Realism in "The Wire"

Turning on the TV, it isn't hard to find your run-of-the-mill crime drama. Whether it's NYPD Blue on ABC, CSI on CBS, The Closer on TNT, or one of NBC's three adaptations of Law and Order, it seems every channel has its own version of the same, unrealistic narrative that consistently sides with the police. However, if you're looking for a complex, realistic depiction of street gangs and law enforcers, there's only one channel where you can watch The Wire. While other shows are satisfied with solely providing the viewer entertainment, The Wire attempts to provide a more honest view of the real world. Most crime dramas portray their characters as unequivocal heroes and villains, but The Wire gives its characters a realistic, morally ambiguous characterization. Unlike other crime dramas, The Wire also incorporates both novelistic progression and novelistic complexity to tell its tale more truthfully. The Wire even keeps to its realistic nature through a plethora of cinematic elements that most television shows don't employ. Through this complex interplay of characterization, novelistic style, and cinematography, The Wire presents a much more accurate depiction of inner-city life than do other crime dramas. And through this realism, The Wire successfully enlightens viewers to the ambiguities and paradoxes of the human condition.

By giving many characters' perspectives throughout the course of the show, The Wire prevents viewers from identifying a single person or institution as being "right." The Wire lets us "experience the drug trade through a range of characters," allowing us to see the complex mix of good and bad among cops and dealers (Mittell 2). This is very different from the average crime drama, which creates artificial characters by simply portraying officers as right and criminals as wrong. In contrast, The Wire includes major flaws and human qualities in every character, no matter how benevolent or crooked we would expect him/her to be. This characterization creates "achingly human characters," true to their real life counterparts who are neither good nor evil, but somewhere in between (Mittell 2). Most of The Wire's police officers have negative traits that prevent them from being the hero. In speaking to the Lieutenant, McNulty sums this up: "you ask for men, they give you drunks and fuckups" (The Wire 1.2). One example of this is when officers Pryzbylewski, Herc, and Carver harass the residents of the Tower and blind a 14-year-old in his left eye (The Wire 1.2). Later in the show, Herc and Carver also steal dirty money during a drug bust (The Wire 1.11). In addition, Kima and various police officers brutalize a teenage drug dealer for hitting a cop (The Wire 1.3). As you look higher in the ranks, things don't improve. Lieutenant Daniels takes a bribe to not fire Pryzbylewski, has thousands of dollars of undeclared assets, and tells McNulty to "lie so [the Lieutenant] can save face" (The Wire 1.3). And his boss, Major Rawls, wants to "charge murders he can't prove just to get the stats" rather than actually put criminals in jail (The Wire 1.6). Even Jimmy McNulty, a seemingly benevolent police officer, lies to one suspect to get information (The Wire 1.2), beats another for insulting him (The Wire 1.7), and gets extremely drunk (The Wire 1.2).

On the other hand, many of the drug dealers in the Projects have human qualities that elevate them above the status of villain. The strongest example of this is D'Angelo Barksdale, who feels guilt and sadness over the death of a witness who testified against him. D'Angelo also challenges his subordinates to question whether the drug trade must be done through anger and ruthlessness. He points out that "everything else in the world gets sold without people taking advantage, scammin', lyin', doin' each other dirty" (The Wire 1.3). He continues, explaining that the cops only watch them because people die, otherwise the cops wouldn't care (The Wire 1.3). By thinking in both a compassionate and economic sense, the viewer sees that D'Angelo is a multidimensional character, not the stereotypical drug dealer you find in most crime dramas. D'Angelo also teaches his underlings to play chess, which then shows us another side of Bodie-he has higher aspirations than drug dealer. And many of the teenage drug dealers in the show are portrayed as trapped in a system they were born into, rather than chose-a problem that is prevalent in our world today. Wallace, for example, tries to leave the streets after he is indirectly involved in a murder, but comes back when he realizes he can never really get away. Pointing at the Projects, he exclaims, "This is me, yo, right here" (The Wire 1.12). One scene even depicts what looks like a 10-year-old child giving Sydnor heroin while he is undercover (The Wire 1.3). Through this ambiguous characterization of police officers and drug dealers, we are able to see that in The Wire, the stick-up artist is as wise as the police chief, "the state senator as much in need of redemption as the stash lookout" (Jones 2). This realistic depiction of corruption among leaders and humanity among criminals accurately reflects the problems we have in real life with classifying individuals as purely good or evil.

