Has reality caught up to the “Murder Police”?
January 13, 2022 10:09 AM Subscribe
David Simon Made Baltimore Detectives Famous. Now Their Cases Are Falling Apart. [New York Magazine] At 7:45 p.m. on December 27, 1986, Faheem Ali was shot dead in the streets of Baltimore. No physical evidence tied anyone to the killing, and no eyewitnesses immediately came forward. But Baltimore homicide detectives Thomas Pellegrini, Richard Fahlteich, and Oscar “The Bunk” Requer were not going to give up easily.
Requer and Pellegrini are among a constellation of Baltimore Police Department officers who have, through Simon’s work, defined what it means to be a homicide detective in the popular imagination — and whose biggest cases are starting to fall apart or have been overturned.
Requer and Pellegrini are among a constellation of Baltimore Police Department officers who have, through Simon’s work, defined what it means to be a homicide detective in the popular imagination — and whose biggest cases are starting to fall apart or have been overturned.
In case after case they had evidence pointing to the real killer, including eyewitness statements. Why didn’t they pursue the real killers?
posted by jamjam at 10:56 AM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by jamjam at 10:56 AM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
It's hard watching any cop shows now in general. It's like films about war - it's hard to do it without glorifying it. But its a great source for drama; you have inherent conflict, tension and characters.
I was, and still am I guess, a fan of Homicide & The Wire. I think the most effective scene that Homicide ever did was this one - which describes the stupidity of talking with or cooperating with a homicide detective once they have you in a room. And both shows do have moments where there is reflection on how they can and do abuse the system to get a solution, whether it is just or not. But no police drama, past or present, has found the footing to address the systemic issues that are now so glaring and probably never will.
posted by nubs at 11:11 AM on January 13, 2022 [16 favorites]
I was, and still am I guess, a fan of Homicide & The Wire. I think the most effective scene that Homicide ever did was this one - which describes the stupidity of talking with or cooperating with a homicide detective once they have you in a room. And both shows do have moments where there is reflection on how they can and do abuse the system to get a solution, whether it is just or not. But no police drama, past or present, has found the footing to address the systemic issues that are now so glaring and probably never will.
posted by nubs at 11:11 AM on January 13, 2022 [16 favorites]
Why didn’t they pursue the real killers?
Having seen The Wire my guess is they (1) don't give a crap about justice and (2) do give a crap about case closure rates.
posted by axiom at 11:13 AM on January 13, 2022 [12 favorites]
Having seen The Wire my guess is they (1) don't give a crap about justice and (2) do give a crap about case closure rates.
posted by axiom at 11:13 AM on January 13, 2022 [12 favorites]
I've only sampled Homicide, haven't read Simon's book, but I did watch all of The Wire, and it by no means glorifies cops in general; the last season, in particular, is infamous for its portrayal of evidence tampering. In fairness, the article does make note of the limits of what Simon probably saw:
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:21 AM on January 13, 2022 [19 favorites]
“Overall, following those detectives on other cases from January 1988 to December 1988, I did not see police work in which evidence was purposely mishandled or in which exculpatory evidence was purposely ignored or obscured,” Simon wrote in an email to New York. “That may be because as a civilian, I didn’t recognize such moments, or because my presence during casework made such behavior prohibitive. I can’t say.”[emphasis mine]
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:21 AM on January 13, 2022 [19 favorites]
Simon's got a new series about Baltimore cops in the works. It sounds like it centres on their corruption.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:24 AM on January 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Paul Slade at 11:24 AM on January 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
Thinking about it again, in some cases they had already forced a false identification out of a witness, such as the 12(?) year old who said initially that he didn’t see who did the shooting, and then later other eyewitnesses identified the real shooter, so if they had gone after the real killer, the case against the real killer would have been harder because of the false evidence generated by the detectives themselves. This really goes beyond incompetence into active malignancy.
posted by jamjam at 11:25 AM on January 13, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by jamjam at 11:25 AM on January 13, 2022 [9 favorites]
The Wire, and it by no means glorifies cops in general
The saying "there's never been an anti-war film" means that even putatively anti-war films still depend upon invoking the same basic emotions as other war films, which is the fundamental payoff of watching them and undercuts any higher level message the script might contain. I think cop shows are the same, even The Wire, because it invokes the same emotional responses as other copaganda shows, and takes place within the same framework of crime and violence being done, justice being sought, process working or not... the depiction of bad policing depends upon the basic premise of good policing being necessary and desirable.
The Wire is, in its way, insidious: the corruption of the system provides excuses for moral compromise, for procedural evasions, for writing off minor infractions with good intentions. It makes anyone not actively evil on the show into an acceptable tragicomic figure just trying to stay morally afloat. As a viewer, you're compromised before you ever get to the show's message.
posted by fatbird at 11:36 AM on January 13, 2022 [15 favorites]
The saying "there's never been an anti-war film" means that even putatively anti-war films still depend upon invoking the same basic emotions as other war films, which is the fundamental payoff of watching them and undercuts any higher level message the script might contain. I think cop shows are the same, even The Wire, because it invokes the same emotional responses as other copaganda shows, and takes place within the same framework of crime and violence being done, justice being sought, process working or not... the depiction of bad policing depends upon the basic premise of good policing being necessary and desirable.
