Ari says:
The Wire is the Best Show Ever (the “ever” makes this a history post). And Matthew Yglesias has been blogging about it for a long time. So check out his post from yesterday — and especially the comments. David Simon himself showed up to rebut Yglesias’s main point. Very cool. But also: very intimidating. This internet thing is kinda neat-o. You never know who’s paying attention.
I wanted to preserve Simon’s comment for posterity; it’s below the fold along with another comment I saw today and thought to keep.
Enjoying this.
Writing to affirm what people are saying about my faith in individuals to rebel against rigged systems and exert for dignity, while at the same time doubtful that the institutions of a capital-obsessed oligarchy will reform themselves short of outright economic depression (New Deal, the rise of collective bargaining) or systemic moral failure that actually threatens middle-class lives (Vietnam and the resulting, though brief commitment to rethinking our brutal foreign-policy footprints around the world). The Wire is dissent; it argues that our systems are no longer viable for the greater good of the most, that America is no longer operating as a utilitarian and democratic experiment. If you are not comfortable with that notion, you won’t agree with some of the tonalities of the show. I would argue that people comfortable with the economic and political trends in the United States right now — and thinking that the nation and its institutions are equipped to respond meaningfully to the problems depicted with some care and accuracy on The Wire (we reported each season fresh, we did not write solely from memory) — well, perhaps they’re playing with the tuning knobs when the back of the appliance is in flames.
Does that mean The Wire is without humanist affection for its characters? Or that it doesn’t admire characters who act in a selfless or benign fashion? Camus rightly argues that to commit to a just cause against overwhelming odds is absurd. He further argues that not to commit is equally absurd. Only one choice, however, offers the slightest chance for dignity. And dignity matters.
All that said, I am the product of a C-average GPA and a general studies degree from a state university and thirteen years of careful reporting about one rustbelt city. Hell do I know. Maybe my head is up my ass.
If The Wire is too pessimistic about the future of the American empire — and I’ve read my Toynbee and Chomsky, so I actually think a darker vision could be credibly argued — no one will be more pleased than me as I am, well, American. Right now, though, I’m just proud to see serious people arguing about a television drama; there’s some pride in that. Thanks.
D. Simon
Baltimore, Md.
Posted by David Simon | January 2, 2008 6:12 PM
“Dignity matters.” Right on.
And now, for less dignity, this fine end of a comment on Lawyers, Guns, and Money.
*Memo to self: if you ever start a blog may it…
1) Be as good as The Edge of The American West
2) May it have its url be the same as its name, rather than just similar, unlike that of The Edge of the American West: https://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/
Incontinentia Buttocks | 01.02.08 – 6:43 am | #
I like to think of it as an endearing quirk.
The Edge of the American West 
44 comments
January 3, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Jamie T.
Fine, I get it. Bill Simmons urged his ESPN readers to rent “The Wire” because it is the best show of all time. Now I’m hearing from historians that it’s also the best show of all time? I guess it’s time to check it out. If it’s better than “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” I’ll eat my hat.
January 3, 2008 at 5:25 pm
eric
It’s the best show of all time. Seriously.
January 3, 2008 at 5:32 pm
urbino
Dunno about best of all time, but it is very, very good.
This internet thing is kinda neat-o. You never know who’s paying attention.
Private Gump, you are a goddam genius!
January 3, 2008 at 5:44 pm
ari
So what’s better, urbino? Or even as good? See, it’s a little game we play: make a list. It’s oh-so American. And Jamie, make sure you have a flavorful hat nearby. Or some delightful marinade.
January 3, 2008 at 6:22 pm
urbino
Well, Best of All Time is just so . . . absolute. That’s my main misgiving.
That said, though, David Milch has done some awfully good tv work. In terms of concept, writing, and production, I think “Deadwood” is bleeding brilliant. The acting is not as good as in “The Wire,” though, clearly. (Although it would be if not for Timothy Olyphant.)
“Deadwood” wasn’t everybody’s cuppa, but it was mine. It’d be a 2-horse race between it and “The Wire,” for me.
January 3, 2008 at 6:54 pm
eric
You never know who’s paying attention.
Private Gump, you are a goddam genius!
Urbino is your father, Ari.
