{"id":2719,"date":"2018-03-09T05:03:50","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T13:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=2719"},"modified":"2018-03-09T05:03:50","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T13:03:50","slug":"the-wire-10-years-on-we-tore-the-cover-off-a-city-and-showed-the-american-dream-was-dead-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=2719","title":{"rendered":"“The Wire, 10 years on: \u2018We tore the cover off a city and showed the American dream was dead\u2019”, The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Dorian Lynskey, London,\u00a0

Here, some of its writers and stars look back at a series that changed TV for ever.<\/p>\n

W<\/span><\/span>hen, in 2001, the actor Frankie Faison accepted the role of deputy commissioner Ervin Burrell in a new HBO drama called The Wire<\/a>, he thought he was signing up for a cop show. \u201cI was expecting it to be more about wiretapping,\u201d he remembers with amusement. \u201cIt evolved into something much more fascinating.\u201d<\/p>\n

HBO laboured under a similar misapprehension because The Wire\u2019s creator, David Simon<\/a>, had pitched the show to them as an unusually thoughtful police procedural, not an anatomy lesson in US dysfunction that he really had in mind. \u201cI sold it as a cop show, but they don\u2019t know it\u2019s not really a cop show,\u201d he told the novelist George Pelecanos when he invited him to join the writing team. In fact, he said, it was something audaciously new: \u201cA novel for television.\u201d<\/p>\n

Exactly 10 years after its final episode<\/a> aired, The Wire is established as one of the greatest shows in the history of US television \u2013 some would say the greatest. But, while shows such as The Sopranos and Mad Men launched with loud fanfares and walked paths strewn with accolades, strong ratings and Emmy awards, The Wire\u2019s route to the pantheon was a long slog. \u201cDavid Simon had to fight for every season,\u201d says Clarke Peters (Det Lester Freamon). \u201cNothing was ever guaranteed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story began in 1984, when Simon, then a journalist on the Baltimore Sun, was covering the wiretap-related arrest of a local drug lord, Melvin Williams. Ed Burns, 14 years his senior, was the detective leading the case. As both of them were blunt, abrasive, fiercely intelligent and morally enraged by the status quo, they became friends. After Simon\u2019s 1991 nonfiction masterpiece Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets<\/a> became a hit NBC show, Homicide: Life on the Street, which ran for seven seasons between 1993 and 1999, both men quit their jobs. Burns became a teacher, and the two collaborated on the 1997 book The Corner: A Year in the Life of An Inner-City Neighbourhood<\/a>, which examined the futile cruelty of the war on drugs from the other end of the telescope. The Corner became an HBO miniseries, which enabled the 40-year-old Simon to pitch The Wire to HBO\u2019s CEO, Chris Albrecht, and entertainment division president, Carolyn Strauss, as \u201cthe anti-cop show, a rebellion of sorts against all the horseshit police procedurals afflicting American television\u201d.<\/p>\n

Simon would later describe The Wire in different ways: as \u201cGreek tragedy for the new millennium,\u201d with sclerotic institutions playing the role of callous, indifferent gods; as a story about \u201cthe triumph of capitalism over human value\u201d; and as a chronicle of \u201cthe decline of the American empire\u201d. On Homicide: Life on the Street, NBC executives would repeatedly ask the writers: \u201cWhere are the victories?\u201d The Wire avoided victories, preferring to show corruption, failure and decay. In this show, reformers would be thwarted, crooks rewarded and ordinary people ground down by the system. The Wire was as much journalism as entertainment \u2013 a form of protest television. The most frequent question asked in this writers\u2019 room was: \u201cWhat are we saying?\u201d<\/p>\n