The Wire is, in its way, insidious: the corruption of the system provides excuses for moral compromise, for procedural evasions, for writing off minor infractions with good intentions. It makes anyone not actively evil on the show into an acceptable tragicomic figure just trying to stay morally afloat. As a viewer, you're compromised before you ever get to the show's message.
posted by fatbird at 11:36 AM on January 13, 2022 [15 favorites]
As fine a show as "Homicide" was, it was copaganda...
I'm not sure I agree - granted I haven't seen it in ... 25 years(?) or so, but I never thought it was copaganda - they were all fucked up people struggling to reconcile their jobs with their sense of right and wrong... or not struggling (I do seem to remember there was lots of short-cuts / lots of dubious (morally and legally) behaviour depicted and neither condoned nor glorified.)
Reading the article, the writer makes a leap that doesn't really hold up: Simon drew on the Detectives as characters for a drama, not as paragons of Police-work. At least, I never saw these characters as anything but compromised.
I think I hated this aspect of the article. It should have just been about how fucking corrupt the BPD were/are - but I get that the tie-in to Simon probably makes sense in a get-eyes-on-this kinda way. (Adnan Sayed also is a victim (likely) of the BPD's malfeasance.)
posted by From Bklyn at 11:41 AM on January 13, 2022 [10 favorites]
I'm not sure I agree - granted I haven't seen it in ... 25 years(?) or so, but I never thought it was copaganda - they were all fucked up people struggling to reconcile their jobs with their sense of right and wrong... or not struggling (I do seem to remember there was lots of short-cuts / lots of dubious (morally and legally) behaviour depicted and neither condoned nor glorified.)
Reading the article, the writer makes a leap that doesn't really hold up: Simon drew on the Detectives as characters for a drama, not as paragons of Police-work. At least, I never saw these characters as anything but compromised.
I think I hated this aspect of the article. It should have just been about how fucking corrupt the BPD were/are - but I get that the tie-in to Simon probably makes sense in a get-eyes-on-this kinda way. (Adnan Sayed also is a victim (likely) of the BPD's malfeasance.)
posted by From Bklyn at 11:41 AM on January 13, 2022 [10 favorites]
Shows like Homicide and The Wire humanize the agents of state violence, and I think that's morally reprehensible.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:47 AM on January 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:47 AM on January 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
I got about halfway through Simon's book Homicide. Simon is a great writer. But I just couldn't stick with the dour and broken view of humanity that the detectives end up with because of their careers.
I tried to see what empathy I could have by watching Jim Can't Swim and other interrogation videos. I had to stop because I couldn't even imagine what life is like doing that day in day out.
Simon wrote about it a bit:
In an email, Simon wrote that he would now reconsider his skepticism about the likelihood of wrongful convictions: “I minimized the chance of an investigative or prosecutorial error — never mind purposed misconduct — making it all the way to a jury and conviction; that chance is more substantial than I once believed.”
— never mind purposed misconduct — is a beeg never mind.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 11:59 AM on January 13, 2022
I tried to see what empathy I could have by watching Jim Can't Swim and other interrogation videos. I had to stop because I couldn't even imagine what life is like doing that day in day out.
Simon wrote about it a bit:
In an email, Simon wrote that he would now reconsider his skepticism about the likelihood of wrongful convictions: “I minimized the chance of an investigative or prosecutorial error — never mind purposed misconduct — making it all the way to a jury and conviction; that chance is more substantial than I once believed.”
— never mind purposed misconduct — is a beeg never mind.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 11:59 AM on January 13, 2022
Read through the article. Found the quote of actual Landsmen disturbing, where he says he never had a bad day on the job during his time at BPD, in light of how he's described strongarming witnesses, etc.
But when watching "The Wire," guess I never felt anyone on the show was at all admirable, but could see people glorifying individuals on both sides due to swagger/ influence/ power/ getting results. Sometimes I'll read through YouTube comments who speak about some of the kingpins with great respect due to the power they wielded and the fear they inspired.
Just stating that as the flipside to the portrayals in The Wire. Not only do some cops get glorified, but so do some of the drug dealers who are destroying their entire communities just to get a chance to wear the crown.
Even Nick Sobotka is sometimes viewed upon as "capable" and therefore a "worthy player" of The Game, as opposed to Ziggy being often sneered upon for being annoying (while once in a while you'll read someone's take that he's a boy seeking his father's affection, as the root cause of him acting out like a man child – which isn't pleasant to watch but feels honest).
I don't take The Wire as gospel truth, per se, but for me it revealed an inner selfishness in all the cops, who ultimately do it to be right, get paid + promoted, project their aggression, and try to go after vainglory for their own personal itches. Very little about their motives seemed to be about justice, service, protecting people, etc.