January 3, 2008 at 7:01 pm
ari
I like Deadwood. Very much. But I’m not as well versed in its wonders yet as I will be in a few months. I’ve only made my way through the first season.
January 3, 2008 at 7:10 pm
eric
To take this point: Deadwood is very good. But it crashed out after a limited run. The Wire has seriously, seriously undertaken just about every major issue of American society today, and gotten them righter than Yglesias seems to think.
January 3, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Sandie
I agree that this is one of the best shows ever, and now that I’ve lost my HBO since I won’t subscribe to HDTV, I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to watch the new season before I have withdrawal symptoms. That being said, I do have one major criticism of the show that I never see articulated anywhere: every institution that is covered during each season, e.g., drug dealers, dock workers, police, the educational system, is framed in (almost) completely masculine terms. Yes, I understand that gang activity, policing, working on the docks, are mostly bastions of masculinity. And, yes, I know that some of the main characters are female (Kima–the shit-kicking lesbian cop; Rhonda, the D.A., the principal of the middle school), but they stand out as exceptions. Why wouldn’t the middle school be more focused on female teachers, since the majority of teachers, even up until high school, are females? What does the physically threatening behavior of male students do to the tenor of the classroom when the teacher is female? How does THAT affect education? I’m not saying that there’s one “female” perspective, but I find the fact that about half of the population is missing from the show. What, for example, are the lives of the “Miss Annas,” the foster mothers like? What would it mean to focus on the foster care system and social work, another occupation/institution that is female- dominated? How do all of these areas fit into the puzzle that is Baltimore? Again, I suppose that one could make the argument that the writers are writing what they know, but would it kill them to find out some things that they do not know? I’m making this critique out of great admirations for the show, not because I want to rain on anyone’s parade. And, btw, I think the quote from David Simon is great.
January 3, 2008 at 7:22 pm
ari
Because David Simon is a boy. And the patriarchy sucks.
January 3, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Sandie
A little flip, Ari, no?
January 3, 2008 at 8:00 pm
urbino
Urbino is your father, Ari.
The mind boggles at the number of possible interpretations of that text.
Deadwood is very good. But it crashed out after a limited run.
But through no fault of its own. HBO just decided not to continue it. Last I heard, they’re still planning to do a couple of feature-length movies to finish it out.
On the gender issue, Sandie, my guess is it’s just what you’ve said — the writers writing what they know. (Not just Simon, but the ex-cop he works with.) You’re right that it wouldn’t kill them to expand on that. There’s probably some degree of not wanting to mess too much with something that’s working so well, though.
A couple other tv shows that occur to me as worthy of mention: My So-Called Life, and The Shield. Neither is as good as our 2 current contenders, and the former, of course, is even more subject to the Eric Rule than Deadwood is.
January 3, 2008 at 8:05 pm
ac
A lot of those HBO series seem to be exploring male worlds. The mafia, the wild west, the Hollywood playboy lifestyle. Except for Sex and the City, of course, which is sort of the tv equivalent of chick lit. Is Six Feet Under the only one that really tries to mix it up?
It’s actually probably one of the reasons I’ve resisted watching The Wire, even though it’s praised all over the place. Every now and then you consciously feel the work involved in intertextuality.
That said, that particular male world seems to have more inherent drama and scope for tragedy than the corresponding female one in terms of violence, incarceration, &c.
January 3, 2008 at 8:06 pm
ac
A little too much italicizing, there.
January 3, 2008 at 8:28 pm
ari
I was being sincere, Sandie. Really. That wasn’t me being flip. Unfortunately sincere Ari and flip Ari apparently are a bit hard to tell apart.
January 3, 2008 at 8:37 pm
ari
But I think your point about Simon writing what he knows is right on. And that’s certainly true for Pelecanos (sp?), who has written for the show as well. Honestly, that said, I’ve always been impressed with how deep the female characters are in spite of the hyper-masculinity of the writers. The Kima arc has been gut-wrenching and so, so real. Watching her relationship with her estranged wife, the mother of her child, dissolve was painful. And the respect she commands from her co-workers is pretty amazing — and not, from my perspective, patronizing. Also, Rhonda gets to be VERY ambitious but not a bitch. She’s also sexual but not depraved. That’s not nothing.
