gilda: Textual Analysis, Political Economy, and Ethnography." The Oxford Handbook of Film and Media Studies. n.d.
Mittell, Jason. "Watching The Wire." 3rd February 2009. Middlebury College. 28th April 2009 .
—. "Watching The Wire: Course Info." 10 October 2008. Middlebury College. 5 May 2009 .
Russell, Ernest Roberts, et al. "Watching The Wire." 4 March 2009. Middlebury College. 4 May 2009 .
Simon, David. "Letter to HBO." Alvarez, Rafael. The Wire: Truth Be Told. New York: Pocket Books, 2004. 36.
The Wire. Prods. David Simon and Ed Burns. 2002.
The Wire. Perf. Anwan Glover. 2004.
The Wire. Perf. Wood Harris. 2004.
The Wire Odyssey. Perf. Andre Royo. 2007.
The Wire Odyssey. Perf. Michael K. Williams. 2007.
The Wire: The Last Word. Perf. Joe Klien. 2008.
Tucker, Ken. "The Wire." Entertainment Weekly 17 September 2004.
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