The article was tough to read but well written, though. Did make me want to see David Simon tackle these aspects of police corruption in a more pointed way, and glad to hear he may be doing just that soon enough.
posted by room9 at 12:04 PM on January 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
But when watching "The Wire," guess I never felt anyone on the show was at all admirable, but could see people glorifying individuals on both sides due to swagger/ influence/ power/ getting results. Sometimes I'll read through YouTube comments who speak about some of the kingpins with great respect due to the power they wielded and the fear they inspired.
Just stating that as the flipside to the portrayals in The Wire. Not only do some cops get glorified, but so do some of the drug dealers who are destroying their entire communities just to get a chance to wear the crown.
Even Nick Sobotka is sometimes viewed upon as "capable" and therefore a "worthy player" of The Game, as opposed to Ziggy being often sneered upon for being annoying (while once in a while you'll read someone's take that he's a boy seeking his father's affection, as the root cause of him acting out like a man child – which isn't pleasant to watch but feels honest).
I don't take The Wire as gospel truth, per se, but for me it revealed an inner selfishness in all the cops, who ultimately do it to be right, get paid + promoted, project their aggression, and try to go after vainglory for their own personal itches. Very little about their motives seemed to be about justice, service, protecting people, etc.
The article was tough to read but well written, though. Did make me want to see David Simon tackle these aspects of police corruption in a more pointed way, and glad to hear he may be doing just that soon enough.
posted by room9 at 12:04 PM on January 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
Honestly, the best "cop show" to radicalize me was The Shield - it starts out with the one "corrupt team" but goes on to show how the whole department is corrupt, and how the "corrupt team" is the concentrated result of that corruption.
It's not perfect, for sure, there are still cops held up as "the good ones", but it also shows an _awful lot_ of "the good ones" being turned into bastards as the show goes on.
posted by Imperfect at 12:17 PM on January 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
It's not perfect, for sure, there are still cops held up as "the good ones", but it also shows an _awful lot_ of "the good ones" being turned into bastards as the show goes on.
posted by Imperfect at 12:17 PM on January 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
Very little about their motives seemed to be about justice, service, protecting people, etc.
The Wire's school season was something of an exception to this. There were three separate plotlines showing Carver, Prez and Colvin each trying to help a kid find a decent life rather than being trapped on the streets. Two out of three of them failed because of the broken system around them, but their motives were good.
I think that's the real theme of The Wire really: just how broken the system is. The five seasons together pursued this theme not just through cops and corner boys, but also through the school system, city politics and the global economy.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:31 PM on January 13, 2022 [12 favorites]
The Wire's school season was something of an exception to this. There were three separate plotlines showing Carver, Prez and Colvin each trying to help a kid find a decent life rather than being trapped on the streets. Two out of three of them failed because of the broken system around them, but their motives were good.
I think that's the real theme of The Wire really: just how broken the system is. The five seasons together pursued this theme not just through cops and corner boys, but also through the school system, city politics and the global economy.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:31 PM on January 13, 2022 [12 favorites]
Shows like Homicide and The Wire humanize the agents of state violence, and I think that's morally reprehensible.
OK but like...you know that they are, actually, like...humans, right? Shitty, corrupt humans but also actually humans.
I feel like this comment is going to go badly but I'm also pretty committed to not excising entire categories out of humanity really for any reason.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:19 PM on January 13, 2022 [32 favorites]
OK but like...you know that they are, actually, like...humans, right? Shitty, corrupt humans but also actually humans.
I feel like this comment is going to go badly but I'm also pretty committed to not excising entire categories out of humanity really for any reason.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:19 PM on January 13, 2022 [32 favorites]
I loved Homicide LoTS mostly because I could watch Andre Braugher in the box for hours, he seems like a giant talent that still needs to find his place (not on 1/2 hour comedies)
I do have a question - so John Munch somehow transitioned from Homicide to SVU .... but when Andre Braugher showed up there he was a different character ... how does that even work? either Homicide and SVU are in the same reality or they're not
posted by mbo at 1:41 PM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
I do have a question - so John Munch somehow transitioned from Homicide to SVU .... but when Andre Braugher showed up there he was a different character ... how does that even work? either Homicide and SVU are in the same reality or they're not
posted by mbo at 1:41 PM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
"All cops are bastards" doesn't mean that only bastards sign up to become cops, or that literally every cop operates with evil intent. What we mean is that the system of policing is so broken, so corrupt, that any individual cop's intent doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what's in their heart; the system can only make bastards. If Ghandi become a cop, he'd be a bastard.