January 4, 2008 at 5:25 am
rosmar
This is awesome. I love The Wire. (And, I’m a lesbian, and found Kima and her partner and friends among the most realistic and humanistic portrayals of gay women on TV, which is a strike against the patriarchy in my book.)
January 4, 2008 at 6:21 am
ari
Thinking more about Kima, who, I’ve always believed, is one of the best drawn characters ever to appear on television, I’m also reminded of the class vulnerabilities she constantly faces. She has (or, put more accurately, had) to negotiate this great divide: between the world of her wife, the lawyer, whose friends seem to be do-gooding youngish lesbian yuppies, and her work, where her friends are decidedly working class. And the way in which those worlds are gendered again seems very real to me: the dinners with wife and friends, where Kima has to listen to their naive views on the workings of the city, as compared to kicking in doors at work. And the way that McNulty, the dog, is constantly hitting on her, even though he knows she has no interest. It’s all too stark, I suppose, but it’s a pretty great portrait.
The one woman who I’ve always found flat is Beadie, whose single-mom-with-a-heart-of-gold shtick is a bit much. And of course, if you look at the list of characters, there are ten (maybe more) men for every one woman.
Still and all, the very best show ever on television. No question.
January 4, 2008 at 7:20 am
Sandie
Ari, I completely agree about Kima–she is a great character. I’d actually never thought very deeply about her negotiation between her working-class world and her yuppie domestic life, but those terms make sense to me. I’d always seen her breakup from a more traditionally heterosexist perspective, i.e., Kima was acting like a “traditional man” who becomes upset that the wife is spending too much time with the baby and not enough time with him/her and that the wife is complaining that her spouse doesn’t spend enough time at home with the family. Viewed from your perspective, the characterization is deeper.
Another flat character is Carchetti’s wife.
AC, your comments provide more food for thought, and until you mentioned it, I hadn’t realized that “a lot of those HBO series seem to be exploring male worlds.” But is it really true that “that particular male world seems to have more inherent drama and scope for tragedy than the corresponding female one in terms of violence, incarceration, &c.”? I don’t really know the answer to that question. Given that we’re all caught in the webs of patriarchy, it’s hard to know how much our ideas about what is dramatic are already shaped for us in advance. (Convoluted sentence, I know, but I’m too lazy to fix it). But, along those lines, I’ve always wondered what The Sopranos (or any other film/series in the gangster genre) would look like if it were told from the perspective of the wives/girlfriends (and Married to the Mob doesn’t count!).
January 4, 2008 at 8:00 am
ac
I just mean it in the sense that violence is, in itself, dramatic. The stakes are higher in stories where characters might die. This is why there are so many gazillions of stories set during WWII.
January 4, 2008 at 8:05 am
ari
The Sopranos, for all of the (justifiable) criticism of Carmela’s character, sometimes centered on her narrative arc. Most famously, I think, in the episodes in which she visits the Jewish (of course) shrink. He basically says, and I’m totally paraphrasing here: “Get out [of the relationship with Tony]. Or live with the fact that you’ve made not just made a deal with the devil but enabled him.” Carmela stays. And she, and the show, can never be redeemed.
That’s probably as much about virgins and whores as anything else. But whatareyagonnado? It’s a show about a mafia family in Jersey. And David Chase, unlike David Simon, really seemed to hate women. Not that he didn’t also hate men who were cruel to them. I guess he just hated everyone.
January 4, 2008 at 8:06 am
ac
As James Meek puts it:
Obviously women can be placed in the foreground in these type of stories, too.
January 4, 2008 at 12:14 pm
SEK
A little late to the party, but …
… you can’t let Simon off the hook so easily. The Corner‘s very much about the place of women in the masculine world, and it’s central character, Fran Boyd, is a script-consultant/on-set verisimilitude-guarantor. Simon knows the effect of this life on women, he just chooses to focus elsewhere. But as I write that, it sounds wrong to me. Think of the complex female characters on the show: Kima, already mentioned; Pearlman, obviously central; Marla Daniels; Beadie; &c. That women aren’t involved in the day-to-day drug operations, or in the dock workers union, isn’t a matter of making masculine what is, in fact, more diverse — it’s a legacy of the extant misogyny in the groups being depicted. (There’s a long passage in The Corner about why women find it so difficult to move up the ranks in the drug trade, and it’s not completed unrelated to why Barksdale used a strip club as a front in the first season.)
