The Problem with “Grit” in The Wire Conner Good Columbia College Chicago, Class of 2015
Watercooler Journal: Nov. 2013
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“The drama's gritty portrayal of law enforcement and media is complex,” reads a subheading of an article about The Wire’s wrap-up from the 2008 Orlando Sentinel. Though an elementary claim, it is only a watered down iteration of the general critical consensus on HBO’s benchmark TV-landscape-altering drama. But in a show where the structures are the focus rather than the characters, an inherent lack of free will breeds issues for the analytical lens. In a constructed world where characters can’t escape from the cement smoke of demolished buildings surrounding them (“Time” The Wire), contextual criticism doesn’t call for a denouncement of the show’s place in hall of fame categories or on must-watch lists, per se, but rather a reconsideration of its cultural consequences regarding race and class. Despite the show being a complicated tapestry, one can examine a single scene to feel the color and tone of The Wire’s intent. In the opening episode of season three, the Barksdale crew (now under Stringer Bell’s command) meets in a funeral home to discuss the future of their drug empire with an entirely new way of doing things. Enforced by Stringer and his lapdogs Rico and Shamrock, the group discusses matters in the paradigm of a board meeting.
“Nigger, you ain’t got the floor. Chair didn’t recognize your ass” (“Time” The Wire). From his stance at the podium to his command of the conversation to director Ed Bianchi’s medium low angle, Stringer Bell is the boss of the room—the “Chair” of the board. By giving the drug dealer boss symbols of authority and so-called “civilization”—glasses, trimmed facial hair, a cup of tea, a shiny Rolex, a polo shirt that fits—The Wire seems to subvert the typical image of a CEO. But is it subversion or appropriation? Watercooler Journal: Nov. 2013
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To understand race’s role in the boardroom, one must understand its roots. Corporate America pulled its organization from the governance structure of early European organizations, trading companies, and banks (Guvertz 110), a translation that occurred in the early 1800s (108). Provided that the American enslavement of blacks didn’t officially lift by the Union’s hand until the 1860s, one can assume that the early landscape of corporate management was predominantly—if not entirely—white Europeans. We can then conclude that the American boardroom is a white, European institution. Even in present day, a Google image search for “board meeting” yields mostly white faces. Why then does Stringer Bell wish to enforce the boardroom model on an all-black group of men? The audience’s peek into the Barksdale boardroom opens with a copy of Webster’s New World: Robert’s Rules of Order in Shamrock’s hands. Not coincidentally, Shamrock the bookworm is the one who reinforces the structures of the Webster text and its parliamentary model when young rebel-against-the-new-order Bodie speaks out of line. Shamrock repeats the hierarchal line that Stringer already established: “Yo, Chair ain’t recognize your ass, man” (“Time” The Wire). In contrast to Bodie, Slim Charles grounds the scene in that he obeys the new rules: he raises his hand, he stands to speak, and sits when listening to the Chair’s answer. He submits to the system entirely. But all of Bell’s constituents (including his lapdogs) sport long, baggy shirts, shaved heads, dreds, and skull caps. They sit in lines of flimsy folding chairs underneath a foam ceiling embedded with fluorescents. With sirens echoing through the streets outside, Simon and Bianchi make something clear: even if Slim Charles is obeying the old rules, this is not the boardroom from Old England. It is, however, a product of that boardroom. “Until then, Mr. Charles, we’re gonna handle this shit like businessmen. Sell the shit, make the profit, and later for that gangster bullshit” (“Time” The Wire). Bell’s dialogue holds the key to his placement in the scene; he proposes that their new business model focus on product in regard to territory: “Product, motherfuckers. Product” (“Time” The Wire). Here, Bell sets up a dichotomy between “that gangster bullshit” and capitalism in which capitalism is favorable.
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Up to this point, the scene has shown a white system translated into black, lower-class hands. Like all systems, some members obey and some do not. Most of the latter learn to submit, though (Slim Charles, Bodie eventually). But when Poot is unhappy with the autocracy’s decisions, he raises his hand and stands: “Do the Chair know that we gonna look like punk-ass bitches out there?” Stringer hits the mic, breaks it, and the podium wobbles… STRINGER. Motherfucker, I will punk-ass… SHAMROCK. Yo, yo, String-STRINGER. What? SHAMROCK. Poot did have the floor, man. STRINGER. Shut the fuck up, man. This nigger too ignorant to have the fucking floor. (“Time” The Wire) In a system of constructed oppression, the authority present blatantly ignores his own form of order. This is the very definition of corruption, and what some might call The Wire’s locus, regardless of race or class.
