The Wire - Read between the lines

By Corinna Wetzel & Tim Henke

When trying to find a series or song to write about in our course blog we came across some interesting and suitable ideas. What caught our attention most was the TV show The Wire.

DIFFERENT - REALISTIC - DANGEROUS

The Wire is an American crime drama series, sometimes also referred to as a cop series, taking place on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland. It is mainly written and produced by David Simon, a former crime reporter who has experienced the city as such, and broadcasted by HBO. The first episode aired on June 2, 2002 and the last on March 9, 2008. The Wire has been on the air for five seasons while each consists of ten to 13 episodes. The seasons concentrate on different socio-critical topics like drug abuse, the American school system or the presence and influence of media nowadays.

Furthermore The Wire was nominated for several awards such as the “Primetime Emmy Award”, “WGA Awards” or “TCA Awards” and also won some including “Time Magazine’s Best/Worst List” for Top Television Show (in 2002 and 2006) as well as the Crime Thriller Awards (2009).

In contrast to usual drama series The Wire is not just another good cop - bad cop show with always a crime and a solution. “The Wire is life” - based on people that exist or did exist and although there is not really a main cast, it is noticeable that most actors are men of black heritage with twisted histories, fighting for their existence.

“David Simon has painted the most vivid and compelling portrait of the modern American city.”

The Wire is a television series shot to show the truth; the real unfolded life as it is not only in Baltimore but in cities all over the world where drugs, alcohol and social differences are highly present.

Even though The Wire was not that much a hit and the audience not as big as the producers hoped it to be, it is said to be one of the best TV shows of all time - an “epic novel” criticizing the socioeconomic inequalities caused by a capitalistic system in a completely new format where dramatic background music and close-up shots are less important than the real story.

“The Wire is not a story about the America, it is a story about the America that got left behind.” (David Simon)

The Wire is “good and dark and it has to be that dark to open people’s eyes” (Nick Hornby) because there is a lot of poverty and people fighting for better living conditions behind the curtain of health and wealth.

The series may irritate the viewer at first glance. There does not seem to be any arc of suspense, the amount of people and protagonists introduced seems endlessly and arbitrary. The Wire is more than a typical prime time crime thriller, it rather tells the story of a city and its fate. One gets to know police forces, labor unions, journalists, teachers and drug dealers.

One of these policemen is Detective Jimmy McNulty, an earnest, hardworking rebel, who does not care about the orders of his supervisors, but rather takes matters into his own hands. His eternal enemies are drug dealers, which seem to be replaced often, depending on power struggles and drug wars. 

The leaders of the most important syndicate appear to be Avon Barksdale and his right-hand man Stringer Bell.

Keen on catching both of these criminals the special committee working on this case starts to monitor Barksdales and Bells phone traffic (this is where the show gets its name from: “to wire” meaning “to put a trace on one’s phone”), this however turns out harder than expected. The committee consists of officers unable or unwilling to do proper work, additionally Stringer Bell is wittier than expected, since it is soon to be found
out that he attends courses in managerial economics at the local university and organizes his criminal gang highly professional. Given the fact that McNulty’s chiefs are more involved in power games and intrigues than into actually solving the case, leaves the audience puzzled on which side, if any, deserves their sympathy. Eventually Avon Barksdale gets caught due to his brothers affair with a stripper, who works at the strip club where the syndicates headquarters are located. Who believes this to be the end of the story, has not yet realized how complicated and twisted the relations are. Possibly they reach up to the highest and most dignified positions…

One might wonder where we can draw a connection between this TV show and studies of American regionalism. As stated earlier The Wire is based on people that exist and therefore 150 people out of the circa 200 actors come from neighborhoods the series takes place in. Also the anecdotes and personalities are inspired by reality and represent the current problems of cities like Baltimore.

The connection is not to be seen as part of e.g. The South or The West but rather as traits of densely populated areas and big cities that can be found throughout the United States.

Sources:

• http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/hbo-serie-the-wire-beste-show-in-der-geschichte-des-tv-1510388.html
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/25/the-wire-creator-us-drug-laws
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0306414/
• http://www.sueddeutsche.de/medien/lieblingsserien-the-wire-der-slang-von-baltimore-1.969732
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-yziyKwC44
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qulcqNMHVic