I recently watched the television series The Wire. I basically watched five seasons in a matter of six weeks. In all there were about 60 episodes and I probably watched them in the course of about 15-20 evenings. The series is a pretty impressive collection. What sets it apart from most series, is that while the characters stay very much the same, the angle of the story changes drastically, all the while concentrating on the urban setting of Baltimore.
The first season takes the perspective of the cops and the street thugs. The second looks at the dock workers and unions. The third if local government and it's corruption. The fourth is from the public school systems view and there struggles to make a difference. The final season is set from the view of the media, primarily the print media: Newspapers. The whole magical journey centers around a handful of cops, politicians and drug dealers. Some of the faces change, but the main characters stay the same. It's well written and has a very specific concentration for each season. It works.
It's been two days since I finished it and it suddenly dawned on me that there is so much irony in people's love of this show and their every day life. Since getting into the show, I've talked to many people about it. Almost across the board, there is something a little off. Something wrong morally with some comments and feelings. It was hard to put a finger on it while watching, but now that I can step away, make my own judgments, it makes sense.
The first thing I find troubling, is that across the board, nearly everyone's favorite character is one of the drug dealers. The funny thing is, the show never makes you really root for them. You empathize with them, but even that is cause for concern. You're shown that there is no escape from this life for some, so we accept it. The whole point of the series is to show us we've accepted it; and it is wrong.
The other concern is what we like and dislike about it. I consider myself political, but didn't like that season. The dirty politicians annoyed me more than the crooks, because they were only looking out for themselves. They were lairs and cheats and we saw every minute of it. Ironically, most people liked this season and liked the characters. I couldn't stand them. Hated them even in the following seasons. It's what's wrong with our government and even when confronted with it, we let it slide. They are simply politicians, doing there thing, we tell ourselves. Sad.
Most people's least favorite season was the second. The dock workers. Is it because our unions have become so corrupt and so illegitimate that we can't bare to watch? Or Maybe it's because we look at these guys, working to make a buck, losing pay for lack of work, while criminals make money hand over first and we feel guilty. Maybe it's because we champion the little guy in public, but the reality is, we look down upon the uneducated men and women who do all the dirty work
The final season takes us inside the news room. It also has a very clear message. That a lie, even one that seems harmless, can take on a life of it's own. As I've said, during numerous debates with people about the current election, "Just because you tell a lie over and over doesn't make it true." Sadly, we're a lazy people in this country. We like to be told our news and we assume the facts are true. We have our trusted paper or channel and we swallow without question, any info they feed us. We assume we're not being duped, but the reality is, if we are, it's our own fault, because so many of us accept lies. The show lays out for all to see that those little lies aren't just affecting us. They affect our co-workers, our friends, our loved ones and in the end, they tear at our very being. Those who can continue the lies without remorse are shown to be the scariest of all.
Seeing a bunch of kids on a corner killing each other might not seem like reality. Seeing dock workers bend the rules for a buck, might seem like a harmless maneuver. Seeing a politician take money for favors, might not even remotely sound unethical by today's standards. Seeing a school teacher trying so hard to educate, in a system that doesn't allow for it, might seem commonplace. Seeing a cop, a reporter or a drug dealer tell a little lie to make a situation better, might not sound that awful in the grand scheme, but the reality is all of these things are signs of our country's failure. A failure to protect the innocent, the laborer, the child, the loved one. A failure to hold those who should be accountable for their actions. A failure in all of us, to accept these failures and brush them under the rug as commonplace.
We live in a world where we accept liars, thieves and cheats. We allow them into our homes and our bedrooms. We may even have crossed over and become those people we look down on. When does it end. If you can't be faithful to your family, how can you be faithful to your friends? If you can't be faithful to your friends, how can you be faithful to those who you work with? If you can't be faithful to those you work with, how can you be faithful to those who you serve or who serve you? How if you can't be faithful to those people, can we ever be expected to truly care about those we don't know or don't see? We've become a society that allows for bad things. We revere it at times. There was a time when honesty was a virtue. Now it's seen as a sign of weakness. How did we fall this far?
A TV show called the Wire represented all that is wrong with society from multiple points of view. We watched and were entertained. Entertained by a world most of us don't know. A world where a large number of people live every day. We cared about all those characters on that screen, but how many of us cared about who they represented? My guess, in today's world, not many.
Comments
Post a Comment