"The Wire": The End

The best show on television ends its five-year run on Sunday evening. (Unlike the rest of this season's episodes, the finale is not available for download in advance.) Brian Cook, writing for In These Times, defends the show against the minority of critics who find it "bleak," "nihilistic," or "grim":

Taken as a whole, “The Wire” has made several arguments about the direction of American society over the last three decades. Among them: the “drug war” has not only been futile, but devastating to the black underclass; the government has essentially abandoned the working class in post-industrial America; the defunding of our public institutions has had disastrous consequences, most conspicuously for our education system; and when the demands of profit have become so all-consuming that notions like “the public good” are cast aside as quaint, something valuable is lost. 

Despite these themes, "The Wire" is "an absolute joy to watch," Cook says:

Its plotting is intricately structured, with themes and subthemes playing symphonically throughout the series. It also provides all the thrilling twists and turns of any great serial. Its characters are almost lovingly drawn: complex, sympathetic, flawed, human. The dialogue is not only painstakingly realistic, but often wildly funny. The performances—from an ensemble cast of more than 70 actors—are uniformly excellent. In this way, “The Wire” suggests an answer to the intractable social problems it details: If we approached those problems with the same care, attention to detail, passion, intelligence and love as its creators collectively bring to the show, the world would be a better place.

What really got my attention in Clark's story was his lead paragraph:

In a recent story in The Nation, Chris Hayes used 2,200-plus words to argue why progressives should back Sen. Barack Obama. I’ll use only seven: Obama’s favorite TV show is “The Wire.” It’s certainly true, as Hayes noted, that Obama, like every presidential candidate, won’t be saying one word about the prison-industrial complex or the disastrous consequences of the “war on drugs.” But it’s heartening to think that at least he’s tuning in to one of the few public forums that fiercely drags such issues into our consciousness.

And speaking of Obama and social context, here's a surprising endorsement from Marc Andreessen. The co-founder of Netscape and founder of Ning--and past donor to Republican Mitt Romney's campaign--spent an hour and a half with Obama in early 2007. He now writes:

Having met him and then having watched him for the last 12 months run one of the best-executed and cleanest major presidential campaigns in recent memory, I have no doubt that Senator Obama has the judgment, bearing, intellect, and high ethical standards to be an outstanding president -- completely aside from the movement that has formed around him, and in complete contradition to the silly assertions by both the Clinton and McCain campaigns that he's somehow not ready.

That ought to make the technosphere's Ron Paul fans sit up and take notice.

(Hat tip to John McGrath. Like John, I avoid writing about politics unless there's a language or branding angle. But, also like John, I found Marc Andreessen's post too interesting not to share.)

Comments

[Ranjit Mathoda]

You may find my discussion of Barack Obama and internet technologies like social networks of interest: http://mathoda.com/archives/189