This is entirely consistent with the message of The Wire (by my reading at least). I can't recall a single cop in that show who doesn't commit at least one morally reprehensible action. Humanizing them is the whole point. We see they aren't mustache-twilling villains, but real people with often genuinely good intent, and it doesn't fucking matter because the system is totally broken.
posted by dorothy hawk at 1:45 PM on January 13, 2022 [59 favorites]
This is entirely consistent with the message of The Wire (by my reading at least). I can't recall a single cop in that show who doesn't commit at least one morally reprehensible action. Humanizing them is the whole point. We see they aren't mustache-twilling villains, but real people with often genuinely good intent, and it doesn't fucking matter because the system is totally broken.
posted by dorothy hawk at 1:45 PM on January 13, 2022 [59 favorites]
Next you'll be telling me LAPD detectives are nothing like Bill Gannon and Joe Friday.
posted by 2N2222 at 1:46 PM on January 13, 2022
posted by 2N2222 at 1:46 PM on January 13, 2022
OK but like...you know that they are, actually, like...humans, right? Shitty, corrupt humans but also actually humans.
But that's obviously not how they want us to think of them; otherwise they wouldn't wear uniforms that mark them as fungible group members. And they definitely wouldn't wear face-concealing "protective" garb, or hide their badge numbers when confronted with a recording device, or defend their colleagues who violate standards of civil behavior. No, media that presents police agents as individuals with thoughts and feelings is too dangerous to be viewed by suggestible audiences, such as Americans or other humans.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:53 PM on January 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
But that's obviously not how they want us to think of them; otherwise they wouldn't wear uniforms that mark them as fungible group members. And they definitely wouldn't wear face-concealing "protective" garb, or hide their badge numbers when confronted with a recording device, or defend their colleagues who violate standards of civil behavior. No, media that presents police agents as individuals with thoughts and feelings is too dangerous to be viewed by suggestible audiences, such as Americans or other humans.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:53 PM on January 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
The Wire is, in its way, insidious: the corruption of the system provides excuses for moral compromise, for procedural evasions, for writing off minor infractions with good intentions. It makes anyone not actively evil on the show into an acceptable tragicomic figure just trying to stay morally afloat. As a viewer, you're compromised before you ever get to the show's message.
I think the entire capital-P Point of The Wire was that everybody's already compromised, all the time, forever. We're born into the systems in which we're born. We can do our best to be our best within these systems, but nobody gets to go through life without having to compromise. I don't care for copaganda, but I'm not sure how much better you could do at showing that this isn't as simple as "cops like to beat on people."
posted by nushustu at 2:02 PM on January 13, 2022 [8 favorites]
I think the entire capital-P Point of The Wire was that everybody's already compromised, all the time, forever. We're born into the systems in which we're born. We can do our best to be our best within these systems, but nobody gets to go through life without having to compromise. I don't care for copaganda, but I'm not sure how much better you could do at showing that this isn't as simple as "cops like to beat on people."
posted by nushustu at 2:02 PM on January 13, 2022 [8 favorites]
And to add on to my last statement, The Wire even covers the whole idea that cops like beat on people, and they don't make it okay.
posted by nushustu at 2:03 PM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by nushustu at 2:03 PM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
No, media that presents police agents as individuals with thoughts and feelings is too dangerous to be viewed by suggestible audiences, such as Americans or other humans.
Oooookay well, this is definitely not a conversation I want any more of, because even though I'm pretty sure everyone is operating in good faith and even though I actually haven't been able to enjoy any of that kind of media for a super long time, I just can't hang with like, literally any part of that sentence.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:03 PM on January 13, 2022 [22 favorites]
Oooookay well, this is definitely not a conversation I want any more of, because even though I'm pretty sure everyone is operating in good faith and even though I actually haven't been able to enjoy any of that kind of media for a super long time, I just can't hang with like, literally any part of that sentence.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:03 PM on January 13, 2022 [22 favorites]
"so John Munch somehow transitioned from Homicide to SVU .... but when Andre Braugher showed up there he was a different character ... how does that even work? either Homicide and SVU are in the same reality or they're not"
There's no such thing as continuity - there never was. The people you see on television are only actors.
posted by Billiken at 2:45 PM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
There's no such thing as continuity - there never was. The people you see on television are only actors.
posted by Billiken at 2:45 PM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
The people you see on television are only actors.
The deuce you say!
posted by The Tensor at 2:53 PM on January 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
The deuce you say!
posted by The Tensor at 2:53 PM on January 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
The people you see on television are only actors
That's the sort of conspiracy nutjob thinking that John Munch would be repeating ....
posted by mbo at 3:02 PM on January 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
That's the sort of conspiracy nutjob thinking that John Munch would be repeating ....
posted by mbo at 3:02 PM on January 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
I only got through one season of The Wire before I bailed and I quit mostly because I felt like it was way too biased towards the police.
posted by octothorpe at 3:04 PM on January 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 3:04 PM on January 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
No, media that presents police agents as individuals with thoughts and feelings is too dangerous to be viewed by suggestible audiences, such as Americans or other humans.
Yikes.....
posted by Pendragon at 3:27 PM on January 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
Yikes.....
posted by Pendragon at 3:27 PM on January 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
but when Andre Braugher showed up there he was a different character ... how does that even work?