When The Wire began production in late 2001, Simon\u2019s and Burns\u2019s burning conviction was inspiring. \u201cThey were two different cats,\u201d says Peters. \u201cI felt an avuncular vibe from Ed. David was blinkered and focused, always under pressure. He really had to hold the reins of this team of horses so that they didn\u2019t gallop away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were such a unique pair to be writing this show,\u201d says John Doman (deputy commissioner William Rawls). \u201cTheir view was from the inside out, not from the outside in. They knew the stories and the characters first-hand. I think The Wire really tore the cover off an American city and showed that, for so many people, the American dream was dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simon was an authenticity hound who described his writing as \u201cstealing life\u201d. If the people he was writing about didn\u2019t think his work rang true, then he had failed, regardless of what viewers thought. So he drew on individuals, anecdotes and snatches of dialogue that he had picked up as a reporter. Believing that most television writers didn\u2019t have an ear for the streets, nor much interest in the lives of people living in poverty in urban areas, Simon put together a team of crime novelists (Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane and Richard Price) and former colleagues from the Baltimore<\/a> Sun.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe final decision was always David\u2019s, but he encouraged debate and wanted to be persuaded that there was a better way to go, if you could argue it successfully,\u201d says Rafael Alvarez, a former reporter who became a staff writer on season two. \u201cIn one meeting, David and Ed went at it, over something I don\u2019t recall, for more than an hour-and-a-half, with the rest of us watching like it was Ali v Frazier.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s casting director, Alexa Fogel, also broke with industry norms, assembling a richly textured cast of stage actors, Britons, musicians, underused veterans, promising newcomers, complete novices and even some of the real cops, gangsters and politicians who inspired certain characters. \u201cThe number of African Americans cast on the show was groundbreaking for its time,\u201d says Sonja Sohn, whose Det \u201cKima\u201d Greggs was the strongest of the handful of female leads in The Wire\u2019s very male universe. \u201cI think I played the first black lesbian on television. The Wire ushered in a new interest in African American stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simon encouraged his writers and actors to conduct field research. \u201cWendell Pierce [Det Bunk Moreland], Dominic West<\/a> [Det Jimmy McNulty] and myself went out on some ride-alongs with Baltimore cops,\u201d remembers Doman. \u201cThe cops were so blase. We went to the hospital, and one guy had been shot 13 times. The cops were standing around drinking coffee. It was another day at the office for these guys, but our eyes were popping out of our heads.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simon\u2019s attention to detail could be exhausting, but it was all in the service of telling the truth. \u201cDavid was always there, making sure everything was done right,\u201d says Faison. \u201cPeople in Baltimore were very passionate about this show. It put them on a stage where they could be seen. Everyone who came up to me said: \u2018Good for you guys. Ain\u2019t that the truth.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the viewers, Simon wrote in his foreword to Alvarez\u2019s 2010 book about the show The Wire: Truth Be Told: \u201cThe first thing we had to do was teach folks to watch television in a different way.\u201d The Wire\u2019s novelistic ambition messed with standard rhythms of television, interleaving drama with the \u201canti-drama\u201d of everyday life. It dared to slow down and stretch out, demanding unusual patience and attention from viewers. \u201cIt went way beyond mere entertainment,\u201d says Aidan Gillen (local politician, Tommy Carcetti). \u201cIt dealt with issues that no other shows would be interested in dealing with. It didn\u2019t compromise in any areas. To get it, you had to watch and listen, and there was a risk that people might not have bothered, but they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

While many prestige dramas, before and since, focused on a charismatic antihero, or at least a tight ensemble, The Wire didn\u2019t have a central character unless you count Baltimore itself. Each season introduced characters while expanding or contracting the roles of existing ones without warning. To keep the cast \u201cin the present tense\u201d, only the writers knew what was coming next. Actors waited in suspense for each week\u2019s script, some wondering if their characters would make it out alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople started disappearing and my paranoia kicked in,\u201d says Peters. \u201cI could pick up the script and someone might say: \u2018Did you hear what happened to Freamon the other night?\u2019 That was an ever-present spectre. In hindsight, that\u2019s what living in Baltimore is like. You can catch a bullet filling up your car with gas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInitially, I just thought I was going to do a couple of episodes,\u201d says Isiah Whitlock Jr, whose corrupt senator, Clay Davis, barely appeared in the first two seasons. \u201cI had no idea where it was headed. It was quite a ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tracking the methodical investigation into the Melvin Williams-inspired crack kingpin Avon Barksdale and his ambitious consigliere Stringer Bell, The Wire debuted in June 2002 to modest acclaim, attracting a mostly black fanbase<\/a> of people who saw their lives reflected in the show: Doman remembers being approached by cops who would say: \u201cI work for an asshole just like you!\u201d<\/p>\n

It was with season two, which looked at \u201cthe death of labour\u201d, that Simon made clear his intention to \u201cbuild a city\u201d. Otherwise, he told Burns, \u201cwe truly are doing just a cop show\u201d. He wanted to show the connecting thread \u2013 the wire \u2013 that ran between seemingly different organisations and the people who worked in them. Alvarez believes that if Simon hadn\u2019t succeeded in pitching The Wire, the themes driving the five seasons might instead have inspired five books. Whether he was exploring police departments, drug cartels, labour unions, the school system, newspapers or city hall, Simon was interested in how the machine worked, or failed to work. If he could explain Baltimore, then he could explain the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the problems here in the US is that we try to deal with the solution without understanding the why,\u201d says Whitlock. \u201cI always felt that The Wire explained to you the why. It said we\u2019re gonna take it real slow, go deep and show you the whole landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

For viewers who embraced the first season as a gritty crime drama with a predominantly black cast, however, the pivot in season two to the travails of white dockworkers was a jolt, even as it pulled in new viewers. \u201cI thought: \u2018What the fuck is this? What happened to our drugs?\u2019\u201d says Peters. \u201cFor me, it was a way of saying: this isn\u2019t about you. This is about the city of Baltimore. It was necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Season three\u2019s plot strand about Carcetti\u2019s bid to become mayor of Baltimore even confounded some of the writers. Pelecanos, who lived in Washington DC, found politics \u201cfucking boring\u201d, but came around when he saw the results. Sooner or later, everyone learned to trust Simon\u2019s vision.<\/p>\n