(And while I’m being parenthetical, I saw an interview with Boyd — most likely OnDemand, but maybe in the commentaries to Season Four — in which she said that Felicia Pearson’s “character” is the biggest fictional concession in the series, and that she fought against it for that reason.)
January 4, 2008 at 12:41 pm
ac
Isn’t it also something to do with the audience at whom violent gangster stories are directed? There is a voyeuristic or vicarious observance for the male viewer, too. It’s not like most men watching operate in violent code-of-the-warrior mode themselves.
As I say, I’ve never seen The Wire, but it’s a lot of the interest or tension of The Sopranos, or even, in an odd way, Entourage—there’s a self-consciousness in that lighter series about coming from a tough background, episodes in which members of their gang who have done time in prison come and try to hang out with them in Hollywood. These hyper-male genres are partly about relating modern male identity to older, more violent or warrior-like archetypes.
January 4, 2008 at 1:02 pm
ari
I’m with you, ac, on The Wire, Sopranos, and Deadwood (of course). But I think that Entourage is about looking good and buying shiny things. It’s a show for crows, creatures fascinated by objects that catch the light. The whole from-the-hood backstory is just a cover for ever-shallower exposition about the delights of consumer culture, the joys of living with money in LA, and the fabulousness of celebrity.
January 4, 2008 at 1:10 pm
ac
The tone is lighter, the show more trivial, but the male-bonding and harkening to older forms of male society or identity just as central.
January 4, 2008 at 1:19 pm
ari
Upon further reflection, as I consider the characters’ relationship with Vince’s agent, I think you’re right. They’re authenticity is all about their masculinity amidst the feminized culture of Hollywood. They even stare down their most masculine adversary, a character homage to Harvey Weinstein.
January 4, 2008 at 2:20 pm
SEK
Isn’t it also something to do with the audience at whom violent gangster stories are directed? There is a voyeuristic or vicarious observance for the male viewer, too. It’s not like most men watching operate in violent code-of-the-warrior mode themselves.
This is certainly the case with The Sopranos and other mob-related films, but Simon deliberately undermined this dynamic by having the baddest-of-the-bad-asses be homosexual. Not on the down-low, either, but openly, defiantly gay. I wrote a long something about this on Unfogged a few weeks back, but lack the skills required to Google that damnable beast.
The short version: The Wire isn’t simply the best show on television, in many ways, it’s not a television show at all, generically speaking. To judge it by the standards you’d apply to other shows denies it its uniqueness and denudes of it what makes it it. I know that sounds abstract, but let me explain the experience of watching it:
The age of television on DVD has created a Culture of Marathon. We purchase entire seasons, then we watch them in one or two consecutive evenings. At least, the desire to do so is there, as if the serial nature of the Victorian novel were abetted by having a perpetual Dickens machine in the closet crunching out the next chapter on demand. We might not always do so — not always prudent to be watching season finales at 3 a.m. — but that’s how we want to watch it. This mode of watching (and reading) creates some retention problems: we get so caught up in the big arcs that we miss a lot of the nuance. Instead of brooding over details for the weeks/months between serials, we ride the wave of plot from start-to-finish, and leave the little pleasures for repeated viewings. (If the show merits any, that is, which creates of host of other problems, but that’s another comment.)
Well, unlike any other show, The Wire demands you watch the next episode, but leaves you so drained that it’s almost impossible to. You take in so much in any given episode that, though you desperately desire to continue, you know you won’t enjoy it as much, since you’ll be so cognizant of all you’ve missed. They pushed this dynamic hard through the first season; the second reversed course for the first few episodes, then slammed you with almost overwhelming complexity. The thing of it is, you always feel there’s a perfect balance somewhere: two hours and fifteen minutes, maybe? But you can’t stop in the middle of an episode, or you’ll lose its arc, &c. That’s what I mean when I say that as a televisual experience, The Wire‘s utterly unique, comparable only to something that doesn’t exist, like a page-turning modernist novel.
January 4, 2008 at 4:00 pm
rosmar
That is thought-provoking, SEK. Thanks. (And I’ve done the 3 a.m. season finale thing a few times now.)