If you watch enough shows in the Dick Wolf Fictional Universe, you'll quickly start to see character actors showing up to play multiple different roles over the years. Not coincidentally, a lot of those character actors also worked on The Wire.
posted by box at 3:35 PM on January 13, 2022
If you watch enough shows in the Dick Wolf Fictional Universe, you'll quickly start to see character actors showing up to play multiple different roles over the years. Not coincidentally, a lot of those character actors also worked on The Wire.
posted by box at 3:35 PM on January 13, 2022
Literally the first episode of Homicide had Andre Braugher explaining at length how he coerced a confession out of a suspect.
posted by transient at 3:52 PM on January 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by transient at 3:52 PM on January 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
The Shield, imo, is the better (best?) cop show.
posted by booooooze at 4:16 PM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by booooooze at 4:16 PM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
I've only sampled Homicide, haven't read Simon's book, but I did watch all of The Wire, and it by no means glorifies cops in general; the last season, in particular, is infamous for its portrayal of evidence tampering.
That plotline can easily be read as a “dogged cop bends the rules to do what he knows is right” story, though, even though it blows up on him in the end. The Wire definitely has bits that fall into this pattern - depicting bureaucratic failings in a way that lionizes the individual officer rising above - or just a general “cop’s eye view.” I think the best defense of Simon et. al. on these points is that their ability to evoke empathy is certainly not limited to the police. Simon has also produced some good, humanizing writing about people on the other side of the law, even people who did some pretty bad things.
posted by atoxyl at 4:25 PM on January 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
That plotline can easily be read as a “dogged cop bends the rules to do what he knows is right” story, though, even though it blows up on him in the end. The Wire definitely has bits that fall into this pattern - depicting bureaucratic failings in a way that lionizes the individual officer rising above - or just a general “cop’s eye view.” I think the best defense of Simon et. al. on these points is that their ability to evoke empathy is certainly not limited to the police. Simon has also produced some good, humanizing writing about people on the other side of the law, even people who did some pretty bad things.
posted by atoxyl at 4:25 PM on January 13, 2022 [3 favorites]
But I think he undoubtedly burnished the reputation of some BPD detectives who didn’t deserve it.
posted by atoxyl at 4:31 PM on January 13, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 4:31 PM on January 13, 2022 [5 favorites]
On humanising the agents of State violence—this is also the principle acting, as others have mentioned, in every film or piece of literature involving war or soldiers, even putatively anti-war ones which fail to escape glorifying war (the saying is usually attributed to François Truffaut). War films inevitably show things like comradeship and belonging, travel and adventure, and tend to show battles/conflict as climactic in the narrative, because that's also the way war memory works—in a similar way, shows about police and crime inevitably have to depict, well, police investigating crimes. I don't think Truffaut was quite right, for the reasons becoming obvious here: it's far too simplistic and totalising to skip from literature-about-a-subject to literature-centering-a-subject, and lets producers of genuine pro-war propaganda off the hook. Every character in All Quiet On The Western Front, for example, is a killer, and a uniformed agent of the State in its most violent possible incarnation. But they're still humans; they're rightly presented with thoughts and feelings, and the force of the moral compromises they have to make to survive their situation, and that's the whole tragedy of it.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:55 PM on January 13, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:55 PM on January 13, 2022 [8 favorites]
I've only sampled Homicide, haven't read Simon's book...
I read it, even finished it. It made me even like the show. As for the pearl clutching, it's not like they are throwing meat to cows, considering all the murdering by shooting, stabbing and beating provided across the media spectrum every day.
Wish as I might, it can't all be All Creatures Great and Small and That 70s Show re-runs forever.
Not to exclude unguilty pleasures Before We Die, Endeavor through Vera and Wallander, to name but a few. I, myself, am sanguine in regards to blood tastefully spilt on TV and obviously in great company.
No, not meat to cows. Werewolves.
posted by y2karl at 7:09 PM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
I read it, even finished it. It made me even like the show. As for the pearl clutching, it's not like they are throwing meat to cows, considering all the murdering by shooting, stabbing and beating provided across the media spectrum every day.
Wish as I might, it can't all be All Creatures Great and Small and That 70s Show re-runs forever.
Not to exclude unguilty pleasures Before We Die, Endeavor through Vera and Wallander, to name but a few. I, myself, am sanguine in regards to blood tastefully spilt on TV and obviously in great company.
No, not meat to cows. Werewolves.
posted by y2karl at 7:09 PM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
For Reasons, I re-read the book and watched the entire run of H:LoTS in the summer of 2020. (I had watched Seasons 1-5 when they first ran, and rage-quit after they fired Melissa Leo. Having now seen Seasons 6-7, that was a smart move).
There's some really outstanding stuff where you get to witness the intense pressure of interrogation (and the likelihood of generating false confessions) in a very visceral way. That said, I still felt that the show glamorized policing and glossed over some serious issues, especially when you compare plotlines to the real stories that they were based on. One of the standout episodes of the show involves a police officer shooting a suspect in the back. On the show, the clever detectives figure out how to make a case against the bad cop and arrest him in the end. In the real life case that it was based on, the officer wasn't even indicted by a grand jury. So the show sort of gestures at the possibility of police misconduct, but assures the viewers that bad cops will be caught and punished.