But as Dr. Wendy P. Guastaferro points out in College Student Journal, everybody isn’t “making money sharing the real estate” (“Time” The Wire) like Stringer Bell says. “When we see white kids on the show, they are playing soccer, doing homework, or playing in the large fenced-in backyards in the suburbs. Black kids on The Wire live in the Projects, are lookouts yelling ‘yo, 5-0’, ‘po-po rolling up’, or ‘5-0, shut it down’ to warn the dealers and hoppers that the police are coming” (Guastaferro 268). Why is it that black men in The Wire must peek through the other side of the racial fence to assimilate? Guastaferro elaborates that sheer lack of free will in “areas… depleted of legitimate economic and social opportunities” traps characters and groups (267). A cautious reader may notice that this essay refers to The Wire’s enclosed characters by informal names, something that the character list of this show calls for. A brief examination of Watercooler Journal: Nov. 2013
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that list displays nicknames surrounded in quotes for anyone on the crime half of The Wire’s dichotomy, whereas those in law enforcement are preceded by titles of Lt. and Det. (“Time” IMDb). While the show aims to expose corruption of equal stature on both sides of the fence (a similar, authoritarian board meeting occurs between law enforcement departments later in the episode), how and where The Wire builds that fence matters. When looking at the funeral home scene removed from its context, symbolic annihilation of anyone other than black men seems to imply that black men are aspiring to white, European structures, and struggling to do so in the case of Bodie and Poot. When looking at the greater novel of the show, however, “African-Americans have the majority of roles and strongest presence in The Wire. Members of the police force are fairly evenly split between Caucasians and African-Americans, including the upper ranks. Members of the street are all African-American but for two…” (Guastaferro 266). But even when witnessing diversity among the BPD ranks, the implication doesn’t seem to change. Whereas those in the drug syndicate (“African-American but for two…”) appropriate the systems of an inferred hegemony, those with power are happy just the way they are— corrupt. The result is a feeling of moral lockdown: “This view of human beings trapped in a cage of dysfunction transcends ideology: it strengthens the hand of paternalists of the left and determinists of the right. In that regard, the show is frankly destructive” (Salam “The Bleakness”).
The Wire was not a period piece, and although it may become one in hindsight, it aimed to reflect David Simon’s once recent experiences as a crime reporter in Baltimore (“David”). When asked by a Slate interviewer about the purpose of the show, Simon responds, “it’s about the very simple idea that, in this postmodern world of ours, human beings—all of us—are worth less. We’re worth less every day, despite the fact that some of us are achieving more and more. It’s the triumph of capitalism” (quoted in O’Rourke). But Salam stakes an issue with The Wire’s reiteration that “we are all captive to this tragic ‘system,’ and anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool” (Salam “The Wire as”).
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Informed by the echoes of Salam’s ideas, the dilemma with Simon’s tapestry is even more real than its portrayal of the inner city. The moral headache is not with the world that David Simon and the writers of The Wire have created, but with the implication of the world they’ve shown. In short, The Wire gives no black man, no white man, no Latino man, no Polish man, no man of means, no man of nothing even an opportunity out of the structure and image he has inherited… and that’s without even mentioning women. Board meetings are oppressive, unchanging, and final. The problem with The Wire’s so-called “grit” is that it feeds into its fathers. Through the continued appropriation of pre-existing social structures, The Wire removes all power from the individual and reaffirms the very broken institutions that it aims to criticize, further fractionalizing any sense of equity between groups. Preston “Bodie” Broadus, Malik “Poot” Carr, Slim Charles, Sean “Shamrock” McGinty, and even Russell “Stringer” Bell have no power, and breaking the mic won’t change that. They aren’t slaves in regard to their race, but they do seem like prisoners to the book that landed in their hands—a white, upper-class, hegemonic text. Just as HBO’s version of Baltimore traps its characters, it traps its viewers “like the demographics of many American cities—mainly the urban poor and the affluent elite, with the middle class hollowed out” (Talbot) in two rooms—very, very far from reaching one another.
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works cited Boedecker, Hal. “The Wire Shocks with Plot.” Orlando Sentinel. Orlando Sentinel, 5 Jan 2008. Web. 19 Oct. 2013. “David Simon.” MacArthur Foundation. John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, 25 Jan. 2010. Web. 19 Oct. 2013. Gevurtz, Franklin A. “The Historical and Political Origins of the Corporate Board of Directors.” Hofstra Law Review 33.89 (2004): 89-173. Web. 12 Oct. 2013. Guastaferro, Wendy P. “Crime, the Media, and Constructions of Reality: Using HBO’s The Wire as a Frame of Reference.” College Student Journal 47.2 (2013): 264-270. Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Oct. 2013. O’Rourke, Meghan. “Interviewing the Man Behind The Wire.” Slate. The Slate Group, 1 Dec. 2006. Web. 19 Oct. 2013. Salam, Reihan. “The Bleakness of The Wire.” The American Scene. The American Scene, 1 Jan. 2008. Web. 12 Oct. 2013. Salam, Reihan. “The Wire as High Art.” The American Scene. The American Scene, 15 Oct. 2007. Web. 19 Oct. 2013. Talbot, Margaret. “Stealing Life.” The New Yorker. Conde Nast, 22 Oct. 2007. Web. 12 Oct. 2013. “Time After Time.” IMDb. Amazon.com, 2013. Web. 19 Oct. 2013. “Time After Time." The Wire: The Complete Third Season. Writ. David Simon. Dir. Ed Bianchi. HBO Studios, 2004. DVD.
image credits, in order: image: Conner Good, screenshot: ©HBO Studios, ©HBO Studios, via hbo.com ©HBO Studios, via hbo.com ©HBO Studios, via floobynooby.blogspot.com ©HBO Studios, via floobynooby.blogspot.com Watercooler Journal: Nov. 2013
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