January 4, 2008 at 8:18 pm
eric
Jeez, and I thought I was the only one. I watched much of one season of The Wire on DVD, perched on the edge of a very skinny bed in an English dormitory, jet-lagged out of my mind, between about 2 and 5 AM….
January 4, 2008 at 9:13 pm
urbino
Count me, too. I’ve sat up late watching all the seasons of The Wire.
And Deadwood. Ahem.
January 4, 2008 at 9:20 pm
ari
Also check out SEK’s thoughts here. He should consider doing textual readings/criticism for a living or something.
January 4, 2008 at 11:22 pm
andrew
I don’t know about grouping The Wire with the other HBO shows. I haven’t seen, and almost certainly will not see The Sopranos and I pretty much loathed the first two episodes of Deadwood. (But what about the dialogue? someone will ask. I thought it was awful. (And yes, I’ve seen the defense of the dialogue SEK posted a while back – it was that very defense that finally led me to watch the first two episodes.)) But I love The Wire and it’s just about the only tv show made in the last few years I watch. I’d say “watch regularly” but I’ve never had HBO and only watch the DVDs. Still haven’t seen the fourth season.
Anyway, more on topic: a couple friends of mine – one in history, the other in government/law/poli sci – have watched all these HBO shows (at least as of a year and a half ago when I last talked to them about The Wire). They’re huge fans of The Wire, but while still liking both Deadwood and The Sopranos, they objected to the misogyny on those shows. Specifically, they weren’t bothered so much by the existence of misogyny in those shows, as it undoubtedly exists in those worlds, but by the way it seemed flattened and ahistorical to them, as if the misogyny in a western town of the 19th century was just like the misogyny in whenever the hell the Sopranos is set.
January 4, 2008 at 11:33 pm
andrew
Also, I find myself thinking of The Wire as something more like those 19th century serieseses of novels than like a single serialized novel. So: Balzac (who I haven’t read at all, but seems obligatory to mention), Trollope, Zola, others. Or maybe like what Frank Norris was trying for with his “Epic of the Wheat” had he finished all three novels: California: production; Chicago: marketing*; Europe: consumption, only all in one place and with a look at other aspects of the trade. Wheat and drugs are both commodities, at least.
*Technically, I don’t think Chicago’s grain market covered California wheat, which usually got shipped around the horn directly to Europe.
January 5, 2008 at 5:56 pm
eric
We a drunkass pair of meta motherf**kers right now. Via ogged.
January 5, 2008 at 7:28 pm
SEK
Can slash fic be far behind?
Andrew, I’m glad I convinced you to watch Deadwood, but sorry it didn’t stick. It takes some time. As for the Norris, even though he’s 1) in my period and 2) in my dissertation, every time I think of him I can’t help but think of the wheat, lots of wheat, fields of wheat … which detracts from the quasi-sophisticated nature of his critique.
January 5, 2008 at 7:43 pm
eric
Red wheat. Yellow wheat. Cream of Wheat.
January 5, 2008 at 9:54 pm
urbino
Just read your post on Ellsworth’s opening declaration, SEK. Excellent stuff.
Also worth perusal, one and all, Deadwood-wise, is this.
January 6, 2008 at 12:23 am
Ben Alpers
I agree that this is one of the best shows ever, and now that I’ve lost my HBO since I won’t subscribe to HDTV, I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to watch the new season before I have withdrawal symptoms.
If you’re still reading this, Sandie, you could try bittorrent. Though that would be wrong.
January 6, 2008 at 9:34 am
Sandie
Sorry, Ben, I have no idea what bittorrent means. Please explain. I am having someone tape it for me, although I do feel bad about imposing (but obviously not THAT bad!).
January 7, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Wire Blogging « The Edge of the American West
[…] we all know how this site feels about The Wire, the best show ever. But Ben worries that Obama’s answer might be more dog-whistle politics, […]
January 7, 2008 at 4:25 pm
genesiawilliams
It’s the best of all time in it’s category. And it is very good in comparison to a larger body of shows.
I love it
January 7, 2008 at 6:00 pm
urbino
Bittorrent, Sandie, is a file sharing program. Think Napster, before the lawsuit.
January 7, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Sandie
Thanks, Urbino!