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For Fans of the TV Show "The Wire" -- Creators Discuss Upcoming Season
"Who are the Avons and Stringers and Omars, where did they come from?
Are they so vastly different from us, or are they exactly us? This
season is really a preamble to everything you've seen on The Wire
before," Simon says.
"I think it's important to explore, because as much as we've tried to
humanize all the characters, there is a presumption on the part of
some viewers that gangsters are not made, they're born. That these
people that they're watching who buy or sell drugs, or run criminal
organizations, these people came from some other universe. And that's
an incredible act of vanity on the part of some viewers."
The new season fits into a plan that was decided upon during the
filming of season one, back in 2001. "The first season was about the
inherent cost of being an individual in any modern institution," Simon
says.
"Whoever you were in Baltimore, you were getting ****ed. The second
season was to describe the death of work. The third season was to show
what happens to reform and reformers and to examine the whole nature
of why policy never changes."
"And this season is to take argument with those who feel that if
you're born without privilege, but make the right set of choices, that
you will be spared. To do away with that bit of national mythology."
It was Burns, an inner-city teacher for seven years after retiring
from the police force, who argued that a middle school would be the
right setting to dramatize the myth of the American Dream.
"We've convinced ourselves that people who fail in this society fail
because they've chosen to," he says. "We believe that if you want to
work hard here, you can make it to the top. But if you come out of a
school in Baltimore where you can barely read, it's doubtful that if
you work hard you're going to make it to the top of anything."
Ever since the cocaine epidemic began in the eighties," Simon says,
"the school system has been encountering a class of kids that are not
just vulnerable because they're from single parent families or because
they're from poor families, but because they are basically unparented,
because the culture of drugs has routed so many families in inner city
Baltimore. The school system is basically inheriting kids that raise
themselves, or get raised by each other."
As a society, we become interested in these kids as they enter the
juvenile justice system," Burns says. "They're fifteen, sixteen and
then we try to intervene."
"We're saying that's too late. You know, middle school's actually too
late. But in middle school the kid's fully formed enough that you can
see the different rivers of influence streaming into 'em. And as you
get to know each character, you begin to appreciate what can influence
the character and what will glance off."
The Wire's season four will follow four kids, who are composites of
children from Burns' teaching days.
"In the inner city you have classes set up on the stoop and on the
corner," Burns says. "The stoop kid is the kid who's been reared in a
way that he's protected. And the corner kid lacks the parenting, so
he's free to go hang out on the corner. There's no such thing as a
pure corner kid or stoop kid at the age of fourteen, so we wanted to
place our four along the continuum. And then, in terms of
storytelling, you want to flip 'em."
"We want to explore with each kid some of the trends out there. So
there's a product of a really dysfunctional, evicted house. A foster
care kid. And a child who's from the materialism of the drug world.
And each kid has a survival mechanism."
"In the beginning, you see aspects of them that are very childlike.
But they can come out of that childishness in a second-stunningly so ?
and be very adult."
If you show the audience a kid, the presumption of innocence is
instantaneous," Simon adds. "The presumption that the person has a
soul, and has human desires and human fears and is inherently worthy
of your empathy, that's all so much more readily there, as opposed to
somebody for whom so many mistakes are already made ? and they're not
all personal mistakes."
"People will have all kinds of empathy for a kid or for a young
adolescent. But three years later, you put that same eighteen,
nineteen year old kid on the corner and the same person will be
screaming to lock them up, throw away the key."
Of course, the producers are aware that their complex observations on
society have to inform the show subtly. "If the characters were to say
everything I just said in a season of The Wire it would be terrible
television," says Simon, a ten-year veteran of the business. "It would
be some sort of sociological tract rather than drama, and people would
turn it off."
"The trick is to show these things in gentle and deflected ways, so
that maybe somebody puts two and two together, and maybe they don't.
They watch the show and they understand the subtext or they don't, but
either way they're entertained."
In any case, they say, this was a story that had to be told. "You
know, we didn't keep the show going after we killed the Barksdale
story line because we had the show up and we wanted to stay on the
air," Simon says. "I mean, there're always stories to write. We had
two more ideas that we wanted to execute. We don't have three, we
don't have one. We just have two."
Adds Burns: "When you watch The Wire, don't begin to think you've seen
the worst of what's going on with these kids. What's going on here is
a crime against humanity."
i didnt have to read it to tell you what happans. Nyggas are going to get shot and die.
__________________
Verbsnotnice on Anilingus
I love pushing my tongue thru that tight leather cheerio...taste like mushroom soup....mmm mmm good.....I'll bloodclott lump ya head....I'll also squat over a fine young breezies taste testing titalating tongue plunger....YES!!!
i didnt have to read it to tell you what happans. Nyggas are going to get shot and die.
LOL! Perfect.
but yeah walt i think people have known that the writers and producers for the Wire are setting up to make a social commentary this season. All the connects to politics and the school board ... seems to be some truly progressive TV about to come up. When does the season start.
But, like he said, it's drama and tv. They gotta tie the other seasons in here somehow. Bodie and Omar are in the new season, so the Barksdale thing aint completely dried up.
On the subject of what he said though, no criminals arent born and yes life circumstances affect what you become. But personal decisions have the greatest influence on anybody's life. You cant ever excuse somebody's fukk ups because of sh*t they've gone through or had done to them.
At the end of the day, you have the most control over your actions. PERIOD.
__________________
"Make my beats f*ggot!" -- C.L. Smooth to Pete Rock
But personal decisions have the greatest influence on anybody's life. You cant ever excuse somebody's fukk ups because of sh*t they've gone through or had done to them.
nygga please! yes you can make excuses for people. It happens everyday in the America's courts for rich white people and poor blacks alike. There are always extenuating circumstances. Finally a show that tries to show people how tough the choices are at the bottom. I'm tired of everything seeming like a black/white portrayal of right and wrong even when a nygga's stomach is hurting.
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For Fans of the TV Show "The Wire" -- Creators Discuss Upcoming Season
