Narrative Exhaustion Strung Along The Wire

On that same post by Ari Kelman, ac wonders whether The Wire doesn't appeal to those it condemns:

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.

Even ogged—of "there's no such thing as an anti-war war movie" fame—concedes there may be something to the notion that The Wire defies this (extensive) logic, that it may be an anti-gangster gangster serial.  Not that ac and ogged have no point: who sympathizes with law enforcement while watching The Godfather?  (That Fredo's execution has become an object of cultural parody indicates the extent to which viewers sympathetically identify with Michael Corleone.)  The Wire escapes that voyeuristic pull for two reasons, one simple, the other so complex I've auditioned it before many, many, many people without working up the gall put in writing.

The Simple Reason

The Wire combines the narrative perspective of three previous David Simon-related projects: Homicide, Oz, and The Corner.  As if to underscore this, at one point we see Omar Little and his boyfriend curled up watching Oz.  (If that ain't irony enough for you, they're watching Chris Keller threaten to rape Toby Beecher, and Keller's played by Christopher Merloni, a.k.a. Elliot Stabler from Law & Order: SVU.  So you have two gay men watching one gay man who plays a sex crimes officer rape a straight man and haven't we been down this road with these same folk before?)  The multiple perspectives force the viewer to adopt an almost sociological attitude toward the characters in each group.  We adore detectives McNulty and Bunk one moment, D'Angelo and Bodie the next.  The narratives splinter our sympathies, forcing us to confront the limitations films like The Godfather would have us embrace:

We root for D'Angelo while hoping CID destroys his cousin (and employer) Avon's organization.  Simon and company disseminate our allegiances so wide and thin that when conflict arises we feel genuine confusion.  The algebra of identification grows to calculus so quickly that we stare, dumbfounded, unable to understand the ramifications of what we witnessed.  This confusion is essential to the show's appeal.  Knowing what happened is less important than understanding the potential consequences.  (As is dramatized, via nail-gun, on numerous occasions in Season Four.)

The More Complicated Reason

I crib from sources sage and wise:

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, 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 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.)

Unlike any other show, The Wire demands you watch the next episode, but leaves you so drained that it’s almost impossible to do so. 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.

I can't best that tonight.  Consider it the germ of something larger and to come ... but by all means critique it mercilessly.  I may be blinded by The Wire's brilliance or embracing a pernicious televisual presentism. 

Comments

[Jake]

Hey, did you read the latest round-ups of The Wire articles from The House Next Door? Second set down. One of the posts criticizing David Simon's vision gets a response from the creator himself:

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.

[Jake]

Eh, I think you did.