Similarly, the Ransom Watkins "how do you sleep at night" dialogue with the detective made it into the show. But the show puts those words into the mouth of a character who (unlike Watkins) was previously shown to be clearly guilty of the crime that put him in jail (he videotaped himself committing the crime). So the TV version shows an unrepentant murderer giving a cop a hard time for no reason, and in real life, it was an innocent kid who was expressing a legitimate grievance against a cop who framed him.
And yeah, googling the names of various detectives from the book + lawsuit was pretty eye-opening.
posted by creepygirl at 7:52 PM on January 13, 2022 [8 favorites]
There's some really outstanding stuff where you get to witness the intense pressure of interrogation (and the likelihood of generating false confessions) in a very visceral way. That said, I still felt that the show glamorized policing and glossed over some serious issues, especially when you compare plotlines to the real stories that they were based on. One of the standout episodes of the show involves a police officer shooting a suspect in the back. On the show, the clever detectives figure out how to make a case against the bad cop and arrest him in the end. In the real life case that it was based on, the officer wasn't even indicted by a grand jury. So the show sort of gestures at the possibility of police misconduct, but assures the viewers that bad cops will be caught and punished.
Similarly, the Ransom Watkins "how do you sleep at night" dialogue with the detective made it into the show. But the show puts those words into the mouth of a character who (unlike Watkins) was previously shown to be clearly guilty of the crime that put him in jail (he videotaped himself committing the crime). So the TV version shows an unrepentant murderer giving a cop a hard time for no reason, and in real life, it was an innocent kid who was expressing a legitimate grievance against a cop who framed him.
And yeah, googling the names of various detectives from the book + lawsuit was pretty eye-opening.
posted by creepygirl at 7:52 PM on January 13, 2022 [8 favorites]
Shows like Homicide and The Wire humanize the agents of state violence, and I think that's morally reprehensible.
Most police procedurals are copaganda. But if your writing doesn't humanize everyone, it's also propaganda. And also boring to write for the writer.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 9:07 PM on January 13, 2022 [8 favorites]
Most police procedurals are copaganda. But if your writing doesn't humanize everyone, it's also propaganda. And also boring to write for the writer.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 9:07 PM on January 13, 2022 [8 favorites]
The reason (parts of) The Wire can be taken as copaganda is that it has a fairly conventional police story at its core (with a lot of other stuff built around it) not that it dares to humanize the police. It tells it with “gritty realism” but not on a level that calls the honor and good intentions (of our core good cops) into question. We see several of the most respectable officers roughing up a suspect in the interrogation room and it’s shocking but it’s only after he says a bunch of horrible shit to the queer woman officer so we know it’s also provoked. We see other officers who are worse but we know they’re the bad ones. If I remember correctly McNulty almost makes an innocent man a murder suspect when he’s off the deep end with his faux serial killer plot, but he steps in to protect the guy.
posted by atoxyl at 10:07 PM on January 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 10:07 PM on January 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
there's never been an anti-war film
Come And See.
posted by lock robster at 10:15 PM on January 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
Come And See.
posted by lock robster at 10:15 PM on January 13, 2022 [4 favorites]
fairly conventional police story at its core
... without which, as Simon himself has said, it would have been impossible to get the show bought and financed.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:34 PM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
... without which, as Simon himself has said, it would have been impossible to get the show bought and financed.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:34 PM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
Saying the Wire is a cop show and nothing but, it kind of staggers the imagination. Either you haven't watched it, or you didn't pay attention when you did. There are characters who are cops. Not a single one of them is even close to a good human being, even if they have character arcs that shift them subtly on the meter between "good" and "bad."
The show (as has been written about exhaustively) is about the utterly broken system of a major city (representing all major cities, in a larger view) and how that system ruins anyone and everyone caught in its gears. It starts as a cop drama, but there are other seasons, and while the cops are still there, as well as the drug dealers they were chasing, it moves on to the other ways the system has collapsed.
The Wire does not glorify anything or anyone (except the noble reporter guy at the end, because Simon couldn't not insert himself and his battles into it, making it the weakest story arc).
Just because a show has cops in it does not make it copaganda, anymore than two characters kissing makes a show a romance.
posted by Ghidorah at 12:35 AM on January 14, 2022 [6 favorites]
The show (as has been written about exhaustively) is about the utterly broken system of a major city (representing all major cities, in a larger view) and how that system ruins anyone and everyone caught in its gears. It starts as a cop drama, but there are other seasons, and while the cops are still there, as well as the drug dealers they were chasing, it moves on to the other ways the system has collapsed.
The Wire does not glorify anything or anyone (except the noble reporter guy at the end, because Simon couldn't not insert himself and his battles into it, making it the weakest story arc).