For these reasons, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kulish accurately views The Wire as "the closest that moving pictures have come so far to the depth and nuance of a novel," and The Wire's long, complex plot as "equal to a reader's investment in a novel" (Kulish). Unlike the average TV show, which is straightforward and plainly attempts to provide the viewer entertainment, The Wire makes it a point to engage our moral and philosophical range. Rather than portraying characters as black and white, good and evil, The Wire gives a much more intricate analysis of the vices and virtues of every character. While most shows conclude with the protagonist prevailing and the antagonist faltering, The Wire often presents the opposite outcome, because it is truer to real-life Baltimore.Through these complexities, The Wire is much more demanding of its audience. Instead of sitting back, relaxing, and enjoying, the viewer is compelled to think about the political, social, and ethical issues raised in the show, such as police brutality, the perpetual nature of crime, and loyalty to the law versus loyalty to your fellow man. In this way, The Wire's comparable complexity to a novel enables it to realistically depict the complexity of inner-city life, while the average crime show gives an inaccurate, straightforward view of it.

Sharing this view is writer Laura Miller, who compares The Wire to The Iliad and The Odyssey, two of the greatest works of literature of all time. Just like the tales in these works, The Wire's story "goes on and on" (Miller 3). Miller makes a valid point-the Epic Poems do share very similar storytelling to The Wire. While in each episode of other crime dramas, "cases get discovered, processed, and resolved, rarely to reappear...in subsequent episodes," in The Wire "cases last an entire season and beyond" (Mittell 5). With most crime dramas, each episode has its own distinct conflict, which is concretely resolved by the conclusion of the program. While all the episodes may share the same characters, each has its own independent plot. The Wire, however, has one central plot line, which is explored over the course of a season. Unlike most TV shows, which treat each episode as a short story, The Wire's episodes are like individual chapters of a long novel. Trying to watch them out of order will ruin the narrative, because each episode builds upon its predecessors. The Wire's long, drawn out plot, rather than the short and straightforward episodes of other crime shows, more accurately represents the long and arduous struggles of police in real life, who require large amounts of time and effort to try to bring their cases to conclusion.

Jason Mittell, Associate Professor of American Studies, Film, and Media Culture at Middlebury College, takes this view even further. While each episode of The Wire "stands as a distinct chapter in The Wire is "much like a specific book within a larger epic novel" (Mittell 1). Indeed, even when a season of The Wire does end, rather than having a "happy ending," as episodes of other crime dramas usually do, the story explored over the course of the season continues. As Miller notes, the "mess" of Baltimore in The Wire "can have no conclusion;" while "the storytellers may stop telling it, the story itself will go on" (Miller 4). For example, in season one, even after the police's main target, Avon Barkesdale, is arrested, the drug trade goes on relatively unscathed. Sydnor recognizes this after arresting Avon, exclaiming, "this just ain't finished" (The Wire 1.12). By leaving the plot partly unconcluded at the end of each season, The Wire, unlike the average crime drama, realistically represents the perpetual nature of these institutions, and the difficulty and lack of conclusion we have on crime in the real world.

This is not to say the The Wire is purely novelistic, however, as there are many novelistic elements that can actually detract from realism. For example, unlike a written work, the viewer of The Wire receives no inspection into the characters' minds. Through watching the show, we "get no internal monologues [n]or speeches" that articulate the "characters' deep thoughts" or inner desires that we could obtain from a novel (Mittell 2). But this keeps The Wire realistic. Because you can't see into peoples' thoughts in real life, providing a guide into characters' thoughts in the show would detract from its realistic nature.

Similarly, other cinematographic elements of The Wire make it more realistic than most crime television shows. Unlike other shows, The Wire is dedicated to "underplaying drama and allowing the onscreen dialogue and action to tell the story" (Mittell 4). For example, The Wire only uses sounds and music that come from within the scenes-the show doesn't use any overlaid music. Also, The Wire creates a more natural viewing experience by limiting camera movement and showy editing. As director Joe Chappelle states, The Wire's camera work and editing are "very straightforward and simple," and the show "never even fade[s] to black between scenes" (qtd. in Griffin 5). This same principal applies to lighting; The Wire "seldom ha[s] edge lights or give[s] the ladies a beauty light" while on camera (qtd. in Griffin 5). The show even "avoids flashbacks, voice-over, fantasy-sequences, and repetition from multiple perspectives" to tell its story in a more realistic way (Mittell 4). By making the viewing experience more natural through limiting overt elements of storytelling, The Wire's story is told in a more realistic way than in other crime dramas. This enables viewers to see the happenings of The Wire as a real depiction of the inner-city, rather than simply as an entertaining television show.

