HBO's The Wire, discussion

[scenefinale]

Assuming anybody here has actually seen it (this is a forum full of intuitives, no?) If you haven't, drop what you're doing and watch it!

I'd like to discuss this masterpiece. Which gives (fictional, yet highly enlightening) intuitive overviews of the American city all the way from government and politics to lowly street drug addicts.

Senator Clay Davis' lawyer manipulating a largely SF crowd.

Si and the Police Department.

McNulty's reckless binges.

Freamon looking for patterns.

INTPs quietly running some of the most major business in the world, without people so much as knowing their name.

Come on, I can't be the only one in love with this show?

 

[Jennywocky]

I live there.
Watching it is kind of redundant.

(Lots of great shows in Baltimore, actually. Hannibal is also set there; and House of Cards filmed here.)

The Wire's actually on my list; I just didn't commit to start viewing yet since it will absorb my attention for awhile. I just got through all of GoT two months ago, I'm taking a breather.

 

[scenefinale]

I live there.
Watching it is kind of redundant.

(Lots of great shows in Baltimore, actually. Hannibal is also set there; and House of Cards filmed here.)

The Wire's actually on my list; I just didn't commit to start viewing yet since it will absorb my attention for awhile. I just got through all of GoT two months ago, I'm taking a breather.

Cool, yeah I mean I live in NYC but there is still plenty for me to learn about it. Yeah it's a big series, 5 seasons, ~12 episodes each, an hour per episode, but totally worth it in my opinion.

 

[Jennywocky]

I'd actually watched that short clip before where they only use the word "fuck" when they're recreating a murder scene. Pretty funny.

I know they set up each season as a different topic area (police, street, newsroom, etc). The newsroom one is supposed to be the best true-to-life representation of a newsroom.

 

[scenefinale]

Ahaha yes! Great scene (just one of many)!

And yes David Simon went on to do a similar HBO mini-series which gave an intuitive overview of the military too, which is now a mandatory viewing for many military officers. His bigger picture ideas speak volumes. Not to mention he captures personality types very well in these too (e.g. Sgt Major Sixta of Generation Kill, perfect ESTJ stereotype, http://youtu.be/-oF0XYRhRvA )

 

[Teffnology]

Quite fitting that a David Simon thread has but 2, now 3 people, on it. The man is a mystery, but really good at writing television.

@Jennywocky- Im curious about your observations of how Simon captured the city. He got some criticism for this but mostly by rich white dudes. Didn't know Hannibal was shot there, one of my recent favorites for TV.
The newsroom season of The Wire is so accurately portrayed because David Simon got the idea for the show as a reporter for a Baltimore newspaper.

This came out last week and is a great read on David Simon.

http://grantland.com/features/david-simon-show-me-a-hero-hbo-the-wire-treme/


Possible David Simon type? INTx

 

[Hadoblado]

I'm watching it atm on account of my enormous hard-on for Idris Elba. It's really good.

 

[Jennywocky]

Quite fitting that a David Simon thread has but 2, now 3 people, on it. The man is a mystery, but really good at writing television.

@Jennywocky- Im curious about your observations of how Simon captured the city.

Sorry, as I noted above I've only read a little bit about "The Wire" (enough to get the broad gist) and watched just a piece of one episode, so I have no way to comment on it intelligibly.

I've lived in Baltimore for only three years now (over on the western edge), so I know parts of the city better than other parts. I grew up in rural PA and the most "urban" of my living was in Harrisburg (which compared to Philly or Pittsburgh is not really that urban at all, so I haven't really dived into the purely urban areas of Baltimore, and there are areas I'm loathe to go into due to potential violence/crime level. (There are racial conflicts in some areas as well.)

Spoiler

Funny story -- there's a Giant grocery in one direction about 4 miles from my house that I usually shop at, and while various races shop there, it's mostly low/mid income white and I don't stick out. So I realized there was another Giant 2-3 miles in the OTHER direction and stopped there on an early Friday evening... and I will probably never go back. The Giant itself was a little bit nicer, they must have just revamped it recently... but I was literally the only white person in there and felt horribly exposed. Being female, it probably wasn't seen to be as territorial a threat; and not everyone was looking at me; but enough that I was like, "uhhh... okay. I'm gonna go now." And the city can be that way -- one block you're got one type of inhabitant, a few blocks over the demographics can completely change. The area of that store wasn't horrible, but over on the NE quadrant in a lower income bracket, there's been beatings between white and black girls as part of turf wars, for example, in places like McDonald's.

Still, I'm only about ten minutes from downtown / Inner Harbor -- I'm 2 miles from I95 via beltway -- and can get anywhere pretty quickly.

 

[Teffnology]

This was quite the gold nugget I just found. Thank you @Absurdity to recommending Quora in a previous post, I have enjoyed it quite a bit.

Thoughts?

http://www.quora.com/Is-Breaking-Bad-better-than-The-Wire