A: Luggage.
For much of the semester and summer I have been watching The Wire. I first started watching a couple of years ago when my sister ordered it via Netflix. I was probably never so nice to her as when those DVD's would come in the mail. But, all good tailcoating must come to an end.
Then, godblessamerica, I found out that the local public library had some seasons on their shelves. That didn't last long -- they would get checked out and never returned. (I'm sure there's some library parlance for people who build their personal collection from public holdings. My term of art would be Lazy Assholes, but that's just me.)
By then I'd watched much, but not all of the first 3 seasons. Between bouts of math anxiety I realized that I was going to school at a state university and surely they would have it in their collection, perhaps because some sociology professor was using it. So, I put on my most impressive bowtie and waltzed over to the circulation desk and alternately growled and grinned at the helpful work-study circulation clerk and before you know it I left the building with Season 4. And a promise to hold Season 5 for me. Then I went back and got Seasons 1, 2, and 3 and watched them all over again.
For those who don't know this, The Wire has been described as the greatest show in the history of television. A Dickensian masterpiece of the 21st century. It is studied and taught, it has blogs and forums devoted to it, and I am just one of its many obsessive "readers". Like other great literature and visual art, I will return to the entire series again knowing that my understanding and appreciation will deepen.
But. A funny thing happens on the way to becoming the darling of critics and intellectual arbiters. Perhaps it's an occupational hazard as a critic to feel ownership of what you write about. Perhaps, when you're a white, male critic in a hierarchy that always places you on top, you don't have to be cognizant of, much less mitigate, your blind spots. I'll leave that to be sorted out to Cultural Studies Ph.D.s. But in the copious analysis I've read (in a vain effort to stay immersed even after having watched all 5 seasons) I often feel only half-sated because there's so much richness that goes unrecognized.
I felt it for instance when I read about the accuracy of Dominic West's accent. An English actor speaking the dialect of a working-class cop in a mid-southern city. And not often enough about Idris Elba's (Stringer Bell) or Clarke Peter's (Lester Freamon) (the former is English, the latter an American expat who's lived in England for years). Or Chicagoan Wood Harris (Avon Barksdale). And then it dawned on me it's because it's the assumption that the white actor is further away from his "essence" than any of the black actors, who are, regardless of role, speaking the way they speak anyway, y'know what I'm sayin'? Therefore his work is more deserving of plaudits and the astounding craft that the other actors bring to their roles is underappreciated.
Or, as in this post from The Wire Blog, entitled "Dumpsters and Garbage Bags". I'm glad I found it and will come back to it as this obsessive constructs her own map of the show. But I think the blogger, who's dissecting the entire series while he teaches the show, missed what to me was the obvious symbology of the garbage bags and why they are so brilliantly apt. I wrote him: To kids who've ever been in foster care, often the only "luggage" you own are garbage bags. Kids arrive at their short- and long-term placements with all their worldly possessions in those bags. They speak of impermanence, disposability, cheapness and lack of individuality. Which can be the life of a foster kid. So, a garbage bag is as familiar a totem to poor folks as a laptop or an iPhone is to a hipster. My initial feeling was he should know that. Maybe he should, but the more important issue is that I need to hear from women writers, from other black writers, from city dwellers. How they watch this show and the insights they'd bring. A roundtable of Rashomon-like POVs.
For much of the semester and summer I have been watching The Wire. I first started watching a couple of years ago when my sister ordered it via Netflix. I was probably never so nice to her as when those DVD's would come in the mail. But, all good tailcoating must come to an end.
Then, godblessamerica, I found out that the local public library had some seasons on their shelves. That didn't last long -- they would get checked out and never returned. (I'm sure there's some library parlance for people who build their personal collection from public holdings. My term of art would be Lazy Assholes, but that's just me.)
By then I'd watched much, but not all of the first 3 seasons. Between bouts of math anxiety I realized that I was going to school at a state university and surely they would have it in their collection, perhaps because some sociology professor was using it. So, I put on my most impressive bowtie and waltzed over to the circulation desk and alternately growled and grinned at the helpful work-study circulation clerk and before you know it I left the building with Season 4. And a promise to hold Season 5 for me. Then I went back and got Seasons 1, 2, and 3 and watched them all over again.
For those who don't know this, The Wire has been described as the greatest show in the history of television. A Dickensian masterpiece of the 21st century. It is studied and taught, it has blogs and forums devoted to it, and I am just one of its many obsessive "readers". Like other great literature and visual art, I will return to the entire series again knowing that my understanding and appreciation will deepen.
But. A funny thing happens on the way to becoming the darling of critics and intellectual arbiters. Perhaps it's an occupational hazard as a critic to feel ownership of what you write about. Perhaps, when you're a white, male critic in a hierarchy that always places you on top, you don't have to be cognizant of, much less mitigate, your blind spots. I'll leave that to be sorted out to Cultural Studies Ph.D.s. But in the copious analysis I've read (in a vain effort to stay immersed even after having watched all 5 seasons) I often feel only half-sated because there's so much richness that goes unrecognized.
I felt it for instance when I read about the accuracy of Dominic West's accent. An English actor speaking the dialect of a working-class cop in a mid-southern city. And not often enough about Idris Elba's (Stringer Bell) or Clarke Peter's (Lester Freamon) (the former is English, the latter an American expat who's lived in England for years). Or Chicagoan Wood Harris (Avon Barksdale). And then it dawned on me it's because it's the assumption that the white actor is further away from his "essence" than any of the black actors, who are, regardless of role, speaking the way they speak anyway, y'know what I'm sayin'? Therefore his work is more deserving of plaudits and the astounding craft that the other actors bring to their roles is underappreciated.
Or, as in this post from The Wire Blog, entitled "Dumpsters and Garbage Bags". I'm glad I found it and will come back to it as this obsessive constructs her own map of the show. But I think the blogger, who's dissecting the entire series while he teaches the show, missed what to me was the obvious symbology of the garbage bags and why they are so brilliantly apt. I wrote him: To kids who've ever been in foster care, often the only "luggage" you own are garbage bags. Kids arrive at their short- and long-term placements with all their worldly possessions in those bags. They speak of impermanence, disposability, cheapness and lack of individuality. Which can be the life of a foster kid. So, a garbage bag is as familiar a totem to poor folks as a laptop or an iPhone is to a hipster. My initial feeling was he should know that. Maybe he should, but the more important issue is that I need to hear from women writers, from other black writers, from city dwellers. How they watch this show and the insights they'd bring. A roundtable of Rashomon-like POVs.
No comments:
Post a Comment