But The Wire doesn't just avoid unrealistic storytelling; it also purposefully incorporates real aspects of Baltimore into its filming to make its narrative more realistic. For example, the excessive use of slang and cursing throughout The Wire more accurately reflects how real cops and criminals in Baltimore actually talk. One scene in The Wire shows Bunk and McNulty investigating the Deirdre Kresson crime scene, communicating solely in variations of the word "fuck" to recreate the events of the murder (The Wire 1.4). While cops may not actually curse as often as this scene portrays, the scene feels more real because it isn't toned down to appeal to younger audiences-it's as if it was pulled straight from reality, which of course isn't toned down for the sake of younger audiences. Also, The Wire is actually filmed in inner-city Baltimore, and real Baltimore residents, rather than actors, are hired to play many parts in the show. For example, Lance Reddick, who plays Lieutenant Daniels, grew up in Baltimore; Robert Chew, who plays Proposition Joe, is from Baltimore; Robert Wisdom, who plays Bunny Colvin, is from Washington D.C.; and Richard DeAngelis, who plays Colonel Forester, is from the surrounding area ("Production" 2). Even though they are not professional actors, former police chief Ed Norris, Reverend Frank Reid III, former Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich Jr., and former mayor Kurt Schmoke all have appeared in minor roles, as well ("Production 2"). As writer Nick Griffin notes, most of The Wire's actors are "new to TV and film...some are thin...some are fat...and very few resemble the fresh-faced look of Hollywood" (Griffin 2). In fact, the show's actors are "real, gritty and at times discomforting...just like the show, itself" (Griffin 2). This makes it easier to see the show as telling of actual life in the inner city because the viewer is "watching actual characters...walking through real places...responding to believable situations" rather than viewing "agglomerations of behavioral and fashion cues responding to artfully contrived setups" and "vague approximations" of Baltimore (Jones 2). Through incorporating the reality of Baltimore into its cinematography, The Wire's tells its story in a much more realistic fashion.

Unlike other crime dramas, which designate characters as strictly good or bad, The Wire gives each and every individual his own vices and virtues, creating a realistic assortment of characters who are neither fully right nor fully wrong in their actions, just like their real life counterparts. While the one-episode plot lines of other crime dramas attempt only to entertain the viewer, The Wire's story, which progresses like chapters within a book and books within a larger epic novel, realistically presents the complexity and slow progression of bringing criminals to justice, and life in general, in inner-city Baltimore. And while other crime dramas tell their stories using showy, overt cinematographic elements, The Wire avoids explicit storytelling, and employs cinematographic elements that enhance its scenes' realism. Through this interplay of characterization, novelistic style, and cinematography, The Wire paints an accurate, vivid portrait of life in the inner city-a feat most crime dramas are incapable of doing. Through itsrealistic depiction of crime and punishment within the microcosm of Baltimore, The Wire opens the viewer's eyes to the social and ethical troubles within our society, and within ourselves as humans.

Works Cited:

Kulish, Nicholas. "Television You Can't Put Down." The New York Times (9/10/2006) http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/opinion/10sun3.html>

Miller, Laura; Traister, Rebecca. "The best TV show of all time." Salon.com (9/15/2007) http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2007/09/15/best_show/print.html>

"The Wire" The Wire: The Complete First Season. Writ. David Simon, Ed Burns, George P. Pelecanos, Rafael Alvarez, David H. Melnick, Shamit J. Choksey, Joy Lusco. HBO. 2002. DVD. HBO Video, 2004.

Mittell, Jason. "The Wire and the Serial Procedural: An Essay in Progress." Just TV. (7/22/2007) < http://justtv.wordpress.com/2007/05/22/the-wire-and-the-serial-procedural-an-essay-in-progress/>

Jones, Kent. "Down in the Hole." Sight and Sound. Vol 18:5 (May 2008) p22-26. http://iipa.chadwyck.com/articles/displayItem.do?QueryType=articles&ResultsID=11EDC37820E1261358&filterSequence=0&ItemNumber=1&ItemID=iipa00471283&FormatType=raw&journalID=JID00374806&logType=fulltext>

Griffin, Nick. "Inside HBOs The Wire." CreativeCOW.net. (2007) http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/inside-hbos-the-wire>

"The Wire: Production" Wikipedia.com. (2/2009). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire_(TV_series)#Production>