Why you (and everyone you know) should watch HBO's "The Wire"

Last week I was reminded of the greatness of the HBO drama "The Wire," and how lax I've been in singing its praises of late. Indeed, "The Wire" is a show that merits some serious evangelizing -- I can scarcely think of another television program that inspires such depth of feeling, thought, and devotion in its audience. And while "The Wire" is a luminous achievement for the medium of television to be sure, it's more than that. It's a rich testament to the power of narrative and storytelling, a work that transcends the confines of scripted television and plumbs the inner depths of those who experience it as perhaps only great literature can. Does it sound like I'm overstating things? Well, I'm not.

I was, incidentally, reminded of "The Wire" last week because of a few lines I read on Politico, namely:

"The president [likes] the HBO drama 'The Wire.' His favorite character is Omar, a gay stickup artist who steals from drug pushers to give to the poor. ('That's not an endorsement. He's not my favorite person, but he's a fascinating character,' Obama said last year.)" 

And when I read that I think I went into some sort of shock -- the good kind, the kind you get when you walk into a dead-quiet room on your birthday and then suddenly, SURPRISE!, friends and family appear from nowhere wearing silly hats and throwing confetti. THAT kind of shock. That our president is now someone who enjoys a show as intellectually and psychologically complex as "The Wire"-- as opposed to his predecessor, whose favorite TV shows are, I suspect, likely something along the lines of "COPS"or "Cheaters" --  is something that brings me to the edge of tears. And why that is, why I and so many other people I know became invested in this television show to the point where someone feeling an affinity for it and its characters seems not a statement about their taste but rather about what they as a human being are made of... well that my friends could take a few days. So for the sake of brevity I'll try to keep things punchy and limit myself to just the following three (only three!) reasons you should watch this show:

*Please note that the videos included below do contain NSFW language and include "The Sopranos"-level acts of violence. This is not a show for the squeamish, be aware.*

1. Omar Little. Our President isn't the only one who has mad love for Omar. Almost without fail, when I told someone I was writing this piece the first thing that came out of their mouth was this character's name, and with good reason. For while the show fairly bursts at the seams with memorable characters, Omar, the stoic, trench-coated gay stickup artist, is perhaps THE character that best articulates what makes "The Wire" great. Omar's nothing if not a complex bundle of shifting contradictions: a hardened criminal who is sensitive and deeply feeling, an uneducated street thug who possesses startling depth and rare wisdom, a man who shamelessly defies the rule of law at every opportunity yet lives by a strict moral and ethical code. It's hard to watch "The Wire" and not fall in love with him, with his awesome strength and tenderness, his commitment, oddly, to doing what's right and playing fairly by the rules of The Game, even if his sense of "right" and what "rules" should be followed is a bit questionable. The following clip, in which Omar confronts Brother Mouzone (another incredible character) who he believes to be responsible for the murder of his lover a year prior, gives a taste of what makes Omar so compelling: 

2. The Writing. This is a show that, as one friend pointed out to me, Berkeley's film/media studies department has created an undergraduate course about (course readings include works by Aeschylus, Theodore Dreiser and, predictably, Charles Dickens). Never before or since has a television show been so, well, untelevision-show-like. That's not an indictment of the medium, but a remark on the unique nature of the show's narrative, which resembles a Shakespearean play more closely than it does your average police procedural drama. The writing bears that level of subtlety, complexity, and depth, and challenges the audience's hearts and minds relative to its characters in ways generally associated with great works of literature.

I was emailing with my close friend Angela about the show, and with her permission would like to quote at length some of what she said on this matter, as it distills so much so well:

YES. THAT. WHAT SHE SAID.

This clip, in which crew boss of the low rise projects D'Angelo teaches his underlings Wallace and Bodie how to play chess, hints at the depth and the complexity of these characters who are, lest we forget, hoodlums and drug dealers: 

3. Baltimore. Well, not quite Baltimore. David Simon, creator of "The Wire," has said that the show isn't really about Baltimore specifically but about America, about inner city America, the "other America." And from the beginning of the series straight on through its end it's apparent that the heart of "The Wire" beats in the dark places of America, in the parts of it hidden from the view of most Americans, in the places where lives begin and end in brutality, anonymity and despair. At its best "The Wire"explores the lives of those who inhabit that other America in a way that not only recognizes and respects their humanity, but finds poetry in it. A rough and bloody sort to be sure, but lyrical nonetheless. It's a poetry that doesn't offer reassurances of inner city redemption or false hope, but instead meditates on survival and sheer endurance. There is no uplifting triumph of the human spirit here. Instead there is the often grim reality of urban exhaustion, conflict, and ambivalence.

What's surprising though is how easy it is to love this other America -- in spite of or because of its utter brokenness, I'm not quite sure which. But in a broader sense, it's impossible to watch "The Wire" and not feel that in some essential way it captures profound truths about the complicated business of being human in all its ugliness and awfulness, beauty and tenderness, and that in doing so blurs the lines dividing those opposites. In "The Wire" as in life, there aren't heroes and villains, "good" people and "bad" people -- there are just people, all trying to live as best they can within the limitations of their respective circumstances. Whatever our address, whatever clothes we wear, car we drive, or occupation we labor at, our likeness to one another runs deep -- perhaps deeper than many would like to admit. As stick-up artist Omar quips to the smug lawyer Maurice Levy in defense of what Levy condemns as  Omar's "parasitic" life of crime: "I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. It's all in the game though, right?"

Tru dat.

. . . . .
Tracey, aka Sweetney, writes about Pop Culture & Entertainment at MamaPop, and believes you gotta keep the devil way down in the hole.

WARNING: Spoilers in comments below, read at your own risk!