Just because a show has cops in it does not make it copaganda, anymore than two characters kissing makes a show a romance.
posted by Ghidorah at 12:35 AM on January 14, 2022 [6 favorites]
Saying the Wire is a cop show and nothing but
Who said that?
posted by atoxyl at 3:39 AM on January 14, 2022
Who said that?
posted by atoxyl at 3:39 AM on January 14, 2022
Who said that?
Half the thread so far? Both the Wire and Homicide are being called blatant copaganda that humanize the agents of state sponsored violence, or are you reading a different thread?
posted by Ghidorah at 4:03 AM on January 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
Half the thread so far? Both the Wire and Homicide are being called blatant copaganda that humanize the agents of state sponsored violence, or are you reading a different thread?
posted by Ghidorah at 4:03 AM on January 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
Well maybe I was taking that as personally targeted because I’m one of the people who used that term but I think a lot of the comments I saw using the term were like mine, discussing the specific areas in which the The Wire (which I’ve seen like four times through) falls into more standard cop show patterns, not claiming that this is all it is. Or they’re talking about Homicide, which I haven’t seen, so won’t comment.
The “humanizing agents of state violence” take is a silly take on art, but it’s also not actually claiming that the show doesn’t have depth or nuance - it’s claiming that it’s irresponsible to present certain kinds of depth and nuance when certain real-life issues are at stake. Which is why I think it’s a dubious take on art.
posted by atoxyl at 7:59 AM on January 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
The “humanizing agents of state violence” take is a silly take on art, but it’s also not actually claiming that the show doesn’t have depth or nuance - it’s claiming that it’s irresponsible to present certain kinds of depth and nuance when certain real-life issues are at stake. Which is why I think it’s a dubious take on art.
posted by atoxyl at 7:59 AM on January 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
David Simon is one of the best and worst things ever to happen to Baltimore.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:44 AM on January 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:44 AM on January 14, 2022 [1 favorite]
The reflexive defensiveness toward criticism of entertainment that centers the feelings and humanity of primarily white cops at the expense of primarily black and brown victims of state violence is exactly why people keep saying that all cop shows are copaganda.
As a black man who is affected by these things I am constantly amazed at the ability of white people to completely center the narrative on how they feel about it, how they think things would be fair. Y'all just don't get it . . .
posted by anansi at 11:12 AM on January 14, 2022 [11 favorites]
As a black man who is affected by these things I am constantly amazed at the ability of white people to completely center the narrative on how they feel about it, how they think things would be fair. Y'all just don't get it . . .
posted by anansi at 11:12 AM on January 14, 2022 [11 favorites]
I think you can say that The Wire was a groundbreaking attempt to depict systemic dysfunction in America, was staggeringly ahead of its time in its attempt to humanize people caught up in the drug trade, and is a flawed and somewhat dated byproduct of early 00s television that overlooks or overgeneralizes a lot of things involving cops and/or race.
At the time, the way it depicted capitalism, corruption, and interlocking spheres of power that were each broken to the point of near-stasis was nearly unpredecented, and brought a level of sophistication and a commitment to saying something important to a medium that hadn't really come close before. It more-or-less equates cops to violent criminals from the start, directly paralleling its two "sides" in the one season where it was genuinely only "about cops", and it humanizes the people the cops are after in ways that afford them the right to be contradictory and complicated.
It also definitively maintains the perspective, however, that cops are "trying to do something good" and that the various criminal trades are fundamentally "doing something bad", codes its protagonists as protagonists and its antagonists as antagonists, etc. It does try to suggest that whatever good impulses cops have are inevitably thwarted and ground to dust by the system they exist in, and it depicts even those "good cops" as less-than-good—there's the iconic black-comedy scene where a bunch of cops start wailing on a kid, and the Black lesbian officer who's been our unequivocally "just" character runs over; for a moment, you think she's trying to stop her coworkers, but nope, she jumps right in—but pretty much every season revolves around a Bad Guy who the cops are trying to stop, and if they fail to stop the Bad Guy then goodhearted people wind up dead, and that's a narrative framework's hard to get around.
At its best, it was (and is) astonishing, but you can acknowledge that and hope that a similar show made in 2022 would be considerably more intelligent and evolved on certain matters. It's a good thing, IMO, that we've made enough cultural progress in twenty years that a masterpiece back then now has pretty visible flaws. And I think that critiquing something like that ought to be seen as a part of showing enthusiasm for it, rather than as oppositional.
Also, David Simon is extremely annoying on Twitter. I wish that affected my memories of The Wire less than it does.
posted by rorgy at 12:14 PM on January 14, 2022 [8 favorites]
At the time, the way it depicted capitalism, corruption, and interlocking spheres of power that were each broken to the point of near-stasis was nearly unpredecented, and brought a level of sophistication and a commitment to saying something important to a medium that hadn't really come close before. It more-or-less equates cops to violent criminals from the start, directly paralleling its two "sides" in the one season where it was genuinely only "about cops", and it humanizes the people the cops are after in ways that afford them the right to be contradictory and complicated.
