raghu wrote: > I tried to learn more about Reed and I was really surprised to see an > article where he criticizes the HBO-show 'The Wire' as neo-Nazi. This seems > way over-the-top to me.
Yeah, Reed's assessment is totally over-the-top. However, I just finished re-watching the entire run of the Wire in order again over the past few months (I bought the German DVDs as Seasons 3-5 came out in rapid succession in 2012, whereas I had watched it the first time years earlier when the local hip video store had British DVDs), and while I still think it's generally one of, if not the best television dramas ever, it's shortcomings were much more apparent to me upon a second viewing. It's hard to put my finger on it exactly, but there's a sense that it's almost got a sort of romanticized touch to it. Like, characters like Omar Little and Brother Mouzone seem like highly improbable, larger-than-life characters, that are intended to provide an object of identification for the audience, outside of the cops or the drug gangs. So as a bit of fantastic relief from the cat-and-mouse crime drama, they add these sorts of improbable anti-heroes to the mix. Also, one thing that frustrates me when following Internet discussions about the series, the general consensus among the fans of the series is that Season 2 is the "weakest" season. It really bothers me that although David Simon's own stated intent was to create an epic of the decline of the American working-class, the one season of the series that deals explicitly with organized labor is the season that inspires the least interest among viewers. It's like unions have disappeared so completely from national consciousness that they aren't even interesting subject matter for a crime drama anymore. Admittedly, this reflects more upon the lack of critical discernment on the part of some of the audience, rather than the show's creators, but I can't help but feel like some of the more fantastic, larger-than-life aspects of the show are a concession to that sort of audience. BTW, is anyone a fan of Boardwalk Empire at all? That's another one I've been following pretty intensely, although to be honest, I think my enthusiasm for it is rather uncritical. I'm a sucker for that kind of painstaking period setting, and I love the architecture, design, music, and clothing of the early-20th Century, so I can't decide if Boardwalk Empire is really a brilliant revisionist critical history of US machine politics in the form of a crime drama, or if it's just eye candy for middlebrows like me. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
