[Debate] The Wire

[Hein Marais]

Dominic, this string aside (or maybe not), The Wire deserves your  
time. It is quite possibly the best television series ever made in the  
US, strong enough to be a worthy object of serious analysis and  
critique (i.e. more than standard pop cult stud whimsy), emotionally  
punishing and stirring, politically grim perhaps (how not in post- 
industrial Baltimore?). Stone brilliant. Watch, and then we can talk.
H



On 19 Jun 2009, at 7:53 PM, Dominic Tweedie wrote:

> Hi Helena,
>
> You write: "The Wire is not a drama about individuals rising above  
> institutions to triumph and achieve redemption and catharsis. It is  
> a drama where those institutions thwart the ambitions and  
> aspirations of those they purportedly exist to serve."
>
> Is yours not exactly the Rousseauvian approach to institutions that  
> Christopher Caudwell demolished so comprehensively in his essay "On  
> Liberty"?
>
> In other words, institutions are in this article of yours held as a  
> deduction from liberty, whereas Caudwell points out that without  
> institutions human beings are not human any more, but are beasts. He  
> says that it is institutions that set humans free.
>
> I have never watched The Wire but I am not impressed by your  
> argument. I would not watch it on this recommendation. Nor can I see  
> how you can stretch it into some sort of Marxist shape, bearing in  
> mind the above. I presume that if individual hubris is always a  
> harbinger of humiliation in The Wire, then collective popular  
> organisation never appears at all.
>
> Certainly, you did not mention any such thing as mass (let alone  
> vanguard) organisation making an appearance in this show. In a South  
> African show, it would have to.
>
> Castro Ngobese's dream of a creative Gotterdamerung of the soapies  
> is no worse and no better than this critique of yours, in my  
> opinion. Both of you fail to locate the crisis point, I think.
>
> Rehad Desai wrote today, concerning the SABC:
>
> "A bail out is required urgently – a bail out that needs to be  
> designed in a way that builds on the public broadcast mandate, not  
> one that undermines it. More documentary, more drama, studio shows  
> sit com and soaps ’but good soaps’ – all properly funded wit a clear  
> PBS mandate – we don’t need public money for strictly come dancing.
>
> "We need an interim board which understands the critical importance  
> of the SABC to our young democracy. The need for controversial  
> programming that gets the nations in conversation with itself."
>
> My concern is that without a critique that is both thorough and has  
> public support, the TV can only revert back to its former state.  
> Rehad is only calling for such a critique. By calling for "good  
> soap" he is saying, correctly, that any genre can be great, He  
> understands that communication is what it is all about, and not (one- 
> way) "broadcasting".
>
> But Rehad has not even begun to tackle the art-historical and art- 
> critical tasks that are prerequisites for success. If that is not  
> done we will default back to the old ways very quickly indeed.
>
> These matters of art are urgent but very difficult. One of the  
> difficulties is that students of Marx think that they have already  
> acquired a sufficient basis to deal with artistic things without any  
> further study. This is a disastrous mistake. Art theory is like a  
> series of many switches, in which if only one switch is set the  
> wrong way, the whole effort can be reversed from the sublime to the  
> gorblimey, or rather, from humanist "heaven" to po-mo hell.
>
> By the way, you were absolutely right about John Hoffman. Shame. It  
> couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke.
>
> Regardless of what I have written above, it is wonderful that you  
> have placed this article on here, and thereby, I presume, invited  
> further dialogue about these kinds of things. Only by kicking this  
> ball around can we really learn to play with it properly.
>
> Rehad's post was to the Save Our SABC discussion forum at http://groups.google.com/group/SOS-relay 
> , where there are good updates from Kate Skinner, the Campaign Co- 
> ordinator. Anyone can request to join it at that URL, or send me a  
> request off-list and I will add you.
>
> Best,
>
> Domza
>
>
>
> 2009/6/19 Helena Sheehan <helena.sheehan at dcu.ie>
> Here is an article on The Wire just published in Jump Cut.
>
> http://www.ejumpcut.org/currentissue/Wire/index.html
>
> The text is quite long (12,000 words or so), so I am hesitant to  
> copy it
> into an email.
>
> Helena
>
> --
> Professor Helena Sheehan
> School of Communications
> Dublin City University
> Dublin 9  Ireland
> tel: 353-1-7005568
> e-mail: helena.sheehan at dcu.ie
> http://webpages.dcu.ie/~sheehanh/sheehan.htm
>
>
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>
> -- 
> Blog at: http://domza.blogspot.com/
> Communist University web site at: http:// 
> amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/
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