If you go here and listen to the April 11th podcast, you will begin to understand why I love "The Wire". Jason Whitlock, a sports reporter out of the middle of the country, talks for almost an hour about his love and reverence for the show and pretty much puts into words my feelings about it.
I have long maintained that my two favorite TV shows, #1 and #1A in no particular order, are "The Sopranos" and "The Wire". My love for "The Sopranos" in part is nostalgic in that I grew up in New Jersey and went to college in the Northern New Jersey area where Tony Soprano rules, and occasionally I see different familiar landmarks or references to things from my past. But "The Sopranos", which starts out with the main character going to a psychiatrist to try to figure out why he suffers panic attacks, is actually a psychological case study. In a way it also gives insight into how sociopaths survive and flourish in society. Along the way it tells interesting stories about the various characters who appear to be exaggerations of the flotsam and jetsam of humanity that we all come to know over the course of a life.
"The Wire" strikes me as more of a Shakespearean tragedy. I am reminded of the line from a character in "Julius Caesar", "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." At one level there are individuals who seem destined to their tragedies, and yet these characters fight it out, struggle against their destiny. Like real life, few completely overcome their surroundings and frailties, so maybe it is the stars. And just as Shakepeare allows the most despicable characters to open themselves to the audience, to reveal their inner selves and torments, so does The Wire's creator David Chase allow everyone in his cast a glimmer of humanity.
I spent some of my tax refund this year on the box set of "The Wire". One of the great things I've discovered is that Joan gets it. She'd never seen it before, but she gets it. That's great. And when I listened to Jason Whitlock's podcast I thought, Yes, he gets it too. At one point he mentions that someone recently interviewed President Obama, who said that his favorite show is "The Wire". Apparently, Attorney General Eric Holder's favorite show is also "The Wire". The interviewer asked Obama who his favorite character was. And Whitlock offers amazement that the series is reduced to "Who's your favorite character?" In fact, the question should have been, "If you've seen and liked the show, how can you continue the drug war? Or didn't you get what the show was about?"
As I've said, what is really wonderful in this go-round with "The Wire" (I'd seen it through Netflix before) is that Joan gets it completely, and while she may have to turn her head from some of the most violent scenes, she understands and appreciates it. To paraphrase Whitlock, it's about America committing suicide. Undoubtedly, the show overall is probably way too dark for most people. People would rather you not point out that a society is committing suicide.
We just finished the first season yesterday, and even as the good cops triumph, they lose. Such is life. Powerful stuff.
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