Over time, the cast and the crew of The Wire became a tight-knit family. \u201cI had a rough time during the first season,\u201d says Sohn. \u201cThe guys who supported me through that remain my brothers today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The younger actors developed a reputation for hell-raising. Gillen remembers Simon warning him to \u201cmake sure and tape bail money to your person\u201d before hitting the town with certain cast members. Older actors migrated towards the calmer climate at Peters\u2019 house, a bohemian salon that became known as \u201cthe academy\u201d. Meanwhile, HBO<\/a> established outreach programmes to give something back to the city. \u201cBecause of our celebrity, some hard-heads who might want to sling crack or sling a bullet in your direction all of a sudden become little kids, and you have a window to touch their humanity,\u201d says Peters. \u201cWe became actors on a mission because we had met the characters in the machine of Baltimore.\u201d<\/p>\n

By season three, the cast was beginning to get recognised in the street outside Baltimore, but with ratings low and Emmy recognition negligible, HBO felt that the downfall of original antagonists Barksdale and Bell marked a natural conclusion. \u201cHBO was spending all its promotional money on The Sopranos,\u201d says Doman. \u201cWe were underground for a long time. We never knew whether we were going to get renewed until the last minute.\u201d Simon insisted that he wasn\u2019t done yet. He still wanted to explore the perverse incentives of Burns\u2019s profession (teaching) and his own (journalism), and cajoled Albrecht and Strauss into letting The Wire live.<\/p>\n

It was a wise U-turn because the next season was the show\u2019s artistic zenith. \u201cSeason four is where it broke open,\u201d says Gillen. \u201cI think centring the narrative around four teenage kids whose plight you couldn\u2019t help but fret over brought a lot of people in.\u201d Stephen King wrote that The Wire \u201chas made the final jump from great TV to classic TV\u201d. Even the divisive final season, in which Simon ground his axe with the media a little too loudly, didn\u2019t dent its reputation. Then one final twist: The Wire\u2019s popularity only really boomed once it was over.<\/p>\n

\u201cA critical mass of critical praise had been established just in time for the series to be released as a DVD box set,\u201d says Alvarez, who is now a novelist and screenwriter. \u201cIt spread very quickly, sort of like, \u2018Did you hear the new Beatles song? You haven\u2019t? You must!\u2019 I had no idea that the show was going to become a cultural phenomenon to the degree that Barack Obama would one day cross paths with Andre Royo [the informant Bubbles] and call out: \u2018Hey, Bubs!\u2019 No one knew.\u201d<\/p>\n

A decade later, The Wire\u2019s legacy is unimpeachable. It established Simon as one of TV\u2019s great auteurs: he is currently working with Pelecanos on season two of his latest HBO show, The Deuce. It transformed the careers of several actors, notably West, Gillen, Idris Elba<\/a> and Michael B Jordan. \u201cI thought, at the time, that nobody was paying much attention,\u201d says Whitlock. \u201cMore people recognise me from the show than they ever did. I run into people who have just seen it and they want to talk to me about it. I have to tell them it was 10 years ago. You move on. But I\u2019m very proud to have been a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It left its mark on the city, too. Sohn stayed in Baltimore to build on The Wire\u2019s outreach work and directed Baltimore Rising, an HBO documentary about tensions between police and activists after the killing of Freddie Gray in 2015. \u201cI believe that, although hope dies every day on the streets of Baltimore, Chicago, Afghanistan or wherever, hope lives in these very same places,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, The Wire rewrote the rules of television drama with regard to tone, subject matter and narrative scope. The show that was once a tough sell is now both a benchmark of quality and a social document that is taught in universities. \u201cWhen I saw the conversation that was initiated by The Wire, in all walks of life, it made me feel that people don\u2019t want to be dumbed down,\u201d says Peters. \u201cThey want something that\u2019s going to challenge their intellect, make them feel alive, give them issues to debate. I didn\u2019t see the whole series until about five years ago. I sat down and binged and said: \u2018Oh my God, is that what I was a part of? Thank you, Lord.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Wire deals with every element of society, from the lowest of the low to the highest of the high,\u201d says Faison. \u201cSometimes the \u2018good\u2019 people are not so good and sometimes the \u2018bad\u2019 people are striving to be good. It was something a great deal of people could identify with. We never pulled back. We met everything head on and dealt with the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

That fundamental truth, which explains why The Wire illuminates the era of Trump and Black Lives Matter just as it spoke to Hurricane Katrina and the financial crisis, was best summed up by Simon in a 2007 interview with Nick Hornby. \u201cThis is part of the country you have made,\u201d he said. \u201cThis, too, is who we are and what we have built. Think again, motherfuckers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dorian Lynskey, London,\u00a06 Mar 2018 Here, some of its writers and stars look back at a series that changed TV for ever. When, in 2001, the actor Frankie Faison accepted the role of deputy commissioner Ervin Burrell in a new HBO drama called The Wire, he thought he was signing up for a cop show. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2719"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2720,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2719\/revisions\/2720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}