It also definitively maintains the perspective, however, that cops are "trying to do something good" and that the various criminal trades are fundamentally "doing something bad", codes its protagonists as protagonists and its antagonists as antagonists, etc. It does try to suggest that whatever good impulses cops have are inevitably thwarted and ground to dust by the system they exist in, and it depicts even those "good cops" as less-than-good—there's the iconic black-comedy scene where a bunch of cops start wailing on a kid, and the Black lesbian officer who's been our unequivocally "just" character runs over; for a moment, you think she's trying to stop her coworkers, but nope, she jumps right in—but pretty much every season revolves around a Bad Guy who the cops are trying to stop, and if they fail to stop the Bad Guy then goodhearted people wind up dead, and that's a narrative framework's hard to get around.
At its best, it was (and is) astonishing, but you can acknowledge that and hope that a similar show made in 2022 would be considerably more intelligent and evolved on certain matters. It's a good thing, IMO, that we've made enough cultural progress in twenty years that a masterpiece back then now has pretty visible flaws. And I think that critiquing something like that ought to be seen as a part of showing enthusiasm for it, rather than as oppositional.
Also, David Simon is extremely annoying on Twitter. I wish that affected my memories of The Wire less than it does.
posted by rorgy at 12:14 PM on January 14, 2022 [8 favorites]
As a black man who is affected by these things I am constantly amazed at the ability of white people to completely center the narrative on how they feel about it, how they think things would be fair. Y'all just don't get it . . .
^^^^^^^^^
Yup. This is a post about real people whose real lives were ruined. But plenty of people want to "pearl clutch" and "can't hang" because of criticism of a television show which I guess was already "written about exhaustively" so the rest of us should just sit down and shut up and let the grownups talk about what's really important: how perfect The Wire is.
I don't even know how to begin to talk about the above, except to say that if you google "the wire cast" 28 out of the 39 actors listed are black. And of the white people, only six of them have significant roles outside of the second season.
Criticism of The Wire is fine, but honestly this reads like someone who definitely didn't do the reading before coming to class and still insisting on giving their opinion. Don't mix your very, very valid feelings about the real world with a (I'm just going to say it) wrong opinion about a work of art and expect it to be accepted. Your argument is harder to accept when you do that.
posted by nushustu at 3:18 PM on January 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
^^^^^^^^^
Yup. This is a post about real people whose real lives were ruined. But plenty of people want to "pearl clutch" and "can't hang" because of criticism of a television show which I guess was already "written about exhaustively" so the rest of us should just sit down and shut up and let the grownups talk about what's really important: how perfect The Wire is.
I don't even know how to begin to talk about the above, except to say that if you google "the wire cast" 28 out of the 39 actors listed are black. And of the white people, only six of them have significant roles outside of the second season.
Criticism of The Wire is fine, but honestly this reads like someone who definitely didn't do the reading before coming to class and still insisting on giving their opinion. Don't mix your very, very valid feelings about the real world with a (I'm just going to say it) wrong opinion about a work of art and expect it to be accepted. Your argument is harder to accept when you do that.
posted by nushustu at 3:18 PM on January 14, 2022 [2 favorites]
Don't mix your very, very valid feelings about the real world
The post was about the real world, not the TV show.
posted by mollweide at 4:12 PM on January 14, 2022 [8 favorites]
The post was about the real world, not the TV show.
posted by mollweide at 4:12 PM on January 14, 2022 [8 favorites]
Don't mix your very, very valid feelings about the real world with a (I'm just going to say it) wrong opinion about a work of art and expect it to be accepted.
As the first person to mention pearl clutching -- which was made in regard to people moaning about violence on TV -- which I admit was off topic, I offered no opinion on said book or TV series other than saying how much I liked them.
Also off topic -- but of interest to me -- was my recent discovery that Yaphet Kotto was born and raised a Jew.
posted by y2karl at 4:30 PM on January 14, 2022
As the first person to mention pearl clutching -- which was made in regard to people moaning about violence on TV -- which I admit was off topic, I offered no opinion on said book or TV series other than saying how much I liked them.
Also off topic -- but of interest to me -- was my recent discovery that Yaphet Kotto was born and raised a Jew.
posted by y2karl at 4:30 PM on January 14, 2022
At its best, it was (and is) astonishing, but you can acknowledge that and hope that a similar show made in 2022 would be considerably more intelligent and evolved on certain matters.
I'm not claiming it meets that vaunted criteria, but people that liked The Wire might also like ZeroZeroZero.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:53 PM on January 14, 2022
I'm not claiming it meets that vaunted criteria, but people that liked The Wire might also like ZeroZeroZero.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:53 PM on January 14, 2022
Goddamn it, do I have to return the complete Homicide DVD set I recently bought?
posted by kirkaracha at 6:55 PM on January 14, 2022
posted by kirkaracha at 6:55 PM on January 14, 2022
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As the liberal youngster I was, I don't regret watching Braugher, Kotto, Beatty, Leo, and so many others ignite or restart their careers. But knowing what I know now... would not rewatch.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 10:48 AM on January 13, 2022 [21 favorites]